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Scientists Achieve Fusion Ignition for the Second Time

Catwell

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The preamplifier support structure boosts the laser energy while moving to the target chamber. (Image Credit: Damien Jemison/Lawrence Livermore Laboratory)

During an experiment on July 30th, scientists at California's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory achieved a net-energy gain nuclear fusion reaction. This is the second time the team induced fusion ignition, and they say it generated more energy than the one in December. Their process could pave the way to a future with cleaner energy.  

On December 5th, the Lawrence Livermore researchers experimented with lasers to achieve a net energy gain fusion reaction. They targeted a small deuterium-tritium fuel pellet with 192 lasers, causing it to fuse two atoms and release the energy for a few nanoseconds. This generated 3.15 megajoules when the laser hit its target with 2.05 megajoules.

As a result, it generated more fusion energy versus the laser energy that caused the reaction. According to the Energy Department, this huge breakthrough could lead to clean energy and national defense advancements. The LLNL plans to report the results of the July 30th experiment in peer-reviewed publications and upcoming scientific conferences.

They performed this recent ignition via an inertial confinement reactor, which creates a reaction by imploding the fuel pellet. It operates differently than tokamaks and stellarators that rely on superconducting electromagnets to hold the plasma that's higher than the sun's temperature. This reaction involved using 192 lasers, beamed from laser banks and power amplifiers, which converged and superheated a hohlraum capsule. That formed an X-ray bath, squeezing the pellet within until it collapsed quickly enough for a fusion reaction to occur before the fuel could be taken apart.  

Although this is a great breakthrough, some issues need to be addressed. For example, the lasers must cool down before hitting the target again. And modern laser diodes may help with that obstacle. Even then, we'd also need to consider the number of explosions that need to occur per second just to make the energy source viable. But this breakthrough can help mitigate climate change as long as the technology can be scaled up to a commercial level.

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  • in reply to rsc

    You nailed it. 

    These people have been trying for decades to come up with another big budget government project where they get to spend a lot of money and deliver nothing of value.

    I fail to understand why DOE continues to fund this project.

  • They have to have a "Breakthrough" every couple of years to keep getting funding.  I don't feel they will have anything working in my lifetime.  Just look at the ITER timeline.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER

  • in reply to Catwell

    No I do not.

    I have done extensive research into the Fusion process that occurs inside a star and my conclusion was that it does not generate any power.

    The Fusion process consumes energy to create photons or larger mass objects. In both cases, energy is converted from Kinetic to Potential energy.

    The only way to release energy from atoms is through Fission.

    If you look carefully at the way the article was written, they weasel word the way they "calculated" energy gain.

    If you sum up all of the energy they consumed to achieve "Fusion" they are still at a substantially lower energy output than they used. 

    Technically, they did NOT achieve any surplus power, nor did they technically fuse any material.

    This entire apparatus only causes a photon cascade through atomic implosion. This is not nuclear fusion!

    This result is yet another example to support my Fusion definition. 

    There is no such thing as a free lunch, and clean fusion generated power ranks right up there with the tooth fairy.

    You can believe all you want, just don't bet the farm on it.

  • in reply to DAB

    DAB! Good to hear from you.

    I suppose the idea here is to create a sustaining fusion process. You don't think it's possible?

  • It is not a real breakthrough.

    Nothing has changed, they have induced a photon release by the atoms involved, not true fusion.

    Regardless of how much money they dump into this technology, there is no practical way to sustain nuclear fusion power output.

    Nuclear fusion is an endo-energetic process. It will always consume more power to achieve fusion than you will get out of the residual energy releases.