National research team produces more energy than it puts into fusion
Still too expensive and inefficient… “Decades of research are needed before commercial development”
The US government has reached the first milestone needed to realize promising fusion power as infinite clean energy.
Nuclear fusion power generation is also called ‘artificial sun’ because it is similar to the way the sun creates energy.
U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said on the 13th (local time) that a research team at the National Ignition Facility (NIF), a nuclear fusion research facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), has ignited nuclear fusion on the 5th. was announced as the first successful
Fusion ignition means that more energy is produced by a fusion reaction than the energy input to cause nuclear fusion.
If this is successful, it is evaluated as a significant milestone in nuclear fusion research because the nuclear fusion reaction can continue to occur in a chain without additional energy input.
In order for nuclear fusion to occur, it is necessary to create a plasma in which the atomic nucleus and electrons of hydrogen are separated and heat it to ultra-high pressure and high temperature so that the atomic nuclei fuse together.
NIF has been researching the ‘Inertia Confinement Fusion’ method, which causes nuclear fusion by shooting a powerful laser into a metal capsule the size of a BB bullet containing deuterium and tritium to create an ultra-high pressure and ultra-high temperature inside.
The NIF research team obtained 3.15 MJ of fusion energy by injecting 2.05 megajoules (MJ) of energy in the experiment on the 5th.
‘Joule’ (J) is an international standard unit of energy and work, and 1J is a force of 1N (newton-force unit, 1N refers to the force that causes an object with a mass of 1kg to move with an acceleration of 1m/sec2 when it acts on it) The work done while moving an object by 1 m in the direction of the force, or the energy required to do so.
The Department of Energy explained that this experiment proved the most fundamental scientific basis for inertial confinement nuclear fusion.
“We cannot expect fusion development using the inertial confinement method unless the capsule is ignited even in a laboratory environment,” said LLNL research director Kimberly Budil at a briefing. he explained.
“This is a landmark achievement by NIF researchers and staff who have dedicated their careers to making fusion ignition a reality, and I have no doubt that this milestone will lead to many more discoveries,” said Granholm.
However, there are still many challenges to be overcome before this achievement can lead to stable nuclear fusion power generation.
The laser equipment NIF used to generate fusion is too large, expensive, and inefficient for use in commercial power plants, converting only a fraction of the energy used to make it into actual lasers.
In addition, in order to generate nuclear fusion power, the nuclear fusion reaction must occur in a chain after supplying energy at first, but the current NIF facility can only cause one nuclear fusion reaction at a time.
When asked when commercial fusion power would be possible, Budil’s head said, “There are very big hurdles to overcome, not only scientifically, but also technically.”
“This time we ignited one capsule at a time, but to produce fusion energy commercially, many more ignitions must occur within a minute,” he said. There will be,” he predicted.
/yunhap news