Laser nuclear fusion experiment produced more energy than it consumed

In 2022, a team of scientists from the United States National Ignition Facility achieved for the first time: Perform a laser fusion experiment that produces more energy than it uses. However, despite being a historic turning point for humanity, the discoveries still had to go through other teams of scientists not working on the project for peer review.

A little more than a year later, scientists not involved in the paper conducted a peer review and found that the nuclear fusion experiment actually managed to produce more energy than it consumed..

In the experiment conducted in 2022, scientists spent approximately 2.05 megajoules (MJ) of energy by firing the laser, but they managed to produce 3.15 MJ; that is, the energy produced was approximately 1.5 times the energy consumed.

To perform the tests, the team He bombarded a capsule containing 220 micrograms of deuterium and tritium with 192 high-power lasers, reaching 151 million degrees Celsius.

“This achievement is the result of more than fifty years of research and proves that laboratory fusion based on fundamental principles of physics is possible. This letter describes the advances in targeting, laser, design, and experiments that led to this result… Laboratory fusion and a virtually unlimited low-carbon, low-carbon “The search for the possibility of a radiative energy source probably began in the 1920s. Shortly after Harkins, Perrin and Eddington predicted that self-sustaining hydrogen fusion was the main energy process of the Sun,” the new paper explains.

Laser fusion recording

The final article provides the details that make the experiments successful, Scientists show how fusion technology reaches ‘breakeven point’. In more recent experiments, researchers note that it produced 3.88 MJ, about 1.9 times the energy consumed, while other laser shots used only 2.05 MJ.

Purpose of the study It is to enable the process of producing clean energy, a solution that can help reduce greenhouse gases in the world.. In any case, it is important to underline that the tests performed are only laboratory experiments. This means that laser fusion reactions are far from any commercial use.

“Inertial fusion power applications, which require advances on the basics, require further developments such as laser power handling, firing rate, target robustness, higher fuel compression levels, and cost. However, the result reported here shows that it is possible to achieve a target gain greater than one in a laboratory-scale system.” shows that it is,” the article explains.

Did you like the content? Therefore, always stay up to date with more studies on clean energy production at TecMundo. If you wish, take the opportunity to understand how a new study suggests black holes can produce nuclear energy.