[FRIAM] Fwd: Researchers achieve milestone on path toward nuclear fusion energy -- Reuters, LLNL & Nature

Thu Jan 27 21:42:28 EST 2022

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Merle Lefkoff <merlelefkoff at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Jan 27, 2022 at 3:35 PM
Subject: Fwd: Researchers achieve milestone on path toward nuclear fusion
energy -- Reuters, LLNL & Nature

"If you want to make a camp fire, you want to get the fire to hot enough
that the wood can keep itself burning," said Alex Zylstra, an experimental
physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory .

"This is a good analogy for a burning plasma, where the fusion is now
starting to become self-sustaining," Zylstra said.

The scientists directed 192 laser beams toward a small target containing a
capsule less than a tenth of an inch (about 2 mm) in diameter filled with
fusion fuel consisting of a plasma of deuterium and tritium - two isotopes,
or forms, of hydrogen.

Researchers achieve milestone on path toward nuclear fusion energy

By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON, Jan 26 (Reuters) - U.S. government scientists said on Wednesday
they have taken an important step in the long trek toward making nuclear
fusion - the very process that powers stars - a viable energy source for
humankind.

Using the world's largest laser, the researchers coaxed fusion fuel for the
first time to heat itself beyond the heat they zapped into it, achieving a
phenomenon called a burning plasma that marked a stride toward
self-sustaining fusion energy.

The energy produced was modest - about the equivalent of nine nine-volt
batteries of the kind that power smoke detectors and other small devices.
But the experiments at a Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory facility in
California represented a milestone in the decades-long quest
<https://www.reuters.com/article/science-fusion/u-s-scientists-achieve-turning-point-in-fusion-energy-quest-idINDEEA1B0GC20140212>
to
harness fusion energy, even as the researchers cautioned that years of more
work are needed.

The experiments produced the self-heating of matter in a plasma state
through nuclear fusion, which is the combining of atomic nuclei to release
energy. Plasma is one of the various states of matter, alongside solid,
liquid and gas.

"If you want to make a camp fire, you want to get the fire to hot enough
that the wood can keep itself burning," said Alex Zylstra, an experimental
physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory - part of the U.S.
Energy Department - and lead author of the research published
<https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-021-01485-9> in the journal Nature.

"This is a good analogy for a burning plasma, where the fusion is now
starting to become self-sustaining," Zylstra said.

The scientists directed 192 laser beams toward a small target containing a
capsule less than a tenth of an inch (about 2 mm) in diameter filled with
fusion fuel consisting of a plasma of deuterium and tritium - two isotopes,
or forms, of hydrogen.

At very high temperatures, the nucleus of the deuterium and the nucleus of
the tritium fuse, a neutron and a positively charged particle called an
"alpha particle" - consisting of two protons and two neutrons - emerge, and
energy is released.

[image: The Target Bay of the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, U.S., is seen in an
undated handout image. NIF's 192 laser beams converge at the center of this
giant sphere to make a tiny hydrogen fuel pellet implode. Damien
Jemison/Handout via REUTERS]

1/3

The Target Chamber of the National Ignition Facility is seen at the
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, U.S., in
an undated handout image. A service system lift allows technicians to
access the Target Chamber's interior for inspection and maintenance.
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory/Handout via REUTERS

Read More

"Fusion requires that we get the fuel incredibly hot in order for it to
burn - like a regular fire, but for fusion we need about a hundred million
degrees (Fahrenheit). For decades we've been able to cause fusion reactions
to occur in experiments by putting a lot of heating into the fuel, but this
isn't good enough to produce net energy from fusion," Zylstra said.

"Now, for the first time, fusion reactions occurring in the fuel provided
most of the heating - so fusion is starting to dominate over the heating we
did. This is a new regime called a burning plasma," Zylstra said.

Unlike burning fossil fuels or the fission process of existing nuclear
power plants, fusion offers the prospect of abundant energy without
pollution, radioactive waste or greenhouse gases. Nuclear fission energy
comes from splitting atoms. Fusion energy comes from fusing atoms together,
just like inside stars, including our sun.

Private-sector ventures - dozens of companies
<https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-zero-carbon-fusion-energy-startup-helion-raises-500-mln-2021-11-05/#:~:text=Nov%205%20(Reuters)%20-%20Helion,the%20company%20at%20%243%20billion.&text=It%20creates%20enormous%20amounts%20of%20energy>
 and institutions
<https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/eni-completes-landmark-test-energy-fusion-project-2021-09-08/#:~:text=MILAN%2C%20Sept%208%20(Reuters),to%20generate%20carbon-free%20power>
-
also are pursuing a fusion energy future, with some oil companies
<https://www.reuters.com/article/us-chevron-investment-nuclear/oil-major-chevron-invests-in-nuclear-fusion-startup-zap-energy-idUSKCN25831E>
even
investing.

"Fusion energy is the holy grail of clean limitless energy," said Annie
Kritcher of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, lead designer for the
experiments conducted in 2020 and 2021 at the National Ignition Facility
and first author of a companion paper published in the journal Nature
Physics.

In these experiments, fusion produced about 10 times as much energy as went
into heating the fuel, but less than 10% of the total amount of laser
energy because the process remains inefficient, Zylstra said. The laser was
used for only about 10 billionths of a second in each experiment, with
fusion production lasting 100 trillionths of a second, Kritcher added.

Zylstra said he is encouraged by the progress.

"Making fusion a reality is an enormously complex technological challenge,
and it will require serious investment and innovation to make it practical
and economical," Zylstra said. "I view fusion as a decadal-scale challenge
for it to be a viable source of energy."

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-- 
Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
Center for Emergent Diplomacy
emergentdiplomacy.org
Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA

mobile:  (303) 859-5609
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