Nuclear Fusion Energy – A Milestone in the Development of a Nuclear Fusion Reactor – News

According to US Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, a historic breakthrough has been achieved in nuclear fusion research in California: For the first time, more energy has been extracted from nuclear fusion in an experiment than was previously put into it. However, it will be a long time before a fusion power plant can supply energy, says SRF science editor Daniel Theis.

Daniel Theis

SRF science editor


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Daniel Theis holds a doctorate in atmospheric chemistry and microbiology. His areas of specialization are energy issues, mobility and technical developments. He has been working in the SRF science department since 2013.

SRF News: What’s new in the apparently successful experiment in the USA?

Daniel Theis: Above all, it is a milestone for research – because for the first time it has been possible to extract more energy locally from a fusion reaction than was put into it. Unfortunately, this does not apply to the test facility as a whole, but only to the small area in the fusion apparatus where very powerful lasers were aimed at a small sphere with frozen hydrogen isotopes. These suddenly heated up so much that they fused into helium.

Overall, you still have to put in X times more energy than you get out.

If you calculate how much laser energy hit the bead and see how much energy the fusion then released, you got more out than you put in. However, what is not included is all the trappings: the operation of the lasers, the whole apparatus as such. Overall, you still have to put X times more energy into the fusion reactor than you get out.

This is how nuclear fusion works


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Legend:

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Nuclear fusion is the basic principle of how our sun works: Atomic nuclei fuse together, releasing enormous amounts of energy in the process. We feel it very directly: It is the light, the warmth and the radiation that reach the earth. All of this comes from nuclear fusion in the sun.

But because atomic nuclei don’t really just want to fuse with each other, it takes enormous amounts of energy before they do that at all. Strong forces have to be overcome and the atomic nuclei pressed very close together until they fuse. This can be achieved, for example, with unimaginably hot temperatures of several million degrees Celsius.

If you finally want to generate energy with a nuclear fusion, you have to be able to capture the released energy and drive a turbine with steam, for example, so that electricity is generated. All of this is technically extremely demanding and not yet possible in this way today.

The crucial question, especially now in the energy crisis, is: will it soon be possible to generate electricity using nuclear fusion?

The experiment in the USA produced the equivalent of 0.7 kilowatt hours of energy. At most, that’s enough to vacuum the apartment for half an hour. The researchers also emphasize that we are still a long way from a functioning fusion reactor that supplies electricity to the socket.

You’re still a long way from a working fusion reactor that supplies power to the wall outlet.

In this light, one could also take a somewhat critical look at the big words about “breakthrough” and “milestone”. Because it is of course also a question of who gets the research funds to be able to conduct research on nuclear fusion, the beacon of hope.

When nuclear fission occurs in a nuclear power plant, we always talk about the radioactivity that is released and can irradiate the world. How about nuclear fusion?

Although the whole thing is fundamentally different, nuclear fusion also produces radioactivity. With hydrogen technology, which is mainly used at the moment, a lot of neutrons are released, which penetrate the material of the reactor walls. There they ensure that certain elements in the wall then become radioactive.

A fusion reactor also produces radioactive waste – but it is still unclear how much.

The goal is to use materials that are only radioactive for a short period of time, at most a few hundred years. With the technology now known, a fusion reactor also produces radioactive waste, although it is still unclear how much. Certainly, however, the radiating waste will be significantly shorter-lived than the waste from today’s nuclear power plant, where certain elements can radiate for hundreds of thousands of years.

The conversation was conducted by Roger Brändlin.

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