Physicists make major breakthrough with nuclear fusion reaction that generates net energy

[spectratg]

We keep hoping to find the magic bullet for producing power without carbon emissions. The Sun and other stars do an excellent job of making massive amounts of energy, which we’ve emulating for decades. But on Earth, we haven’t been able to get a nuclear fusion reaction that outputs more energy than the energy invested.
Now, at the National Ignition Facility (not an auto repair shop, rather a place to shoot lasers at a fuel source to generate 100-million-degree temperatures), researchers have made headlines. By shooting 2 million joules of energy (which required 192 lasers) at a deuterium-filled pellet, they got a 3 million joule energy output.

This result holds the promise of cheap, abundant, pollution and nuclear waste free power. It’s a milestone because it paves the way for nuclear fusion to provide a clean, sustainable energy source with the caveat that the energy supplied to power the lasers exceeded the net output of the reaction. There’s more work to be done. Says physicist Riccardo Betti, “Now it’s up to the scientists and engineers to see if we can turn these physics principles into useful energy.”

Fusion has the potential to transform the global energy landscape, but there’s still a huge gap between this milestone and developing an actual power plant. It’s still a long way from the breakthrough in California to building a fusion-based power plant. While this experiment generated excess energy on a small scale, the industry needs to develop systems that can produce much more excess energy, and on a much larger scale. A net energy gain shows that the concept will work, but the systems are still complicated and expensive.

One important caveat! This experiment needs to be independently verified and replicated.

 

[Nemo2]

Don't rush to sell your oil shares, right now it's just Pixie Dust.

 

[SeniorBen]

It has the "potential" to provide us with free and unlimited energy. Just like the new medical discoveries have the "potential" to eliminate cancer. It's just another nothing-burger... for now, anyway.

 

[Been There]

We keep hoping to find the magic bullet for producing power without carbon emissions. The Sun and other stars do an excellent job of making massive amounts of energy, which we’ve emulating for decades. But on Earth, we haven’t been able to get a nuclear fusion reaction that outputs more energy than the energy invested.
Now, at the National Ignition Facility (not an auto repair shop, rather a place to shoot lasers at a fuel source to generate 100-million-degree temperatures), researchers have made headlines. By shooting 2 million joules of energy (which required 192 lasers) at a deuterium-filled pellet, they got a 3 million joule energy output.

This result holds the promise of cheap, abundant, pollution and nuclear waste free power. It’s a milestone because it paves the way for nuclear fusion to provide a clean, sustainable energy source with the caveat that the energy supplied to power the lasers exceeded the net output of the reaction. There’s more work to be done. Says physicist Riccardo Betti, “Now it’s up to the scientists and engineers to see if we can turn these physics principles into useful energy.”

Fusion has the potential to transform the global energy landscape, but there’s still a huge gap between this milestone and developing an actual power plant. It’s still a long way from the breakthrough in California to building a fusion-based power plant. While this experiment generated excess energy on a small scale, the industry needs to develop systems that can produce much more excess energy, and on a much larger scale. A net energy gain shows that the concept will work, but the systems are still complicated and expensive.

One important caveat! This experiment needs to be independently verified and replicated.

I don't understand what this means. What energy is being invested? Where did this vested energy come from?

 

[Mike]

I heard somebody from Oxford University being interviewed
about this, after answering lots questions by the host of the
programme, who was getting very excited, he said, "don't hold
your breath, it difficult to get it right, after firing the laser at it
several thousand times, it only hit the right spot 3 times, the
stuff inside the pellet, keeps moving, making contact very elusive".

Remember "Cold Fusion", that was a failure.

Mike.

 

[horseless carriage]

Yesterday we had The Wright Brothers post, commemorating the amazing scene of powered flight. I noted that it took less than forty years to turn that invention into the destruction that was total war.

The concern that I have about Thermonuclear Reaction is simple, there will always be a megalomaniac who will come along and use the power for other means.

 

[Fyrefox]

I’m reminded of how Nikola Tesla dreamed of transmitting electrical energy wirelessly around the globe, and to that end erected a massive 187 foot tower on Long Island circa 1907. Well, electricity can be transmitted wirelessly, but the amount of power required to do so rendered such a project grossly impractical. Tesla and his backers lost their investment, and the great tower was eventually dynamited and sold for scrap….

 

[spectratg]

I don't understand what this means. What energy is being invested? Where did this vested energy come from?

"Nuclear fusion is a reaction in which two or more atomic nuclei are combined to form one or more different atomic nuclei and subatomic particles (neutrons or protons). The difference in mass between the reactants and products is manifested as either the release or absorption of energy. This difference in mass arises due to the difference in nuclear binding energy between the atomic nuclei before and after the reaction. Nuclear fusion is the process that powers active or main-sequence stars and other high-magnitude stars, where large amounts of energy are released." from Wiki.

You may have heard of Einstein's famous equation, E = m times c squared. During the fusion process (that happens in a very short period of time, fractions of a second), E is the energy that is produced from the mass m, multiplied by c, the speed of light, squared. c is an extraordinarily big number; c squared is humongously big! Fusion is what powers are sun and all other stars.

 

[1955]

I am a believer in the fusion process but there are many technical challenges to making it happen. Whether it can be done in time is another question. I came across this YouTube that looks promising:

They seem to have some great ideas that address making it practical but only time will tell.

 

[spectratg]

I heard somebody from Oxford University being interviewed
about this, after answering lots questions by the host of the
programme, who was getting very excited, he said, "don't hold
your breath, it difficult to get it right, after firing the laser at it
several thousand times, it only hit the right spot 3 times, the
stuff inside the pellet, keeps moving, making contact very elusive".

Remember "Cold Fusion", that was a failure.

Mike.

The attempted Cold Fusion alleged to have occurred in 1989 was a failure indeed. So that is a cautionary tale. I agree that the news jumped way too quickly and enthusiastically all over this latest Hot Fusion development without giving all of the caveats. The breakthrough does appear to be real and has passed several scientific reviews. However, there is a long, long ways to go before it will ever become a usable form of energy. Hot Fusion is real (nuclear bombs, unfortunately); Cold Fusion is not.

From Wiki:

Cold fusion is a hypothesized type of nuclear reaction that would occur at, or near, room temperature. It would contrast starkly with the "hot" fusion that is known to take place naturally within stars and artificially in hydrogen bombs and prototype fusion reactors under immense pressure and at temperatures of millions of degrees, and be distinguished from muon-catalyzed fusion. There is currently no accepted theoretical model that would allow cold fusion to occur.

In 1989, two electrochemists, Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons, reported that their apparatus had produced anomalous heat ("excess heat") of a magnitude they asserted would defy explanation except in terms of nuclear processes.[1] They further reported measuring small amounts of nuclear reaction byproducts, including neutrons and tritium.[2] The small tabletop experiment involved electrolysis of heavy water on the surface of a palladium (Pd) electrode.[3] The reported results received wide media attention[3] and raised hopes of a cheap and abundant source of energy.[4]

Many scientists tried to replicate the experiment with the few details available. Hopes faded with the large number of negative replications, the withdrawal of many reported positive replications, the discovery of flaws and sources of experimental error in the original experiment, and finally the discovery that Fleischmann and Pons had not actually detected nuclear reaction byproducts.[5] By late 1989, most scientists considered cold fusion claims dead,[6][7] and cold fusion subsequently gained a reputation as pathological science.[8][9]

 

[Been There]

"Nuclear fusion is a reaction in which two or more atomic nuclei are combined to form one or more different atomic nuclei and subatomic particles (neutrons or protons). The difference in mass between the reactants and products is manifested as either the release or absorption of energy. This difference in mass arises due to the difference in nuclear binding energy between the atomic nuclei before and after the reaction. Nuclear fusion is the process that powers active or main-sequence stars and other high-magnitude stars, where large amounts of energy are released." from Wiki.

You may have heard of Einstein's famous equation, E = m times c squared. During the fusion process (that happens in a very short period of time, fractions of a second), E is the energy that is produced from the mass m, multiplied by c, the speed of light, squared. c is an extraordinarily big number; c squared is humongously big! Fusion is what powers are sun and all other stars.

C-squared just means the speed of light times the speed of light. Yes, it produces a massive number.

In the nucleus, are there an equal number of electrons and protons in a single atom? Is the result mass or energy? (I gave a reason for asking this question.) Does the nuclei always remain stable? It would seem to me that radioactive decay could occur or at the very least, there would be a loss of mass or energy, which could effect the totality of the amount of energy produced.

This is really going beyond my scope of education on this issue.

 

[Indiana Joe]

Yesterday we had The Wright Brothers post, commemorating the amazing scene of powered flight. I noted that it took less than forty years to turn that invention into the destruction that was total war.

The concern that I have about Thermonuclear Reaction is simple, there will always be a megalomaniac who will come along and use the power for other means.
View attachment 256849

If it weren't for atomic bombs, Russia or China would own this country by now. Our population could not begin to resist an invasion of the hoards of milions they would have sent to ravage the U.S.A

 

[spectratg]

C-squared just means the speed of light times the speed of light. Yes, it produces a massive number.

In the nucleus, are there an equal number of electrons and protons in a single atom? Is the result mass or energy? (I gave a reason for asking this question.) Does the nuclei always remain stable? It would seem to me that radioactive decay could occur or at the very least, there would be a loss of mass or energy, which could effect the totality of the amount of energy produced.

This is really going beyond my scope of education on this issue.

Well I could claim that it is beyond my education level too, except that I did get a bachelor's degree in physics 55 years ago. (I used that to go into the field of underwater acoustics.) Atoms have the same number of protons and neutrons. An atom that loses one or more electrons is an ion; when this is done they become a noble gas, which is highly stable. The atomic mass is equivalent to the number of protons and neutrons. In radioactive decay, the unstable atoms keep transforming to new decay products until they reach a stable state and are no longer radioactive. "When radioactive atoms decay, they release energy in the form of ionizing radiation (alpha particles, beta particles and/or gamma rays). The energy is called ionizing radiation because it has enough energy to knock tightly bound electrons from an atom's orbit. This causes the atom to become a charged ion." That pretty much exhausts my knowledge on this subject; I do not know if there is any interaction of the ionizing radiation and nuclear fusion.

 

[palides2021]

By shooting 2 million joules of energy (which required 192 lasers) at a deuterium-filled pellet, they got a 3 million joule energy output.

They're not there yet because they had to use 2 million joules to get 3 million joules of energy. It aint' going to happen until they get a better payoff.

 

[1955]

I used that to go into the field of underwater acoustics.

Physical Acoustics – a very complex field. I played around with ultrasonic horns for a number of years. At work we used one to dissolve tableted reagents within a test cuvette on the clinical analyzer we produced. I still have box full of PZT stuffed away somewhere.

I finally found a book store to buy all my books on the subject.

 

[Mike]

The attempted Cold Fusion alleged to have occurred in 1989 was a failure indeed. So that is a cautionary tale. I agree that the news jumped way too quickly and enthusiastically all over this latest Hot Fusion development without giving all of the caveats. The breakthrough does appear to be real and has passed several scientific reviews. However, there is a long, long ways to go before it will ever become a usable form of energy. Hot Fusion is real (nuclear bombs, unfortunately); Cold Fusion is not.

I was thinking of a more recent dabble in Cold Fusion, spectratg,
two scientists, who were attempting this, were found to have been
submitting false reports and that Cold Fusion is impossible, they
had earlier been awarded some big recognition for their work, I
believe.

It may have been a final report, after lots of investigation, it was
only a couple of years ago that I heard about it being a hoax.
https://medium.com/predict/the-tragic-story-of-cold-fusion-67e0b3a6773

Mike.

 

[spectratg]

I was thinking of a more recent dabble in Cold Fusion, spectratg,
two scientists, who were attempting this, were found to have been
submitting false reports and that Cold Fusion is impossible, they
had earlier been awarded some big recognition for their work, I
believe.

It may have been a final report, after lots of investigation, it was
only a couple of years ago that I heard about it being a hoax.
https://medium.com/predict/the-tragic-story-of-cold-fusion-67e0b3a6773

Mike.

Yes I believe that we both are referencing the below from Wiki:

"In 1989, two electrochemists, Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons, reported that their apparatus had produced anomalous heat ("excess heat") of a magnitude they asserted would defy explanation except in terms of nuclear processes.[1] They further reported measuring small amounts of nuclear reaction byproducts, including neutrons and tritium.[2] The small tabletop experiment involved electrolysis of heavy water on the surface of a palladium (Pd) electrode.[3] The reported results received wide media attention[3] and raised hopes of a cheap and abundant source of energy.[4]

Many scientists tried to replicate the experiment with the few details available. Hopes faded with the large number of negative replications, the withdrawal of many reported positive replications, the discovery of flaws and sources of experimental error in the original experiment, and finally the discovery that Fleischmann and Pons had not actually detected nuclear reaction byproducts.[5] By late 1989, most scientists considered cold fusion claims dead,[6][7] and cold fusion subsequently gained a reputation as pathological science.[8][9] In 1989 the United States Department of Energy (DOE) concluded that the reported results of excess heat did not present convincing evidence of a useful source of energy and decided against allocating funding specifically for cold fusion. A second DOE review in 2004, which looked at new research, reached similar conclusions and did not result in DOE funding of cold fusion.[10] Presently, since articles about cold fusion are rarely published in peer-reviewed mainstream scientific journals, they do not attract the level of scrutiny expected for mainstream scientific publications.[11]"

 

[spectratg]

Physical Acoustics – a very complex field. I played around with ultrasonic horns for a number of years. At work we used one to dissolve tableted reagents within a test cuvette on the clinical analyzer we produced. I still have box full of PZT stuffed away somewhere.

I finally found a book store to buy all my books on the subject.

That sounds (no pun intended) quite interesting. My work was in the field of submarine acoustics and their operational environment, the oceans.

 

[Aunt Mavis]

Epstein hung himself too, yup.