Everything You Need to Know About Nuclear Fusion: Clean, Safe and Increasingly Real Energy

changing of the climate looming over us at ever more dizzying speed. It is vital to start taking action, including looking for pure forms of energy. renewable sourcess such as wind or solar are increasingly being explored and in demand, but they have some disadvantages that make them poor competition for fossil fuels. Another option is nuclear power. Nonetheless Nuclear fissionwhich is used in these factories has the great disadvantage of using very radioactive and dangerous in case of leaks. For this reason, more and more research is being done. thermonuclear reaction.

Change only one letter, but the difference is terrible. Nuclear fusion generates such powerful energy that exactly supports lit stars. Fuel is easy to get, clean, unlimited and safe. The resulting products are also not dangerous, so we have the perfect solution in front of us.

But it has a huge drawback. And the fact is that bringing the energy of stars to Earth is not so simple. So far attempts get energy by nuclear fusion in an effective way, they were quite unsuccessful. It cannot be imagined as an alternative to fossil fuels. However, from Livermore Lawrence National Laboratorywarned that tomorrow they will announce the results of an announcement that could change everything we know so far, thus get power.

What is nuclear fusion?

While nuclear fission consists in obtaining energy by nuclear fission of very heavy atomsIn this case, the opposite happens. Nuclear fusion happens when atoms with very light nuclei combinelike hydrogen and its isotopes.

It should be remembered that isotopes of the same element are those that have the same number of protons in the nucleus, but a different number of neutrons. Hydrogen has one proton in its nucleus, and most common atoms in nature do not have neutrons. However, there are also two isotopes known as deuterium and tritiumwhich have one and two neutrons, respectively.

The former is found in nature, for example, in sea ​​waterand it’s quite easy to get. tritium It is not found in nature, but it is also obtained in a simple way in the same reaction. thermonuclear reaction.

This reaction consists of confining isotopes in such a way as to promote a collision in which their nuclei fuse, resulting in helium, which left two protons and two neutrons, and left one neutron. It is this remaining neutron that is used to produce more tritium and continue the reaction.

Nuclear fusion requires initial energy, which can be obtained in two ways: either through particle accelerators or by intensely heating the atoms to produce a gaseous mixture known as plasma. In addition, it is necessary to ensure that the atoms get close enough for this energy to cause a collision. This can be done by compacting fuel containing isotopes by lasersto get such a high density that they cannot escape. If not, this can also be done thanks to magnetic fieldss that keep the atoms close.

UKAEA

Why are you getting energy?

It’s easy to see how energy is generated by nuclear fission, as something larger is divided into something smaller. In general, in science, breaking something usually means releasing energy, and building is spent. However, in this case, even if nuclear fusion occurs and the atoms combine, if they less heavy than iron, resulting in a heavy nucleus whose weight is less than the sum of the weights of the lighter nuclei. That is why a neutron is released and an energy is released that is approximately equivalent to 17.6 IV for each pair of atoms.

There really isn’t much energy. However, if we take into account that one gram of a substance has million atomsthis process can be greatly increased with very little fuel.

Nuclear Power Limitations

So far everything looks great. But why isn’t it being used anymore? Well, mostly because the amount of energy required for nuclear fusion is enormous. It doesn’t matter if it’s done with a particle accelerator or by heating. It takes so much energy hard to get more than spent. Logically, this makes the process very inefficient.

IN 2013, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory itself said that for the first time it was able to get more out of the energy expended. This net energy gain from nuclear fusion was a big step forward, but we were still far from seeing it in the short term as alternative to fossil fuels.

Later, this and other laboratories made other announcements. For example, in the same year, in February 2022, it was possible to get Joint European Thor energy 59 megajoules, held for 5 seconds. This far surpassed the previous record, which was 21.7 megajoules in 1997.

Just a month earlier, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory announced that they had succeeded in creating a fiery plasma, fueled by nuclear fusion, hot enough to allow more nuclear fusion. That is, they were able to chain reactionsuch as those used in nuclear fission facilities.

Will they close 2022 with perfect combination for that other news? Be that as it may, the commercial use of atomic energy is still far away. At least in a decade. But new steps are needed, and the one we’ll see shortly could be one of them.