Opinion A breakthrough in US laboratory offers new promise for clean energy

For more than nine decades scientists have tried to replicate the process that produces energy for the sun and the stars — fusion. On Tuesday, researchers at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) in California, USA, announced a milestone in this endeavour. They merged two nuclei to produce a heavier nucleus. Their reactor produced about 1.5 times more energy than what was used in the process. In all the earlier attempts to harness the power of fusion, the reactors used up more energy than what was produced. But scientists say that it will be at least two decades before the process pioneered in the California laboratory can be scaled up. Moreover, the NIF’s primary mandate is defence related, making the immediate prospects of clean energy from its reactors remote. Even then, in a world desperately searching for technologies that can power the developmental needs of nations without adding to the GHG load, the breakthrough at NIF has generated excitement.

Several countries are shifting to renewable energies to meet their international climate-related commitments. Yet, power generation currently is responsible for 25-30 per cent of global GHG emissions. The inherently unstable nature of renewables means that countries find it very difficult to jettison fossil-fuel energy sources. Conventionally-produced nuclear energy — that uses fission technology — is relatively cleaner. But accidents at Chernobyl in 1986 and Fukushima in 2011 have raised serious questions over the safety of fission-powered plants. According to the IEA’s best-case scenario, the world’s nuclear energy generation capacity is likely to double by 2050 compared to 2020. The global body has repeatedly flagged concerns about the efficacy of the nuclear reactors — by and large in the US and Europe — given that about two-thirds of them have been in operation for more than 30 years. It has also maintained that the realisation of the best-case scenario would require significant investments in innovative nuclear technologies.

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The UK-based JET laboratory has increased its net output in the past 25 years. Last year, researchers reported that they had created “a mini star and held it together for five seconds”. At an international collaborative project in France, of which India is also a part, researchers are using magnetic fields to create fusion. Japanese, Chinese and South Korean scientists are also working on this technology. Their efforts will be keenly watched.