Nuclear-Fusion Breakthrough Accelerates Quest to Unlock Limitless Energy Source

The milestone, known as fusion ignition, is unprecedented, according to the DOE.

“This is what it looks like for America to lead, and we’re just getting started,” Secretary Granholm said, adding that the breakthrough “will go down in the history books.”

Researchers at the lab’s multibillion-dollar National Ignition Facility have been studying nuclear fusion for more than a decade, using lasers to create conditions that cause hydrogen atoms to fuse and release vast amounts of energy. Since the facility began operations in 2009, the goal of a fusion reaction that produces a net gain of energy—a key step toward transforming fusion into a practical source of energy—had eluded scientists.

Nuclear-fusion energy breakthrough using laser beams

The U.S. Energy Department announced a major breakthrough in nuclear-fusion research by scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory—a controlled reaction that achieved ignition, generating more energy than it consumed. The laboratory’s National Ignition Facility conducts experiments in fusion using lasers.

Mixture of hydrogen

isotopes

Those extreme temperatures and pressures—like those in the cores of stars and giant planets and in exploding nuclear weapons—triggered a fusion reaction. The hydrogen atoms combined to form helium, releasing a tremendous amount of energy at the same time.

192 laser beams were fired into a hollow cylinder named a hohlraum.

Suspended inside the cylinder was a peppercorn-size capsule containing the fuel needed for a nuclear-fusion reaction—a partially frozen mixture of two hydrogen isotopes, deuterium and tritium.

Unlike fossil-fuel burning, fusion doesn’t emit greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere. Fusion also doesn’t produce long-lived radioactive waste like nuclear-fission reactions. Its only byproduct is helium, an inert gas that doesn’t harm the environment. The supply of hydrogen needed for fusion is nearly limitless. Fusion researchers say commercial application of this technology likely remains years, if not decades, away.

When laser beams entered the gold cylinder, they struck its inside walls and created X-rays. Those X-rays then bathed the capsule, creating a rapid implosion that superheated and crushed the fuel capsule to the width of a human hair.

192 laser beams were fired into a hollow cylinder named a hohlraum.

Mixture of hydrogen

isotopes

Suspended inside the cylinder was a peppercorn-size capsule containing the fuel needed for a nuclear-fusion reaction—a partially frozen mixture of two hydrogen isotopes, deuterium and tritium.

When laser beams entered the gold cylinder, they struck its inside walls and created X-rays. Those X-rays then bathed the capsule, creating a rapid implosion that superheated and crushed the fuel capsule to the width of a human hair.

Those extreme temperatures and pressures—like those in the cores of stars and giant planets and in exploding nuclear weapons—triggered a fusion reaction. The hydrogen atoms combined to form helium, releasing a tremendous amount of energy at the same time.

Unlike fossil-fuel burning, fusion doesn’t emit greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere. Fusion also doesn’t produce long-lived radioactive waste like nuclear-fission reactions. Its only byproduct is helium, an inert gas that doesn’t harm the environment. The supply of hydrogen needed for fusion is nearly limitless. Fusion researchers say commercial application of this technology likely remains years, if not decades, away.

192 laser beams were fired into a hollow cylinder named a hohlraum.

Mixture of hydrogen

isotopes

Suspended inside the cylinder was a peppercorn-size capsule containing the fuel needed for a nuclear-fusion reaction—a partially frozen mixture of two hydrogen isotopes, deuterium and tritium.

When laser beams entered the gold cylinder, they struck its inside walls and created X-rays. Those X-rays then bathed the capsule, creating a rapid implosion that superheated and crushed the fuel capsule to the width of a human hair.

Those extreme temperatures and pressures—like those in the cores of stars and giant planets and in exploding nuclear weapons—triggered a fusion reaction. The hydrogen atoms combined to form helium, releasing a tremendous amount of energy at the same time.

Unlike fossil-fuel burning, fusion doesn’t emit greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere. Fusion also doesn’t produce long-lived radioactive waste like nuclear-fission reactions. Its only byproduct is helium, an inert gas that doesn’t harm the environment. The supply of hydrogen needed for fusion is nearly limitless. Fusion researchers say commercial application of this technology likely remains years, if not decades, away.

192 laser beams were fired into a hollow cylinder named a hohlraum.

Mixture of hydrogen

isotopes

Suspended inside the cylinder was a peppercorn-size capsule containing the fuel needed for a nuclear-fusion reaction—a partially frozen mixture of two hydrogen isotopes, deuterium and tritium.

When laser beams entered the gold cylinder, they struck its inside walls and created X-rays. Those X-rays then bathed the capsule, creating a rapid implosion that superheated and crushed the fuel capsule to the width of a human hair.

Those extreme temperatures and pressures—like those in the cores of stars and giant planets and in exploding nuclear weapons—triggered a fusion reaction. The hydrogen atoms combined to form helium, releasing a tremendous amount of energy at the same time.

Unlike fossil-fuel burning, fusion doesn’t emit greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere. Fusion also doesn’t produce long-lived radioactive waste like nuclear-fission reactions. Its only byproduct is helium, an inert gas that doesn’t harm the environment. The supply of hydrogen needed for fusion is nearly limitless. Fusion researchers say commercial application of this technology likely remains years, if not decades, away.

Mixture of hydrogen

isotopes

192 laser beams were fired into a hollow cylinder named a hohlraum.

Suspended inside the cylinder was a peppercorn-size capsule containing the fuel needed for a nuclear-fusion reaction—a partially frozen mixture of two hydrogen isotopes, deuterium and tritium.

When laser beams entered the gold cylinder, they struck its inside walls and created X-rays. Those X-rays then bathed the capsule, creating a rapid implosion that superheated and crushed the fuel capsule to the width of a human hair.

Those extreme temperatures and pressures—like those in the cores of stars and giant planets and in exploding nuclear weapons—triggered a fusion reaction. The hydrogen atoms combined to form helium, releasing a tremendous amount of energy at the same time.

Unlike fossil-fuel burning, fusion doesn’t emit greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere. Fusion also doesn’t produce long-lived radioactive waste like nuclear-fission reactions. Its only byproduct is helium, an inert gas that doesn’t harm the environment. The supply of hydrogen needed for fusion is nearly limitless. Fusion researchers say commercial application of this technology likely remains years, if not decades, away.

Mixture of hydrogen

isotopes

192 laser beams were fired into a hollow cylinder named a hohlraum.

Suspended inside the cylinder was a peppercorn-size capsule containing the fuel needed for a nuclear-fusion reaction—a partially frozen mixture of two hydrogen isotopes, deuterium and tritium.

When laser beams entered the gold cylinder, they struck its inside walls and created X-rays. Those X-rays then bathed the capsule, creating a rapid implosion that superheated and crushed the fuel capsule to the width of a human hair.

Those extreme temperatures and pressures—like those in the cores of stars and giant planets and in exploding nuclear weapons—triggered a fusion reaction. The hydrogen atoms combined to form helium, releasing a tremendous amount of energy at the same time.

Unlike fossil-fuel burning, fusion doesn’t emit greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere. Fusion also doesn’t produce long-lived radioactive waste like nuclear-fission reactions. Its only byproduct is helium, an inert gas that doesn’t harm the environment. The supply of hydrogen needed for fusion is nearly limitless. Fusion researchers say commercial application of this technology likely remains years, if not decades, away.

But an experiment at the facility conducted on Dec. 5 produced 3.15 megajoules of fusion energy, compared with 2.05 megajoules of energy used to trigger the reaction.

The broad appeal of nuclear fusion to researchers, investors and companies stems from its potential as an alternative to energy sources that involve the burning of fossil fuels and the release of greenhouse gases—a timely objective during “a looming energy and climate crisis,” according to Dr.

Rafael Juárez Mañas,

an engineering professor at the National Distance Education University (UNED) in Madrid who wasn’t involved in the recent experiment.

Existing nuclear power plants—responsible for about 10% of the world’s electricity—generate electricity by nuclear fission, in which energy is created by splitting heavy atoms like uranium.

Fission creates radioactive waste that can last thousands of years. Fusion doesn’t produce such waste. Nor does it produce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. And the hydrogen atoms that fuel fusion reactions are in an essentially limitless supply.

But commercial application of this technology likely remains years, if not decades, away, according to fusion researchers.

It is premature to talk about building fusion power plants, said

Gianluca Sarri,

a professor of physics at Queen’s University Belfast who wasn’t involved in the new research. “There are technical issues that need to be solved still before it becomes an energy source,” he added.

“We are still not gaining electrical energy” Dr. Sarri said.

The lasers at the National Ignition Facility are less than 1% efficient, according to

Jonathan Davies,

a senior scientist at the University of Rochester’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics. The facility used hundreds of megajoules of electricity to produce the laser light needed to produce about 3 megajoules of fusion energy.

“A laser fusion power plant would have to fire something like 10 times per second to give a reasonable electrical power output,” Dr. Davies said.

Fusion researchers around the world use a variety of approaches to trigger and contain controlled fusion reactions. The Livermore facility uses nearly 200 lasers to heat and compress hydrogen atoms to temperatures of more than 180 million degrees Fahrenheit and pressures more than 100 billion times Earth’s atmosphere. Those extreme conditions create a state of matter known as plasma, in which hydrogen atoms fuse. The same process powers the sun and other stars.

“This experiment has demonstrated for the first time this can be done in a laboratory setting, rather than in a star,” said

Robbie Scott,

a senior plasma physicist at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory’s Central Laser Facility near Oxford, England.

Dr. Scott, who spent a year at the Lawrence Livermore lab but wasn’t involved in the recent experiment, said “it’s been a long, hard road” for the global fusion energy community to get to this point. But he said he never doubted ignition could be achieved.

“It’s just fantastic to actually get to this point, because it’s a real seminal result,” he added.

Private investors have been pouring money into the burgeoning industry, despite the science and engineering challenges.

More than 30 firms, most of them in the U.S., are chasing fusion commercialization and have raised more than $5 billion, according to the Fusion Industry Association. The companies are vying to be the first not only to create net-energy machines, but to commercialize them by delivering electricity to the grid on the scale of a power plant.

“Net energy is a great claim to make, but net energy is not net power,” said

Brett Rampal,

a nuclear-energy expert at energy consulting firm Veriten and Segra Capital Management. While many say they can reach milestones sooner, Mr. Rampal expects that some private fusion firms with prototypes could achieve net power within a decade and that five to 10 years after that there could be some commercial product demonstrations.

Still, fusion companies celebrated the National Ignition Facility’s results as a key milestone toward reaching net power.

“It’s a crucial step that validates a theory and bolsters our growing field of work in fusion energy,” said

Michl Binderbauer,

chief executive of fusion firm TAE Technologies, which has raised $1.2 billion.

Bob Mumgaard,

chief executive and co-founder of Commonwealth Fusion Systems LLC, an MIT spinout that has raised more than $1.8 billion, called the net-energy results a validator for the fusion industry. “These exciting results are the culmination of years of work demonstrating that fusion science is worth the investment,” Mr. Mumgaard said.

Write to Aylin Woodward at [email protected] and Jennifer Hiller at [email protected]