Huge amounts of public and private funds have been funneled into the fusion race around the world, with the goal of eventually building fusion machines that could bring electricity to the grid with no carbon footprint, no radioactive waste. and with far fewer resources than it takes to harness solar and solar power. wind power. Beyond the climate benefits, proponents say it could help bring cheap electricity to poorer parts of the world.
“For most of us, it was just a matter of time,” said a fusion specialist familiar with the work of the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, where the discovery was made. .
The development has been first reported by the Financial Times on Sunday. It was confirmed by two familiar people with research, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid advance the official announcement. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm was due to make the announcement on Tuesday during a media event presented as the unveiling of “a major scientific breakthrough”.
The department and lab declined to comment. A lab official said the researchers are still finalizing their analysis and won’t release any official findings until Tuesday.
The science of nuclear fusion relies on smashing two atoms together at incredibly high speeds and transforming the energy of that reaction into electricity that can power homes and offices without emitting carbon into the air or spilling radioactive waste in the environment.
In the decades that scientists have been experimenting with fusion reactions, they have so far been unable to create one that produces more energy than it consumes. While the achievement is significant, there are still monumental engineering and scientific challenges ahead.
Creating the net energy gain required the engagement of one of the largest lasers in the world, and the resources needed to recreate the reaction on the scale required to make fusion practical for energy production are immense. . More importantly, engineers have yet to develop machines that can cheaply turn this reaction into electricity that can be practically deployed on the power grid.
Building devices large enough to create large-scale fusion energy would require materials that are extremely difficult to produce, say the scientists. At the same time, the reaction creates neutrons which put enormous pressure on the equipment that creates it, so that it can be destroyed in the process.
And then there’s the question of whether the technology could be perfected in time to make a dent in climate change.
Even so, fusion technology researchers and investors hailed the breakthrough as a significant step forward.
“There is going to be great pride that this is something that happened in the United States,” said David Edelman, who leads policy and global affairs at TAE, a large private fusion energy company. “This is a very important step on the way to fusion energy.”
It comes as the Biden administration prioritizes fusion energy research in its climate and energy agenda. The projects are frontline for the tens of billions of dollars in grants and subsidies authorized under the big climate package Biden signed this summer, called the Cut Inflation Act.
Over the past few decades, the United States, Russia, and various European countries have allocated billions of government dollars to try to master science, believing that if they could, it would be a boon to the world.