A milestone towards clean, abundant fusion energy

In a press conference held this week, the US Department of Energy led by Secretary Jennifer Granholm announced that their scientists in one of its laboratories, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, achieved on 5 December what is called "fusion ignition" which is the creation of more energy from fusion reactions than the energy used to start the process.

Sec. Granholm states that the achievement at the National Ignition Facility of LLNL is the first time ignition has ever been done in a laboratory anywhere in the world and considers it as "one of the most impressive scientific feats of the 21st Century."

Nuclear fusion involves the conversion of the lightest atom, hydrogen, into helium. It's the same energy that is produced by the Sun. We have known how to make nuclear fusion for more than half a century. Powerful countries have developed weaponry (thermonuclear bombs) involving the use of nuclear fusion. In fact, the B-83 bomb, a thermonuclear bomb, is said to be the most powerful nuclear weapon in the US arsenal first designed and developed at the LLNL in the 1970s. The challenge, therefore, is not how to create nuclear fusion but how to create it in a controlled way and harness it to produce an abundant and cheap source of fuel for commercial power generation.

We already developed nuclear fission technology (splitting of uranium and plutonium atoms) for nuclear power plants. The Bataan Nuclear Power Plant is a conventional nuclear fission reactor. But nuclear power plants come with them several huge potential hazards: meltdown from accidents (Chernobyl) to natural disasters (Fukushima Daiichi), and as vulnerable targets in military conflicts (threats posed in the Ukraine war). Nuclear fission reactors also produce highly toxic and highly radioactive substances which we have not learned to manage yet.

Energy derived from nuclear fusion, many scientists say, is the only solution that may save the world from the ill effects of climate change. Imagine replicating the energy of the Sun using cheap hydrogen (which can be produced abundantly in seawater) to fuel it. It is seen as the revolutionary technology that will eliminate our reliance on fossil fuels and produce an energy source that will not harm the environment and has the potential of ending conflicts and poverty (due to energy sovereignty).

The ignition achievement of the LNLL in the first week of December is far from producing a commercially viable energy source. This will not mean the immediate construction of nuclear fusion power plants. In fact, the LLNL experiment needed about 300 megajoules from the power grid to fire up their lasers to get 2.05 megajoules to produce a Fusion Energy of 3.15 megajoules.

For comparison, it takes about 360,000 joules to light up a 100-watt bulb in an hour. However, as Tammy Ma, plasma scientist at LLNL explains, their facilities weren't really designed and built to maximize the efficiency of every single component, and the lasers used to fire up the experiment used outdated technology in the 80s and the 90s.

Before the breakthrough experiment of the LLNL, it has been a hard-sell for politicians, and even private businesses, to fund fusion research because it has been an undertaking that has not borne fruit in the last 60 years. In fact, LLNL, even though under the US Department of Energy, is more of a laboratory for developing weaponry than creating a cheap source of fuel.

Moreover, as Umair Ifran, Vox correspondent on Energy Policy, has found, the US fusion research program has received little investment compared to other science programs. The US DOE currently spends about US$500 million on fusion per year, compared to almost US$1 billion on fossil fuel energy and US$2.7 billion on renewables, while the US government provides NASA with US$23 billion yearly, and the US military, with US$700 billion a year.

It is certainly hoped that this technological milestone by LLNL will give world policymakers and private investors the psychological confidence of investing more money in fusion technology research. In fact, US Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer announced on the same day of the press conference that the US government gave the highest-ever authorization of over US$624 million in the National Defense Authorization Act on the fusion program following the breakthrough.

Surely, this will change how the public will view or accept government funding in such endeavors now that it is proven that physics can work.