Nuclear Fusion Achieves New Milestone on the Path to Clean Energy
Eternal energy from artificial solar fire—this has been the vision of all researchers working on nuclear fusion for 50 years. Researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California (LLNL) have now achieved a decisive breakthrough. For the first time, they were able to generate more energy from nuclear fusion than was required to initiate it.
In the fusion facility of the National Ignition Facility, the researchers used 192 high-power neodymium lasers as energy sources. With these, they converted a small amount of the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium into plasma at a temperature of approximately 60 million degrees Celsius. In this process, the hydrogen atoms fuse to form helium and release energy. While it required 1.8 megajoules to initiate the reaction, it was able to sustain itself for a fraction of a second and produce 2.5 megajoules. This represents an energy gain of 20%.
Unlike nuclear fission, nuclear fusion can generate clean energy, as it produces no radioactive waste. The demonstrated positive energy balance brings closer the possibility of using this technology industrially for sustainable, “green” electricity generation. Federal Minister of Education Bettina Stark-Watzinger, FDP, therefore welcomed the recent success as a “historic day for the energy supply of the future” and congratulated the scientists via Twitter. Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for the United Nations (UN), also called the researchers’ results an “extremely important development” in New York. This could provide significant assistance in the fight against climate change.
The breakthrough in California could also be a milestone for German projects. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Garching are working on the Wendelstein 7-X nuclear fusion research facility. There, a so-called stellarator reactor is used, in which the plasma from hydrogen isotopes is heated in a strong magnetic field. The magnets used in this process contain neodymium oxide, just like the American lasers. Thus, one can speak not only of a breakthrough for nuclear fusion, but also for this “energy metal” that makes it possible. Demand for neodymium oxide is steadily increasing, and we expect the same for price development. Investors thus have the opportunity to achieve attractive returns.