Fusion replication in California signals development of power plant in Oklahoma
Aug. 11—For two brief moments, the hottest place in the solar system was Livermore, California — hotter than even the center of the sun.
The first event took place in December.
The Transcript reported that the National Ignition Facility in Livermore made a breakthrough in energy, which could pave the way for commercial fusion in Oklahoma.
The second event took place last week. The same laboratory announced it replicated the experiment, but with greater efficacy.
As part of the initial experiment, engineers directed 2.05 megajoules of laser energy at a target, bringing the temperature up to about 100 million degrees Celsius, about 175 times hotter than the sun. From that experiment, fusion created 3.015 megajoules of energy.
The laboratory has not yet released figures on the new breakthrough, but the news was well-received by University of Oklahoma Vice President for Research and Partnerships Tomas Diaz de la Rubia, who previously worked as the lab's deputy director for Science and Technology, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy.
"So apparently they were able to reproduce that big scientific breakthrough that they had in December of 2022, where they were able to get more energy from the fusion reactions than laser energy that went in," Diaz de la Rubia said.
Diaz de la Rubia said he believes the center's ability to replicate the experiment will signal to investors that it is time to make plans to commercialize the technology.
"We don't have independent confirmation yet, but according to the press reports, yield is a little bit higher than it was in December," he said. "Being able to reproduce that result is very important. It shows it wasn't a one-time fluke. It shows it is reproducible and that they can do it.
"Scientifically, it is very meaningful, but also in terms of our confidence, we can take this technology seriously and think about how to design a power plant to take advantage of this technology."
Longview Energy Systems, a fusion company, visited Diaz de la Rubia in Oklahoma a year ago to meet with possible stakeholders about building a fusion-based power plant in the state. Diaz de la Rubia said he is planning to expand OU's fusion program so locals can train to become leaders in the field and operate and work at the proposed facility.
"As these results become more robust, we have an imperative to turn this breakthrough into a commercial energy opportunity for the planet," he said.
Diaz de la Rubia said OU has partnered with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which houses this technology.
"We turned in a proposal to the Department of Energy [with other partners] to start advancing the concepts behind technology commercialization," he said. "So, it's exciting for us as we are partnered with Lawrence Livermore."
Since the breakthrough, both Diaz de la Rubia and Horst Hahn, distinguished materials visiting professor at OU, have visited the lab in California.
Upon learning what the scientists were up against, Hahn said he wasn't convinced the scientists were ever going to figure it out in his lifetime.
"When I learned initially about how the targets are supposed to be manufactured, I almost had no hope that it would ever succeed," Hahn said. "I find it very exciting that these people developed these new techniques."
He said a target is a small egg-like chamber, 2-3 millimeters in length, made from diamond, though chambers have been made from other materials.
Fusion is achieved when water atoms are fused together, which on Earth is done with giant lasers when they hit both ends of the target.
The chamber, he said, has to be cooled to compensate for the heat from the lasers, and it is filled with a deuterium and tritium mixture, or DT, which is frozen at the inner wall of the sphere.
"It's a thin layer, and it has to be atomically smooth so when the impact happens, it goes down symmetrically," he said. "Imagine you have a balloon filled with air in your hands, and your job is to squeeze it. What happens is the balloon will bulge through your fingers. It doesn't compress the way you want it to."
He said likewise, the diamond target has to be perfectly shaped to ensure that atoms are compressed evenly so they will properly fuse together.
Hank Jenkins Smith, professor of public policy and director of the Institute for Public Policy Research and analysis at OU, said the fusion team will need to educate the public on the technology before it can be marketed.
"One thing that is interesting about nuclear sources of energy is that they are very controversial," Jenkins Smith said. "Nuclear energy, both fusion and fission, grew from our defense programs, so many people associate nuclear energy or potentially fusion energy with all of the unfortunate aspects of those."
Jenkins Smith studies how new energy systems can be both socially acceptable and sustainable over time. He said many locals may not know the difference between fusion and fission energy, which may lead them to equate the two.
"It has short-term waste, but it avoids the big problem of long-term highly radioactive waste, so that's a huge advantage," he said. "So the real question is, will people understand that?"
He said his department ran a major study in January where he talked with 1,000 randomly selected people from throughout the U.S.
"The result was that most people had a much more favorable view of fusion than they did about fission, but the way you described it mattered a lot," Jenkins Smith said. "If you called it fusion energy, people tended to have much more positive views ... If you called it nuclear fusion, which many people do, then it dragged in the kind of negative imagery associated with fission."
He said the big takeaway is that scientists must be attentive to how they describe the form of energy.
"You have to anticipate that in some places and with some communities, people will have negative associations with the word, and we have to be prepared," he said.
Brian King covers education and politics for The Transcript. Reach him at bking@normantranscript.com.
