Sun in a box

Last month on December 5th , scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Ignition Facility

in California finally were able to generate energy from a fusion reaction. This is a breakthrough for scientists around the world who have been trying to generate fusion energy

for decades. Although only a tiny amount of energy was produced and significantly more

scientific development is needed to make the technology useful to generate energy on a

large scale, it represents hope that once the technology is further refined, we will be able to

substitute fusion energy for some of the more polluting conventional energy produced

through fossil fuel burning.

What is Fusion?

Fusion is the type of energy that the sun and stars produce. It is the pushing together of

lightweight atoms such as helium and hydrogen so that they fuse and release heat. Heat is

released because the two nuclei fuse to form one nucleus that has less mass that the two

individual nuclei. Following Einstein’s E-mc 2 , the excess mass becomes energy.

How did they do it?

Scientists fir

ed pulsed lasers at a small capsule that contained a small pellet of fuel composed of two isotopes of hydrogen, deuterium and tritium, at the exact same time to super-heat the capsule so that the atoms would collide at an incredibly fast speed. The experiment was viewed as a success because 2.05 megajoules of energy went into the capsule and generated 3.15 megajoules of energy for a 50% net increase in energy. It should be noted that it took much more energy to generate the laser beams and other parts of the experiment, but scientists were looking at only the amount of energy that went into the

capsule and was generated from the capsule.

Why is this important?

If fusion energy can be generated on a large-scale, it would become a potential limitless

source

of pollution-free energy. It could be used to offset reliance on fossil fuel and nuclear energy power generation. Energy generated from burning fossil fuels is very polluting, while nuclear energy (which is fission energy created from the splitting apart of heavy elements like plutonium and uranium) produces radioactive material that must be captured and stored

forever. While fusion energy does create some waste, it is safer and easier to deal with than

fission waste.

What are the next steps?

Scientists are calling what was achieved in California as “proof of concept” that fusion energy can be done. However, it is expected that it will take many years or decades of development effort before fusion can become a viable energy source. Next steps are to take advantage of better laser technology to quicken the pace and effectiveness of experiments. We can all hope, though, that within our lifetimes we will see energy being created in what in simple terms is like having a sun in a box.