Big Ideas Lab Podcast explores the future of fusion energy

Harnessing fusion energy, the same process that fuels our Sun and the stars, to power our world is one of humanity’s most ambitious scientific challenges. In December 2022, that quest took a giant leap forward when Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) achieved fusion ignition at the National Ignition Facility (NIF).

But what will it take to translate this remarkable accomplishment, which LLNL scientists have repeated six times to date, into a practical source of energy that we can plug into our homes? The answer is a lot of hard work, innovation and collaboration.

In the latest episode of “The Big Ideas Lab” podcast, learn the next steps needed to make the dream a reality and how we might get there. Hear firsthand from Tammy Ma, lead of LLNL’s Inertial Fusion Energy (IFE) Institutional Initiative, and laser physicist Issa Tamer — two of the many trailblazing scientists working on the forefront of fusion energy. Listen on Apple and Spotify.

“With ignition, we were able to show that we could get more energy out of a fusion reaction than the energy that went in to drive the reaction. This was an enormous breakthrough,” Ma said.

At NIF, researchers use lasers, 192 to be exact, that deliver their energy to a tiny target. Inside that target, isotopes of hydrogen fill an even smaller fuel capsule. When forced together, which requires tremendous pressure, heat and symmetry, these elements fuse to become helium and give off energy.

“To date, with one of our best experiments on the NIF, we've been able to get over twice as much energy out,” Ma said. To be economically viable, she and other experts estimate that fusion power plants would need to demonstrate an energy gain of 50 to 100.

“You might think that’s a really big jump from 2.3 to 50 or 100,” Tamer said. “But over the past decade, we've improved the gains on NIF by a factor of 1,000.”

While NIF has proven fusion ignition is possible, it is chiefly an experimental facility that provides the scientific basis for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s science-based Stockpile Stewardship Program, which protects the safety and security of the nation’s nuclear deterrent. NIF experiments, when the lasers fire on a target, happen about once a day. In an IFE power plant, this would need to happen 10 times a second.

And that’s just the beginning — challenges that must be solved include thermal management, the high-volume manufacturing of essential components like targets and optics, and systems that can extract the energy produced. But the promise of a safe, resilient and sustainable energy source that can transform the way we power our world is worth the effort.

“Fusion is a grand scientific and engineering challenge of humankind,” Ma said. “The idea that we can bring star power to Earth and recreate the sun’s reactions in the laboratory is so amazing.”

Listen on Apple and Spotify.