Nuclear fusion, one of the greatest achievements in history

Last week, the lab Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory of California (United States), has announced an unprecedented milestone that may change the history of nuclear fusion. Scientists have succeeded, for the first time in history, in generating a source of clean energyalmost unlimited and very safe thanks to a method that they have been researching for many years: nuclear fusion.

It seemed like a difficult achievement to achieve, which will allow us to leave behind nuclear energy as we knew it up to now, the danger of which has threatened the world on more than one occasion. It’s about a viable system that we can use in futuresince there are still many years of development and research on one of the most important scientific achievements of the 21st century.

Which is nuclear fusion?

Nuclear fusion is a process where several atomic nuclei fuse to form a larger nucleus. The factors that we must take into account in this process are:

• A large amount of energy is released: To give us an idea of ​​the immense amount of energy that can be obtained during this process, these reactions only occur naturally in stars. For this reaction to occur, extremely high temperatures are needed, which cannot be obtained on Earth.
• It is a very complicated process to reproduce: Scientists argue that reproducing these temperatures in a small-scale fusion reactor is an almost impossible task. The amount of energy they had to put into the reactor for this process to take place was much higher than the amount of energy they had to produce.
• It is a clean and almost unlimited energy: It is an energy that does not emit carbon dioxide (CO2) or other greenhouse gases (GHG) into the atmosphere. Another of its enormous advantages is that it does not generate nuclear waste, since this situation occurs only with nuclear fission reactors.

What are the similarities and differences between nuclear fission and nuclear fusion?

The Nuclear fision and the nuclear fusion they have in common that both are nuclear reactions whose objective is to release the energy of an atom. This energy is released in the form of heat, where it is transferred to huge water tanks from nuclear power plants to produce steam at high temperatures, where the movement of the turbines allows us to produce the electrical energy we use. The main function of a nuclear reactor is to transform the nuclear energy of atoms into thermal energy.

The fundamental difference between the two issues is that nuclear fission consists of dividing the nucleus of a heavy atom into two or more smaller nuclei, while nuclear fusion refers to the union of two or more nuclei to form one. larger.

One of the most important achievements of the 21st century

This historic achievement could change human history as we know it. Nuclear fusion is considered to be the holy grail of energy, since it is a clean energy and we do not have to burn fossil fuels. The energy it produces generates much less fuel, in addition to producing waste that is less radioactive and harmful to the environment.

To achieve this important milestone of nuclear fusion, scientists have been inspired by the mechanisms of nature to find solutions to the needs of human beings. This is its main objective, where a nuclear fusion reactor imitates the phenomena that take place in the core of stars.

Physicists and engineers involved in manufacturing nuclear fusion reactors have the mission of emulating what happens inside stars with the aim of obtaining high amounts of energy. However, several problems arise with this discovery:

• At the moment, we cannot create a gravitational pressure as high as that which occurs naturally inside stars. Therefore, it is necessary to resort to those elements that are easier to merge. Temperatures of up to 200 million degrees Celsius would be required.
• Today, scientists have managed to fuse two nuclei of deuterium and tritium, isotopes of hydrogen. Instead of using protium like stars do, they use deuterium and tritium because it is easier to mimic the conditions necessary to achieve fusion of their nuclei.

Main reactions on this historic achievement

Jennifer M. Granholm, Secretary of Energy in the Joe Biden Administration, has described this achievement as follows:

Pedro Velarde, director of the Nuclear Fusion Institute of the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM), made the following statements about this historic achievement:

Eleonora Viezzer, distinguished with the recent Princess of Girona Foundation Award for Scientific Research 2022, comments the following:

Manuel Cotelo, a researcher at the Nuclear Fusion Institute of the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM), states the following regarding the large amount of heat that is released:

Will we ever see this exorbitant power source work?

The bottom line we draw from this historic achievement is that clean energy can be generated in an exorbitant way, it is practically unlimited and it is very safe. Scientists began working on nuclear fusion 50 years ago. Despite this, there are still great challenges to be solved before a commercial nuclear fusion reactor comes to light. The passage of time will tell us how one of the most important achievements that have been made during the 21st century progresses.

Sources: Editorial Ambientum, RTVE, Four, THE WORLD, zero wave, The jump, The Energy Newspaper