It was only for a fraction of a second, but still an important step towards generating clean energy. researchers from National Ignition Facility no Lawrence Livermore National Lab in California managed to trigger a fusion reaction. Using 192 lasers and triple the temperature of the sun’s core, two hydrogen molecules fused together to generate energy without waste. Preliminary data from the experiment had been released in August. On Wednesday, the 26th, the total results were published in the journal Nature.
The merger reached 1.5 quadrillion watts. Energy is released when hydrogen atoms fuse into helium, the same process that occurs in stars. In all, there were four experiments with the participation of more than one hundred scientists.
The laboratory is a unit dedicated to research with military purposes. The experiment is like the controlled detonation of a mini-hydrogen bomb. For this, the researchers used the technique of inertial confinement, with a gold tube containing deuterium and frozen tritium. Dropped in a vacuum chamber, this container is hit by the lasers, heating up rapidly and generating fusion.
The researchers’ goal, still a long way off, is to generate energy in the same way the sun generates heat, with hydrogen atoms so close together that they combine into helium, generating energy. According to scientists, they are close to reaching an even greater breakthrough: ignition. It occurs when fuel burns on its own, producing more energy than is needed for the initial reaction.
According to Gustavo Canal, a researcher at USP in the plasma physics laboratory, there is still a considerable distance for this to be used for the generation of clean energy, without the generation of CO2, for example, and the military purpose of the experiment is not can be left out. “In terms of experimental capacity, the technology they have developed to get where they are is very large”, he says. “If one of these lasers were fired at the moon, it would be possible to see the crater that would form.”
In August, Mark Herrmann, deputy director of Livermore’s program for fundamental weapons physics, compared the fusion reaction to the 170 quadrillion watts of sunbeams reaching the Earth’s surface. “It’s approximately 10% of that,” he said at the time. And all the fusion energy was emanating from a hot spot the size of a human hair, he added.
The explosion – basically a miniature hydrogen bomb – lasted just 100 trillionths of a second. Still, it sparked optimism among scientists who had long hoped that it could someday provide a clean, limitless energy source for humanity. The reactions surprised the scientific community because fusion requires temperatures and pressures so high that they easily fail.
Also at the time, Siegfried Glenzer, a scientist at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, Calif., who led the first fusion experiments at the Livermore facility years ago but is not currently involved in the research, said he was excited. “This is very promising for us to achieve an energy source on the planet that does not emit CO2.”
CO2 is one of the main causes of global warming. According to the latest report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate (IPCC), the Earth is warming faster than predicted and is set to reach 1.5ºC above pre-industrial levels as early as the 2030s, ten years ago. earlier than was expected. As a result, there will be more frequent extreme weather events, such as floods and heat waves.
Sustained reductions in emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases, however, could still limit the threats of these climate change. Otherwise, some of the direct effects for countries like Brazil will be more frequent droughts and a drop in food production capacity.
Since 1850, we have advanced at least 1.1ºC in average global temperature. More than 0.4°C increase will produce more severe droughts, heat waves, torrential rains, floods, tornadoes, wildfires and reinforce the trend of rising sea levels. All these effects already occur at higher levels than in the past. / com NYT
–
