NEW: U.S. scientists have achieved “ignition” — a fusion reaction that produced more energy than it took to create — a milestone for nuclear fusion and a step forward in the pursuit of a nearly limitless source of clean energy, Energy Dept officials say.
U.S. scientists have achieved “ignition” — a fusion reaction that produced more energy than it took to create — a critical milestone for nuclear fusion and a step forward in the pursuit of a nearly limitless source of clean energy, Energy Department officials said Tuesday.
To achieve ignition, scientists fired the energy of 192 lasers at a cylinder called a hohlraum. The process imploded a tiny capsule inside the hohlraum that is filled with deuterium and tritium, creating a fusion reaction."We have taken the first tentative steps toward a clean energy source," said Jill Hruby, the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration.
While the Livermore team achieved what researchers call a scientific break-even or energy gain, it did not achieve an engineering break-even: The inefficient lasers used in the experiment required about 300 megajoules of energy to fire just 2 megajoules of energy into the experiment. The reaction produced about 3 megajoules of energy.
The National Ignition Facility program is not designed to make energy for electricity; instead, it’s part of the “stockpile stewardship” program for U.S. nuclear weapons, which allows scientists to verify their reliability without detonation.“The NIF facility is doing world-leading research, but it was never designed to generate electricity; it's not a power plant,” said R. David Edelman, the chief policy and global affairs officer for TAE Technologies, a California-based fusion company.
Bodner said he’s always been cautious with predictions about nuclear fusion in the past, but became convinced in the last few years that a fusion program could succeed if the federal government shifted its focus from weaponry to energy production. “Hundreds of thousands to millions of years of fuel for all energy we need on earth is in seawater,” Carter said.
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