A record-breaking production of double the amount of energy released by fusion at the largest tokamak nuclear power facility in France, and the second highest energy release from fusion
To demonstrate that the type of fusion studied at NIF can be a viable way of producing energy, the efficiency of the yield — the energy released compared to the energy that goes into producing the laser pulses — needs to grow by at least two orders of magnitude.
That may not seem like much, but the experiment is still hugely significant because scientists demonstrated that they can create more energy than they started with. The hurdle is that this can’t be commercially viable until there are many more steps.
Whereas fusion fuses two or more atoms together, fission is the opposite; it is the process of splitting a larger atom into two or more smaller ones. Nuclear fission is the kind of energy that powers nuclear reactors around the world today. Like fusion, the heat created from splitting atoms is also used to generate energy.
I visited the largest tokamak project in southern France. It is a multinational effort being assembled from parts produced in many countries. It was first imagined in the 1980’s as a project that will produce fusion by the mid-2030s.
There are many hurdles that generations of fusion energy seekers have overcome. Scientists and engineers designed giant magnets to keep the heat out. Anything else would simply melt.
“Our experiment showed for the first time that it’s possible to have a sustained fusion process using exactly the same fuel mix planned for future fusion power plants,” Tony Donné, CEO of EUROfusion, said at a press conference.
The project was conducted in partnership with the UK Atomic Energy Authority, and was carried out by EUROfusion. The European Commission contributed money.
A set of 192 lasers was used by the facility to deliver 2.05 megajoules of energy onto a pea-sized gold cylinder. The pulse of energy caused the capsule to collapse, creating temperatures only seen in stars and thermo-nuclear weapons, and hydrogen isotope fusion resulted in additional energy and a cascade of fusion reactions. The energy that was released was more than five times greater than the previous record and double the previous record.
Although positive news, this result is a long way from the actual energy gain required for the production of electricity said Tony Roulstone in a statement to the Science Media Centre.
The ITER project in eopolitics: a case study of a time when France’s Saint-Paul-lez-Durance facility was declared an official site
The ITER has always had a role ingeopolitics. Just finding the right location for it took years and involved more than a decade of technical studies, political bargaining and diplomatic fine-tuning. In 2005, the official site of France’s Saint-Paul-lez- Durance was declared at a meeting in Moscow, and the agreement on construction was signed in Paris a year later.
However, it’s very hard to harness nuclear fusion. Without protection, the very high temperatures needed would damage the reactor in which the process takes place, so scientists use magnetic fields to contain the heated fuel. Magnetic fields protect the surrounding material. Unfortunately, the heated deuterium makes its own magnetic fields, which interfere with the force fields. The JET facility generated fusion in this way. This is likely to be the JET’s last event because it is likely to generate extreme heat and pressure. It is unlikely it will be used again.
And the world needs to sharply cut emissions soon. To limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above 19th-century levels, the stricter of two limits that came out of the 2015 Paris climate talks, emissions need to reach nearly zero by 2050.
The historic moment of 59 million joules of nuclear energy from a small hill in France: A landmark moment that nuclear fusion is possible to sustain on Earth
An energy output of 59 million joules is an impressive number, but to give it some context, this is only enough to power a typical American house for about half a day. Thus, while this recent accomplishment will not immediately result in a new power plant, it is still a welcome development for a world that is both hungry for energy and increasingly concerned about the dangers associated with traditional power generation.
There is a small hill in Provence where you can see two suns. One has been blazing for four-and-a-half billion years and is setting. The other is being built by thousands of human minds and hands, and is — far more slowly — rising. The last rays of the real sun cast a wonderful glow over the other, which could solve the biggest crisis in human history.
35 countries have come together to try and master nuclear fusion, a process that occurs naturally in the sun but is difficult to replicate on Earth.
Betti agrees that the timeline to building a fusion plant is “definitely decades”. But, he adds, that could change. “There’s always a possibility of breakthrough,” he says. The new results of the NIF could help spur that breakthrough. You are going to get more people to check out this type of fusion and find out if we can turn it into an energy-making system.
It was only enough to power one house for a day, and more energy went into the process than came out of it. Yet it was a truly historic moment. It proved that nuclear fusion was indeed possible to sustain on Earth.
When Did We Get What We Used To: The Bigot Thing About the ITER Tokamak and the Creation of the Universe
Bigot remained positive about the potential of ITER until his last breaths, despite one of the world’s biggest projects running behind time.
Before his death, Bigot shared his infectious optimism for fusion energy from his sunny office, which overlooked the shell of ITER’s own tokamak, a sci-fi like structure still under construction.
Not anymore. Not since the Industrial Revolution and the following population explosion. Fossil fuels do a lot of harm to the environment. He said that we were in the middle of a climate crisis and that there were 8 billion strong.
He said there was no alternative other than to remove ourselves from our main power source. “And the best option seems to be the one the universe has been utilizing for billions of years.”
The fuel particles are forced to form one by the high temperatures inside the tokamak. The process creates lighter-weight versions of the things they were made of.
Plasma needs to reach at least 150 million degrees Celsius, 10 times hotter than the core of the sun. The neutrons then escape the plasma, hitting a “blanket” lining the walls of the tokamak, and transferring their kinetic energy as heat.
The stars, our sun and all the matter in the universe are all made ofplasma, which is 99% of the universe. Down here on Earth, for instance, it’s used in televisions and neon lights, and we can see it in lightning and the aurora.
The ITER Tokamak Project: How Much ITER Needs to Work? The Case of a Massive Magnet for an Electrician Power Plant
ITER is not like theLivermore project. Even if ITER works, designing and building a plant that captures the energy from a tokamak and converts it to electricity is most likely very far-off.
One gram of tritium is worth more than $30,000. If nuclear fusion takes off, demand will go through the roof, making it another challenge for fusion masters.
The construction — across 39 building sites — is incredibly complex. The main worksite is a markedly sterile environment, where tremendous components are being put into place with the help of 750-ton cranes. Workers have already put together the shell of the tokamak, but they are still awaiting some parts, including a giant magnet from Russia that will sit at the top of the machine.
The dimensions are mind-blowing. The tokamak will eventually weigh over twenty thousand tons. That is the weight of the Eiffel towers. It will comprise a million components, further differing into no fewer than 10 million smaller parts.
This monster will be surrounded by magnets of the largest size. Their size means they are too large to transportation and must be assembled in a giant hall.
Even the digital design of this enormous machine sits across 3D computer files that take up more than two terabytes of drive space. You could save that amount of space if you used one-page Word documents.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2022/05/world/iter-nuclear-fusion-climate-intl-cnnphotos/
ITER: a project of peace and stability for the euclidean and post-war world, and what it’s teaching us about the future
Thirty-five countries are working on ITER, a project led by the United States, the European Union, Russia, India, Japan and South Korea. It looks a little like the UN Security Council, though the late Bigot, among others, have tried hard to keep geopolitics out of ITER entirely.
There are concerns over the country’s role in ITER and its possible exclusion, as Russia tries to rewrite Europe’s map with its war in Ukraine, and challenge the post-war world order.
The European Commission made an exception for the ITER project in its sanctions after Russia was cut out of other international scientific projects.
The latest Russia circumstances have never had an impact on the collaborative spirit. I think it is not an exaggeration to say that ITER is a project of peace,” he said.
“But our joint commitment remains as strong as ever. The daily politics have had no impact on our endeavors since he has been involved with the project.
Some of the partners seem to know that dropping the ball could mean the end of the project. This is a very big responsibility, of course.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2022/05/world/iter-nuclear-fusion-climate-intl-cnnphotos/
ITER: Climate change in the 21st century. A cosmological perspective on Hawking’s scientific ambitions and expectations for the future
Building began when diplomacy and technology fell into step. In 2010 and 2014, the construction machines were switched on.
The scale and ambition of the ITER project may seem enormous, but it is, at the very least, a proportional response to the mess humans have made of the planet. Since 1973, global energy usage has more than doubled. By the end of the century, it might actually triple. Seventy percent of all carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere are created through humans’ energy consumption. And 80% of all the energy we consume is derived from fossil fuels.
Warmer temperatures will translate into more frequent and deadly heat waves, famine, and fires, as well as rising sea levels. The impacts of the climate crisis are getting harder and harder to reverse as entire ecosystems reach tipping points and more human lives are put on the line.
When the late physicist Stephen Hawking was asked by Time in 2010 which scientific discovery he would like to see in his lifetime, he pointed to exactly this process.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2022/05/world/iter-nuclear-fusion-climate-intl-cnnphotos/
The European Union’s part in the construction of the Rio Tinto Reconstructed Project, or Why Do We Want to Take a Stand?
The European Union has been footing 45% of the project’s construction costs. The other countries are contributing 9% each. Initially, the entire construction was estimated at around 6 billion euros ($6.4 billion). The total has tripled to 20 billion euro.
Another missed goal was anticipated in the 2001 predictions. The project was considered dead in the water, but after Bigot took charge, the project was streamlined and got back on track. Bigot was a micromanager and that is exactly what was needed to get this complicated project in order.
“When you got here, his car was in place at 7 a.m., and often here until 9 or 10 p.m. at night,” Coblentz said. “So you always had the impression that no detail was too large or too small for him to take seriously and be involved in.”
The announcement is scheduled to take place at a press conference in Washington, DC, at 10AM ET. It will be livestreamed at energy.gov/live. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Arati Prabhakar are expected to speak alongside officials with the National Nuclear Security Administration and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
The Trouble with Lasers: Nuclear Fusion at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Part I: Background Talk at a Live-Streaming Energy Experiment
The trouble is inefficient lasers. A gold cylinder can be shot into with dozens of beams in NIFs method to generate fusion energy. The lasers don’t target the fuel directly. Carolyn says their aim is to generate a soup of X-rays. The tiny fuel pellet consists of the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium.
The machine that generates the reaction has to undergo serious heat. The plasma needs to reach at least 150 million degrees Celsius, 10 times hotter than the core of the sun.
The process of forming atoms with magnets is the same as the process of producing energy with lasers.
“At the moment we’re spending a huge amount of time and money for every experiment we do,” Chittenden said. The cost needs to be brought down in a big way.
“The opposing argument is that this result is miles away from actual energy gain required for the production of electricity,” he said. It’s a success of the science, but it’s not going to provide useful energy.
Hopefully, we’ll learn more during a livestream tomorrow, cryptically billed as an announcement of a “major scientific breakthrough” by the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
There will be a panel discussion and Q&A with experts from the national laboratory right after the press conference. That discussion will also be livestreamed at energy.gov/live and is scheduled to start at 10:30AM ET.
A huge step in the quest to end dependence on fossil fuels would be achieved by the result of the experiment. Nuclear fusion replicates the energy that powers the sun.
The deuterium from a glass of water, with a little tritium added, could power a house for a year. Tritium can be synthetically made, but it is harder to get than regular tritium.
“Unlike coal, you only need a small amount of hydrogen, and it is the most abundant thing found in the universe,” Julio Friedmann, chief scientist at Carbon Direct and a former chief energy technologist at Lawrence Livermore, told CNN. “Hydrogen is found in water so the stuff that generates this energy is wildly unlimited and it is clean.”
While there’s many more steps until this can be commercially viable, it’s essential for scientists to show that they can create more energy than they started with. Otherwise, it doesn’t make much sense for it to be developed.
“Lighting a soccer capsule” as a fuel-powered power plant: The first year of work at the National Ignition Facility
In the US, work is happening at the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, in a building that is roughly the size of three football fields.
“This will not contribute meaningfully to climate abatement in the next 20-30 years,” Friedmann said. It’s the difference between lighting a match and building a gas turbine.
Then in August 2021, after years of slow but steady progress, physicists were able to “ignite” the hydrogen inside the capsule, creating a self-sustaining burn. The process is comparable to lighting gasoline, says the chief scientist of the laboratory for laser energetics at the University of Rochester. “You get a little spark, and then it gets bigger and bigger, and then you have a burn,” he said.
“I think the science is great,” Roulstone says of the breakthrough. There are still engineering obstacles. “We don’t really know what the power plant would look like.”
The Diamond Ignition at the U.S. Naval Research Lab: A “Monte Carlo” for the Future of Clean Energy
When the lasers are fired at the target, they generate x-rays that vaporize the diamond in a tiny fraction of a second. The shockwave from the diamond’s destruction crushes the hydrogen atoms, causing them to fuse and release energy.
It took more than a decade, “but they can be commended for reaching their goal”, says Stephen Bodner, a physicist who formerly headed the laser-fusion programme at the US Naval Research Laboratory in Washington DC. Bodner says the big question now is what the Department of Energy will do next: double down on weapons research at NIF or pivot to a laser programme that is specifically geared toward fusion-energy research.
Betti, who holds a security clearance, declined to say exactly how the ignition milestone would help physicists, but he said that it was very significant.
“It’s a major step in the evolution of nuclear technology,” said Ryan McBride, a nuclear engineer. But, McBride adds, that does not mean that NIF itself is producing power. For one thing, he says, the lasers require more than 300 megajoules worth of electricity to produce around 2 megajoules of ultraviolet laser light. The fusion reactions have a lower energy than the lasers, but it’s still less than 1% of the total energy used.
Moreover, it would take many capsules exploding over and over to produce enough energy to feed the power grid. You would have to do this many times a second. NIF can currently do around one laser “shot” a week.
“This monumental scientific breakthrough is a milestone for the future of clean energy,” said Democratic US Sen. Alex Padilla of California in a statement.
Granholm said scientists at Livermore and other national labs do work that will help the US move quickly toward clean energy and maintain a nuclear deterrent without nuclear testing.
The director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy talked about how when she was a young scientist, she spent three months at Lawrence Livermore working on a project.
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Director Kim Budil on Tuesday called her lab’s breakthrough a “fundamental building block” to eventually realizing nuclear fusion powering electricity. She estimated it will take “a few decades” more work before it’s ready for commercial use.
Neither the US nor UK-based projects “have the hardware and steps in place to convert fusion neutrons to electricity,” Anne White, head of MIT’s Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering, told CNN.
European fusion projects run on magnets, and the US laser-based system can work together to push advancement in fusion. Granholm added the federal government welcomes private investment in fusion as well.
The NIF-Fusion Experiment: a landmark experiment in the rapid development of a new nuclear power facility, explains Mark Herrmann
But Roulstone pointed out that big ambitious nuclear energy projects must start somewhere: In 1942, scientists in Chicago ran the first fission nuclear reactor for just 5 minutes in its first run; 15 years later, the first US-based nuclear power plant went online in Pennsylvania.
In recent years there has been a proliferation of private, smaller efforts at developing fusion power, some using alternative approaches. More than 30 companies are working on the technology, about two-thirds of them in the United States, according to the Fusion Industry Association, a trade group. They have gotten nearly $5 billion in private investment.
This must be done with perfect symmetrical precision—a “stable implosion.” Otherwise, the pellet will wrinkle and the fuel won’t heat up enough. The NIF researchers improved their computer models to design the capsule that held the fuel and the laser beams that produced X-ray dispersion.
“It’s an incredible accomplishment,” says Mark Herrmann, the deputy director for fundamental weapons physics at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, which houses the fusion laboratory. The landmark experiment follows years of work by multiple teams on everything from lasers and optics to targets and computer models, Herrmann says. “That is of course what we are celebrating.”
Researchers will also need to dramatically increase the rate at which the lasers can produce the pulses and how quickly they can clear the target chamber to prepare it for another burn, says Time Luce, head of science and operation at the international nuclear-fusion project ITER, which is under construction in St-Paul-lez-Durance, France.
There are many fusion technology concepts being pursued by governments around the world. The approaches include magnetic confinement of strontium and a combination of the two.
According to White, the latest milestone isn’t likely to lead to researchers abandoning or consolidation of concept as the technology is largely independent of it.