The Real Fusion Energy Breakthrough Is Still Decades Away

A group of scientists recreated the physics of the sun in a lab last week. The capsule was filled with a peppercorn-sized pellet filled with hydrogen atoms. Some of the atoms were fused to produce energy. It was a large amount of energy. Scientists have done this type of experiment many times only to see it fall short of the energy needed to cook the fuel. They exceeded it for the first time.

It's a huge victory for those who study fusion. Scientists only had to look up at the stars to know that combining two hydrogen atoms to produce one helium atom entails a loss of mass. Since the 1970s, when scientists first defined the goal of ignition, it has taken a long time. About 70% of the laser energy was fired into the experiment last year. The experiments were continued. The perfect shot was taken just after 1 am on December 5. There are two megajoules in and three megajoules out. There was a 50 percent increase in energy. At a press conference earlier this morning, the US Secretary of Energy said that it showed that it could be done.

It's a thrilling result to fusion scientists like Mark Cappelli. He cautions that those hoping for fusion to be an abundant, carbon-free, and waste-free power source may be left waiting. He says the difference is in how breakeven is defined. The researchers said they got the same amount of energy out of the experiment as the laser. The problem is that the amount of power involved in firing up the lasers is very small. It's a way, way, way, way down the road. It's decades down the road. It could be a half-century down the road.

There is a problem with inefficient lasers. NIF's method of generating fusion energy involves shooting beams into a gold cylinder and heating it up to three million degrees Celsius. The fuel isn't targeted by the lasers. Carolyn Kuranz is a fusion researcher at the University of Michigan. The tiny fuel pellet is bombarded and crushed by these.

A stable implosion is required for this to be done. The pellet won't heat up enough if it's not changed. Improved computer models were used to improve the design of the capsule that holds the fuel and calibrate the laser beams to produce the right X-ray dispersion.

Lasers emit 2 megajoules of energy per pulse. That is a huge amount of energy. It takes about 15 minutes to run a hair dryer, but only takes a millionth of a second. A space nearly the size of a football field filled with flashing lamps and lasers is needed to produce those beams. Most of the energy is lost. An energy input that is multiple orders of magnitude greater than the energy produced by fusion is what you get when you add that layer of cooling systems and computers. The first step for practical fusion is to use more efficient lasers.