It was every alchemist’s dream: to turn something worthless into something valuable. From this point of view, the employees of the National Ignition Facility of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in the US are modern alchemists. Because they want to make a lot of energy from little energy.
And according to media reports, they seem to have succeeded in this magical piece. This research milestone came about less through magic and more through nuclear fusion. Not to mention: a century of failure and still going on.
Researchers at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) in California have made an important discovery in the field of nuclear fusion. For the first time, they have succeeded in generating more energy than they consume. This was announced by US Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm at a press conference on Tuesday.
In nuclear fusion, two atomic nuclei fuse to form a new nucleus. The chance that two atomic nuclei react with each other is usually only large enough if they collide with enormous energy.
If the mass of the new nucleus created during fusion is less than the sum of the masses of the original nuclei, the lost mass is released as energy. The famous formula of Albert Einstein – E0= mc2 – describes this principle, where E stands for the energy and m for the lost mass.
Nuclear fusion is essentially a common process in the universe and is responsible for radiating energy from stars that we perceive as glow and heat. Until now, however, it has not been possible to simulate this nuclear fusion under controlled conditions in such a way that the nuclear reaction releases more energy than was invested in the fusion of the nuclei.
The big vision behind the efforts of many nuclear fusion researchers: electricity production (or energy production) in so-called nuclear fusion reactors. Because nuclear fusion has the potential to provide clean and almost unlimited energy. Theoretically. Because fusion reactions don’t release carbon, don’t produce radioactive waste, and even small amounts can power a home for years.
The thesis was first put forward in the 1920s that stars release energy from a fusion of hydrogen and helium. The Briton Arthur S. Eddington described it this way in the publication “The Inner Structure of the Stars”.
In the following years, the first calculations were made about the nuclear fusion rate in stars.
Ernest Rutherford was the first to observe nuclear fusion in an experiment. He wrote that “an enormous effect” was produced in the process. Incidentally, Rutherford’s research was already elementary to the scientists before this observation, because it forms the basis of the atomic model that Niels Bohr developed in 1913 – and that we all still learn in school: a small nucleus surrounded by electrons.
Mark Oliphant, a student of Rutherfod, then succeeded for the first time in improving the fusion experiment and demonstrating a fusion process in the laboratory. The results of the experiment were published in 1934.
The desire to use nuclear fusion to develop weapons soon smoldered. As part of the arms race between the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc against the US and NATO, both blocs had fission-based nuclear bombs available to them from the 1940s.
And as early as 1952, in the context of the development of weapons, proof was provided that not only in the universe, but also on Earth, large amounts of energy can be released through nuclear fusion – more than with nuclear fission.
At that time, the Ivy Mike hydrogen bomb was detonated on Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. Hydrogen bombs are based on the principle of nuclear fusion. In hydrogen bombs, the energy released when a nuclear device explodes causes deuterium and tritium to fuse.
From the 1950s, the first fusion reactors were built independently on both sides of the Iron Curtain with the aim of allowing nuclear fusion to take place in a controlled manner. The so-called tokamak design of Andrei Sakharov and Igor Tamm of the Soviet Union eventually prevailed because it is more efficient than the reactors developed in the West.
In a tokamak, hydrogen is converted into plasma at a very high temperature by means of heating. Particles accordingly move at very high speed. The plasma is formed using superconducting magnetic coils. In this way, among other things, the particle density can be determined. From a certain temperature and particle density, a controlled, chain reaction-like nuclear fusion can then occur.
From the 1970s, the realization matured that the generation of fusion energy is only possible if scientists work together. So, in 1973, European countries came together and began to develop the Joint European Torus (JET). In 1983 a test facility was opened in Great Britain, where work is done according to the tokamak principle.
In 1991, JET succeeded in achieving the first controlled nuclear fusion in history. Since then it has been possible to carry out such a controlled nuclear fusion several times. However, more energy was used than was generated.
The LLNL researchers now report that they have made the scientific breakthrough: they have generated more energy than they consumed. However, the LLNL does not work with the tokamak principle, but with inertial fusion – just like that used in the hydrogen bomb.
A small hydrogen capsule is bombarded with very fast, superficial energy to heat up the plasma, deform and implode the hydrogen capsule. Laser energy is used for this at the LLNL. In this way, according to the Financial Times, the scientists would have merged two nuclei of hydrogen atoms.
The Science Media Center asked scientists Monday how to classify the report. Tony Roulstone of the University of Cambridge puts the result into perspective somewhat: it is true that the amount of energy directed at the hydrogen nuclei by the lasers is less than the energy released. “Proving that energy can be successfully released and harvested.” However, the energy required to operate the laser is not included in this result. Because: 500 megajoules of energy have been invested in the laser to get 2.5 megajoules out of it via nuclear fusion, explains Roulstone. The energy output is still only 0.5% of the input.
The LLNL experiment is therefore quite a scientific breakthrough because it proves that it is possible to generate even more energy using nuclear fusion energy. But until the production of clean energy, thanks to nuclear fusion, many more atomic nuclei will have to be cobbled together.
Source: Blick
I am Ross William, a passionate and experienced news writer with more than four years of experience in the writing industry. I have been working as an author for 24 Instant News Reporters covering the Trending section. With a keen eye for detail, I am able to find stories that capture people’s interest and help them stay informed.
