We May Have Generated Nuclear Energy, But We Likely Won't See It Commercialized in Our Lifetime

The US Department of Energy Announced the first net gain of fusion energy on record.

The results come from the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, a laser-based nuclear fusion machine. The researchers achieved 3.15 megajoules of energy from the 2.05 mJ they used to fire the laser.

Unlike fission energy, which is produced by splitting hydrogen atoms, fusion energy is released from fusing two atomic nuclei, creating an excess of neutrons and protons. The difference between the reactants and the products is released as energy, and this is the same process that produces the sun’s energy.

This type of energy can be achieved in two ways: through lasers or magnets. Magnetic nuclear fusion is produced by magnets called tokamaks.

The NIF is the size of a sports stadium and, in contrast to tokamaks, uses 192 lasers to heat the hydrogen in the center of the facility. The heat creates a contained plasma reaction that fuses the hydrogen nuclei.

Nuclear fusion also has the potential to create a carbon-zero energy source, which would potentially replace harmful fossil fuels.  

This discovery is 70 years in the making, and as significant as this net energy gain is, we’re probably not going to see fusion energy at a commercial scale any time soon. The energy produced from the NIF is only enough to boil about 2.5 gallons of water.

To scale this reaction up enough to make it usable, plasma physicists Tammy Ma explained that the lasers would need to fire faster. The NIF only fires every 4-8 hours, so a fusion plant would require lasers that fire ten times per second or more.

Essentially, it’s “a big deal if you’re a fusion scientist and not of practical relevance if you’re a grid operator,” author Eric Wesoff writes. 

Sources: CNN, Canary Media, TheVerge