Light My Fire

 Every kid has that moment of excitement when he focuses the sun’s rays through a magnifying glass on a bit of leaf and it starts to smolder. Imagine the exhilaration of the scientists at Lawrence Livermore's National Ignition Facility (NIF) each time all of its 192 ultra-powerful laser beams are focused on a tiny deuterium-tritium filled capsule causing it to implode. In one such experiment recently, the yield of neutrons reached nearly a thousand million million neutrons (1 x 10¹⁵) setting a new record for neutron energy yield at the NIF.

For the first time "the yield was significantly greater than the energy deposited in the hot spot by the implosion," said Ed Moses, principal associate director for NIF and Photon Science.

Establishing a self-sustaining fusion reaction – ignition - is now one step closer. These experiments underpin the primary mission of NIF to provide experimental insight and data for the stewardship of the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile. Demonstrating ignition is the first step required to permit fusion energy to be used for civilian energy production and for weapons validation that avoids underground testing.

Developing fusion energy could be a revolutionary moment in human history. Today’s nuclear power plants run on fission, not fusion. Fission reactions produce large volumes of radioactive by-products and wastes that remain hazardous for thousands of years, creating a storage problem. Fusion is preferred over fission since it produces almost no radioactivity, releases more energy per gram of fuel, and is a self-terminating reaction, so fusion reactors can’t melt down like fission reactors have. Also, since the energy release per gram of fuel is so great, only about 200 kg of fuel is needed to supply the energy equivalent of all the oil consumed in the US each day. Commercial applications are still ‘decades away’ according to most observers, however.

https://www.llnl.gov/news/newsreleases/2013/Aug/NR-13-08-04.html?utm_source=buffer&utm_campaign=Buffer&utm_content=buffer3da5a&utm_medium=twitter#.Uht3pWQ1btU