Major Fusion Energy Breakthrough
Scientists at a federal nuclear weapons facility have made a potentially significant advance in fusion research that could lead to a source of bountiful energy in the future, according to a government official.
The advance is expected to be announced Tuesday by the Department of Energy, which said a “major scientific breakthrough” was made at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. Jennifer Granholm, the energy secretary, and White House and other Energy Department officials are expected to be in attendance. The Financial Times reported on Sunday that the scientific advance involves the National Ignition Facility, or NIF, which uses giant lasers to create conditions that briefly mimic the explosions of nuclear weapons.
The government official, who spoke anonymously to discuss results that are not yet public, said that the fusion experiment at NIF achieved what is known as ignition, where the fusion energy generated equals the laser energy that started the reaction. Ignition is also called energy gain of one.
A scientist familiar with the results who spoke anonymously for the same reason also confirmed that NIF has achieved ignition.
Such a development...could set the stage for future progress that could one day lead to the use of laser fusion as a source of carbon-free energy.
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Fusion is the thermonuclear reaction that powers the sun and other stars — the fusing of hydrogen atoms into helium. The mass of helium is slightly less than the original hydrogen atoms. Thus, by Einstein’s iconic E=mc² equation, that difference in mass is converted into a burst of energy.
Fusion that could be produced in a controlled fashion on Earth could mean an energy source that does not produce greenhouse gases like coal and oil, or dangerous, long-lived radioactive waste, as current nuclear power plants do.
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Does Tuesday’s announcement mean we’ll have cheap fusion energy soon?
No. ...immense engineering hurdles would remain.
