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Revolutionary nuclear fusion technology

02.03.2020

Startup HB11, created at the University of New South Wales, has applied for and received patents in the US, Japan and China. The company's technology uses lasers to run a nuclear fusion reaction in hydrogen and boron - ostensibly without the involvement of radioactive fuel. The secret is in the cutting-edge laser and, apparently, in the element of luck.

According to the developers, the laser does not heat the materials. Instead, it accelerates hydrogen to the point where it must collide with boron to start the reaction. "You can imagine that hydrogen is being used as a dart to hit a boron target. If that happens, a reaction is triggered," explains managing director Warren McKenzie.

If hydrogen still recombines with a boron particle, then as a result of the reaction, helium atoms are released, the absence of electrons in which indicates their positive charge - this is how electricity is obtained.

The laser itself plays an important role in the process. For four decades, physicists and chemists have been developing laser fusion technology, but it was only possible to implement it after 2018, when three scientists shared the Nobel Prize for the invention of a chirped pulsed laser. Thanks to chirped emitters, it was possible, for example, to develop ultra-precise laser surgery and take pictures of moving atoms.

The essence of the new invention is to completely replace the "obsolete" technologies of thermonuclear fusion, which require ultra-high temperatures.

"An environmentally friendly and absolutely safe fusion reactor can be placed in the heart of densely populated areas without the threat to the population that arises from the use of nuclear fission reactors. This means that such a nuclear power plant will be much cheaper and simpler than the reactors we are used to," says Professor Heinrich Hora , who owns the idea of using laser technology.

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The American orbital lunar probe LADEE officially ceased to exist after a collision at a speed of 5800 km / h with the lunar surface, which he had been studying since November last year. The destruction of the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer spacecraft was the planned and final milestone of NASA's current exploration program.

Initially, the duration of the mission, which included studying the composition of the lunar atmosphere and dust, was 100 days, but specialists from the American Space Agency decided to extend the study for another 28 days. After the end of the allotted time for LADEE, the spacecraft received a command to deorbit for a subsequent fall on the only satellite of the Earth.

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