A major breakthrough has been announced by US scientists in the race to recreate nuclear fusion.

Physicists have pursued the technology for decades as it promises a potential source of near-limitless clean energy.

On Tuesday researchers confirmed they have overcome a major barrier – producing more energy from a fusion experiment than was put in.

But experts say there is still some way to go before fusion powers homes.

The experiment took place at the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California.

LLNL director Dr Kim Budil said: “This is a historic achievement… over the past 60 years thousands of people have contributed to this endeavour and it took real vision to get us here.”

Nuclear fusion is described as the “holy grail” of energy production. It is the process that powers the Sun and other stars.

It works by taking pairs of light atoms and forcing them together – this “fusion” releases a lot of energy.

It is the opposite of nuclear fission, where heavy atoms are split apart. Fission is the technology currently used in nuclear power stations, but the process also produces a lot of waste that continues to give out radiation for a long time. It can be dangerous and must be stored safely.

Nuclear fusion produces far more energy, and only small amounts of short-lived radioactive waste. And importantly, the process produces no greenhouse gas emissions and therefore does not contribute to climate change.

But one of the challenges is that forcing and keeping the elements together in fusion requires very high temperatures and pressures. Until now, no experiment has managed to produce more energy than the amount put in to make it work.

How close is a fusion-powered future?

The amount of energy they’ve generated in this experiment is tiny – just enough to boil a few kettles. But what it represents is huge.

The promise of a fusion-powered future is one step closer. But there’s still a long way to go before this becomes a reality.

This experiment shows that the science works. Before scientists can even think about scaling it up, it needs to be repeated, perfected, and the amount of energy it generates will have to be significantly boosted.

This experiment has cost billions of dollars – fusion does not come cheap. But the promise of a source of clean energy will certainly be a big incentive for overcoming these challenges.

The National Ignition Facility in California is a $3.5bn (£2.85bn) experiment.

It puts a tiny amount of hydrogen into a capsule the size of a peppercorn.

Then a powerful 192-beam laser is used to heat and compress the hydrogen fuel.

The laser is so strong it can heat the capsule to 100 million degrees Celsius – hotter than the centre of the Sun, and compress it to more than 100 billion times that of Earth’s atmosphere.

Under these forces the capsule begins to implode on itself, forcing the hydrogen atoms to fuse and release energy.

On announcing the breakthrough Dr. Marvin Adams deputy administrator for defense programs at the US National Nuclear Security Administration said that the laboratory’s lasers had input 2.05 megajoules (MJ) of energy to the target, which had then produced 3.15 MJ of fusion energy output.

Dr Melanie Windridge, CEO of Fusion Energy Insights, told the BBC: “Fusion has been exciting scientists since they first figured out what was causing the Sun to shine. These results today really put us on the path to the commercialization of the technology.”

Prof Jeremy P. Chittenden, professor of plasma physics and co-director of the Centre for Inertial Fusion Studies at Imperial College London called it “a true breakthrough moment”.

“It proves that the long sought-after goal, the ‘holy grail’ of fusion, can indeed be achieved,” he said.

This has been the sentiment echoed by physicists globally, who praised the work of the international science community.

Prof Gianluca Gregori, Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford said: “Today’s success rests upon the work done by many scientists in the US, UK and around the world. With ignition now achieved, not only fusion energy is unlocked, but also a door is opening to new science.”

On the question of how long before we could see fusion being used in power stations, Dr Budil, the LLNL director, said there were still significant hurdles but that: “with concerted efforts and investment, a few decades of research on the underlying technologies could put us in a position to build a power plant”.

This is progress from when scientists used to say 50 – 60 years in answer to that question.

One of the main hurdles is getting cost down and scaling up the energy output.

The experiment was only able to produce enough energy to boil about 15-20 kettles and required billions of dollars of investment. And although the experiment got more energy out than the laser put in, this did not include the energy needed to make the lasers work – which was far greater that the amount of energy the hydrogen produced.

World Opinions – BBC News

L’article Breakthrough in nuclear fusion energy announced est apparu en premier sur زوايا ميادين | Mayadin Columns.

A European proposal to revive the nuclear agreement between Western countries and Iran is imminent and includes the release of billions of dollars in frozen Iranian funds and oil exports in return for the scaling back of its nuclear programme.

The new deal will be carried out in four phases over two 60-day periods, sources with knowledge of the proposed agreement told Al Jazeera Arabic.

Iran recently voiced optimism about an agreement on a renewed version of the 2015 nuclear deal with the United States and other foreign powers, formally called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Iran’s negotiating team adviser Mohammad Marandi said earlier this week “we’re closer than we’ve been before” to securing a deal and the “remaining issues are not very difficult to resolve”.

The European Union’s “final text” proposal for the accord, submitted last week, was approved by the US, which says it is ready to quickly seal the agreement if Iran accepts it.

According to sources with knowledge of the matter, the proposal stipulates on the day after the agreement is signed, sanctions on 17 Iranian banks as well as 150 economic institutions will be lifted.

It also says Tehran will immediately begin to reverse the steps it took to advance its nuclear technology, which is now beyond the scope of what the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the 2015 deal’s original signatories say is acceptable.

Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium is now at 60 percent enrichment, its highest ever and a jump from the 3.67 percent limit set out by the 2015 deal. Enrichment at 90 percent is needed to build a nuclear bomb.

Within 120 days of signing the agreement, Iran will be permitted to export 50 million barrels of oil per day. The deal also includes the release of $7bn of Iran’s funds, which are currently being held in South Korea, the sources said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

The US will have to pay a fine in the event it withdraws from the nuclear agreement again, as it did under the administration of former President Donald Trump in 2018, according to the sources.

With a revived nuclear deal, the US and the deal’s other signatories – France, the United Kingdom, Germany, China and Russia, known collectively as the P5+1 – aim to contain the nuclear programme and prevent what many warn could be a nuclear weapons crisis in the Middle East.

Iran maintains its aims are peaceful and its actions fall within the country’s sovereign rights to a civilian nuclear programme.

Obstacles to overcome

One of the main sticking points to reviving a deal appears to be a safeguards inquiry into Iran’s nuclear programme by the IAEA, which Tehran wants closed for good before the JCPOA is restored.

The nuclear watchdog has demanded more cooperation on traces of man-made nuclear particles found at several Iranian sites years ago, saying that is the only way the inquiry could be terminated.

Another factor is the US designation of Iran’s elite military force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), as a “foreign terrorist organisation”. The US appears reluctant to meet Tehran’s demand to remove the IRGC from the blacklist to seal the deal.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has suggested the IRGC’s “terror” designation falls outside the purview of the nuclear deal and, therefore, requires separate concessions from Iran.

Right-wing US politicians and Israel, the arch-rival of Iran, have warned Washington against lifting sanctions on the IRGC. Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid spoke to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Thursday, pressing Israel’s position that efforts to revive a nuclear deal with Iran should end.

Tehran, meanwhile, has said it will never shelve plans for revenge after the killing of the Revolutionary Guard’s top general, Qassem Soleimani.

Soleimani, who headed the elite Quds Force, the foreign operations arm of the IRGC, was killed in an American drone strike in Iraq’s capital, Baghdad, in January 2020.

Trump ordered Soleimani killed saying he was planning an “imminent” attack on American personnel in the Iraqi capital.

Iran responded to his assassination by firing missiles a few days later at Iraqi bases housing US troops, causing injuries. The attacks and retaliatory strikes brought the Middle East region to the brink of war.

“This is a tougher deal to sell than the 2015 deal in that this time around there are no illusions that it will serve to moderate Iranian behaviour or lead to greater US-Iran cooperation,” said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“The Iranian government stands to get tens of billions in sanctions relief and the organising principle of the regime will continue to be opposition to the United States and violence against its critics, both at home and abroad,” he said.

World Opinions – Aljazeera

L’article Iran nuclear deal ‘imminent’ with crippling sanctions removed est apparu en premier sur زوايا ميادين | Mayadin Columns.