The Department of Energy is expected to announce a long-awaited milestone in the development of nuclear fusion energy: net energy gain. Here’s what you need to know about the U.S. fusion energy breakthrough and what it means for the future.
But how big of a deal is the “net energy gain” anyway — and what does it mean for the fusion power plants of the future? Here’s what you need to know.— splitting apart heavy atoms to create energy. In fission, a neutron collides with a heavy uranium atom, splitting it into lighter atoms and releasing a lot of heat and energy at the same time.
Now, researchers at the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California are expected to announced that they have attained net energy gain by shooting lasers at hydrogen atomsThe 192 laser beams compress the hydrogen atoms down to about 100 times the density of lead and heat them to approximately 100 million degrees Celsius. The high density and temperature causes the atoms to merge into helium.
But, it’s only a net energy gain at the micro level. The lasers used at the Livermore lab are only about 1 percent efficient, according to Troy Carter, a plasma physicist at the University of California, Los Angeles. That means that it takes about 100x more energy to run the lasers than they are ultimately able to deliver to the hydrogen atoms.
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