USING NUCLEAR THERMAL REACTIONS TO GENERATE ELECTRICITY

Abstract: With ongoing climate change, the use of conventional energy production processes for
generating electricity leads to increased environmental pollution. Currently, the utilization of clean and
renewable energy sources remains a minor contributor to the global electricity supply. The world has
been exploring the harnessing of nuclear thermal reactions to produce electrical energy, which is
considered a superior form of clean energy due to its lack of carbon emissions and other pollutants.
Numerous organizations, including Helion Energy, the National Ignition Facility (NIF), and ITER, have
been actively involved in research in this field. The application of nuclear thermal reactions for electricity
generation holds great promise in reducing environmental pollution, providing a long-term energy supply,
and achieving high commercial viability.
I/ INTRODUCTION:
1. What problem?
- Currently, society is continually developing, leading to an increasing demand for electricity. Electricity
is generated through processes such as hydropower, thermal power, and nuclear power. Additionally,
there are clean and renewable energy sources, including solar energy and wind energy.

2. Why is it interesting and important?

- For thermal power generation, the need to burn fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas results in
severe environmental pollution, contributing to climate change. Nuclear power, while not emitting
harmful gases into the environment, carries a high potential risk of nuclear leaks or accidents at nuclear
power plants. Environmental pollution has also led to a decrease in clean water sources, impacting
hydropower generation. Clean and renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind energy, are not yet
sufficient to meet the growing energy demand. Therefore, there is a pressing need to explore additional
clean energy sources to incorporate into the electricity generation process.
3. What have been done in the research topic: Literature review:
- During the years 1980-2000, experiments using Tritium were conducted at JET, making it the world's
first fusion reactor to operate with a 50-50 Deuterium and Tritium fuel mixture. In 1997, JET achieved a
world record for nuclear fusion power output, reaching 16MW from an input of 24MW, with a Q value of
0.67. JET's goal was to achieve a Q value of 10, where Q = 1 represents a break-even point in nuclear
fusion.
- At Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), experiments have been conducted to achieve self-
heating of matter in a plasma state through nuclear fusion reactions. In these experiments, nuclear fusion
generates approximately 10 times more energy than the energy used to heat the fuel, but it is less than
10% of the total laser energy input due to the process still being relatively inefficient.
- At the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST), a record time for nuclear fusion
reaction was achieved, lasting 17 minutes and 36 seconds on December 30, 2022. However, it's important
to note that producing net energy from nuclear fusion reactions (Q > 1) still faces numerous challenges
before this technology can be commercialized.
4. What proposed solution?
- To initiate a nuclear fusion reaction, we would need to have a heat level equivalent to the temperature at
the core of the Sun (approximately 15 million degrees Celsius) and pressure about 200 billion times
greater than atmospheric pressure on Earth to maintain a stable plasma density.
- To facilitate nuclear fusion reactions, two light elements, Deuterium and Tritium (D-T), are used.
Deuterium can be extracted from seawater, and Tritium can be generated during the fusion reaction itself.
This makes the fuel source relatively accessible.
- To facilitate nuclear fusion reactions, two light elements, Deuterium and Tritium (D-T), are used.
Deuterium can be extracted from seawater, and Tritium can be generated during the fusion reaction itself.
This makes the fuel source relatively accessible.
- When the temperature and pressure are sufficiently high, and the plasma is well-contained, nuclear
fusion reactions begin to occur. At that point, it creates a Helium nucleus and releases a neutron nucleus.
This process releases a tremendous amount of energy.
- The energy released from the nuclear fusion process can be collected and converted into various forms
of energy through appropriate processes and devices.
5. What will be mentioned in the Body of your writing:
- What is nuclear fusion, and why is it considered clean energy?
II/ Material and Methods:
- We are researching nuclear fusion reactions to generate energy. Nuclear fusion is a process where two
light atomic nuclei combine to form a heavier nucleus, releasing energy in the process. The energy is
released because the total mass of the single nucleus formed is less than the combined mass of the two
original nuclei. The mass lost is converted into energy, as described by the equation E = mc2, which states
that mass and energy can be interconverted. This equation explains why this process can occur.
- Nuclear fusion reactions involve various elements from the periodic table. However, scientists are
particularly interested in two isotopes of hydrogen: Deuterium and Tritium (D-T). When D-T fusion
occurs, it produces a neutron and a Helium nucleus while releasing more energy than most other nuclear
fusion reactions. Additionally, D-T fusion reactions occur at lower temperatures compared to other
elements, and the energy generated from the reaction can be converted into electrical power or other
forms of energy.
- For Helion Energy Company:
+ Fuel: Helion Energy utilizes a combination of Deuterium and Helium-3 as fuel. These two elements
enable most nuclear fusion reactions, releasing only 5% of the energy in the form of neutrons. Helium-3
is rare and expensive, so instead, Helion creates Helium-3 through secondary reactions involving
Deuteron-Deuteron (D-D) and Deuterium-Helium-3 reactions. The D-D reaction has an equal chance of
producing Helium-3 atoms and generating Tritium atoms with one proton.
+ Confinement: In addition, Helion Energy employs magnetic fields from a reverse-field configuration
(FRC) plasmoid to prevent energy loss in the plasma. This is a noteworthy plasma configuration with
closed magnetic field lines, high beta values, and the ability to penetrate the interior.
+ Compression: Two FRC plasmoids are accelerated to speeds exceeding 300 km/s using pulsed
magnetic fields, after which they merge into a single high-pressure plasmoid.
+ Energy Production: Energy is captured by directly converting the expansion of the plasma into a
current within the compressed coil and magnetic acceleration. It directly converts the high-energy nuclear
fusion products into electrical potential. Helium-3 produced by the D-D fusion reaction carries 0.82 MeV
energy, the secondary product Tritium carries 1.01 MeV, while Protons generate 3.02 MeV. This
approach eliminates the need for steam turbines, cooling towers, and associated energy losses.
+ Development history:

 Prototype #4 'Grande': In 2014, a fourth prototype named 'Grande' was developed to test
operations at high fields. Grande was compressed using a 4 Tesla magnetic field, forming
centimeter-sized FRCs (Field-Reversed Configurations), and achieved a plasma temperature of 5
keV. In 2015, Helion demonstrated the capability to directly recover energy from the magnetic
field for the first time using a small-scale pulsed power system, employing modern high-voltage
insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) switches to achieve energy recovery with a round-trip
efficiency of over 95% for more than one million shots.
 Prototype #5 'Venti': Featuring a 7 Tesla magnetic field and operating at high density, with ion
temperatures of 2 keV. Helion presented detailed experiments on D-D fusion, which produced
neutrons. These experiments achieved plasmas with temperatures in the multi-keV range and a
density product three times greater than 6.4x10^18 keV·s/m3.
 Prototype #6 'Trenta': The company announced that after a 16-month testing cycle with over
10,000 shots, Trenta reached a temperature of 100 million degrees Celsius, the temperature they
intend to achieve in a commercial fusion reactor. With a magnetic field not exceeding 10 Tesla,
ion temperatures exceeding 8 keV, and electron temperatures exceeding 1 keV, Helion reported
an ion density of up to 3x10^22 ions/m^3 and a confinement time of up to 0.5 ms.
 Prototype #7 'Polaris': The project was developed in 2021 and is expected to be completed by
2024. This device accelerates shots from one shot every 10 minutes to one shot per second in a
short period of time. This prototype is expected to be capable of heating nuclear plasma to
temperatures exceeding 100 million degrees Celsius. Polaris is planned to be 25% larger than
Trenta to ensure that the ions do not disrupt the confinement.
- National Institute for Finance (NIF):
+ What would happen if the world's most powerful 192 high-energy laser beams converged on a target the
size of a peppercorn, filled with hydrogen atoms? This is akin to what occurs inside the Sun and other
stars, which is a nuclear fusion reaction. The NIF's laser cluster has the potential to create nuclear fusion
reactions in a laboratory setting, replicating the temperature and pressure conditions found in the cores of
stars and giant planets, as well as within nuclear weapons.

+ How NIF’s Lasers Work:

 The world's largest and most powerful laser system is a massive laser amplifier. Like most large
laser beams, the NIF (National Ignition Facility) uses high-intensity white light beams from
gigantic flash lamps to 'pump' electrons in large laser glass plates to higher energy states, with
only one-millionth of a second of existence per pulse.
 A small pulse of laser light, 'tuned' to the energy of the excited electrons, is passed through the
laser glass plates. This laser pulse stimulates the electrons to drop to lower energy states or emit
laser photons of the same wavelength.
 This process generates a large number of photons with the same wavelength and direction,
creating an extremely bright and focused beam of light. The initially low-energy pulse is
amplified more than one million times to produce 192 high-energy laser beams.

+ How NIF Targets Work:

 In an NIF ignition experiment, a small capsule containing two forms of hydrogen, deuterium (D)
and tritium (T), is suspended inside a cylindrical X-ray oven called a hohlraum. When the
hohlraum is heated to temperatures exceeding 3 million degrees Celsius by NIF's powerful laser
beams, the X-rays it generates heat up and ablate or strip away the surface of the target capsule,
known as a "shell." This creates a rocket-like thrust, compressing and heating the DT fuel to
extreme temperatures and densities until hydrogen atoms fuse, producing helium nuclei (alpha
particles) and releasing high-energy neutrons as well as other forms of energy.
 If the implosion is symmetric and the compression, as well as the temperature at the 'hot spot' in
the center of the target, are sufficient, the alpha particles produced will propagate out and heat the
surrounding cold fuel, triggering a self-sustaining nuclear fusion reaction. This process can
produce energy equal to or exceeding the energy supplied to the target, a condition referred to as
ignition.
- The following advantages make nuclear fusion a promising and necessary form of clean, sustainable,
and carbon-free energy:
+ Abundant Energy: Controlled fusion, by combining atomic nuclei, releases energy more than four
million times greater than chemical reactions such as burning coal, oil, or natural gas, and four times that
of nuclear fission reactions (at equal mass). Fusion has the potential to provide the fundamental power
source needed to supply electricity to our cities and industries.
+ Millions of Years: The fusion reactions in ITER will require two elements: deuterium and tritium.
Deuterium can be extracted from any form of water, while tritium will be generated in the nuclear fusion
reactions when thermal neutrons interact with lithium. (Earth's lithium reserves will allow fusion power
plants to operate for over 1,000 years, while lithium reserves in the oceans, used in nuclear fusion reactors
as the Li-6 isotope, will meet the demand for millions of years.) The significant challenge is how to
reliably produce and recover tritium within a nuclear fusion device.
+ No CO2 Emissions: Fusion reactions do not emit harmful substances such as carbon dioxide or other
greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Its primary byproduct is helium: an inert, non-toxic gas.
+ No Long-Lived Radioactive Waste: Nuclear fusion reactors do not produce long-lived, high-activity
nuclear waste. The activation of components within the fusion reactor is predicted to be low enough for
materials to be recycled or reused within 100 years, depending on the materials used in the "first wall"
facing the plasma.
+ Reduced Proliferation Risks: Fusion reactions do not use fissile materials like uranium and plutonium.
(Tritium, a radioactive material, is not a fissile material.) No materials enriched in a fusion reactor like
ITER can be exploited to manufacture nuclear weapons.
+ No Meltdown Risk: Nuclear fusion tokamak devices cannot experience nuclear accidents like
Fukushima. It is extremely challenging to achieve and maintain the precise conditions required for fusion
reactions—if any disruption occurs, the plasma will cool down within seconds, and the reaction will stop.
The amount of fuel present in the chamber at any given time is only sufficient for a few seconds, with no
risk of a runaway reaction.
III/ CONCLUTION:
- Producing electricity to power the world through nuclear fusion is a significant advancement for
humanity. It harnesses the most abundant and fundamental source of energy on Earth while being
environmentally safe:
+ Technological Advancements: Significant advancements have been made in nuclear fusion technology,
with large projects like ITER in the process of construction and development. However, the
commercialization of nuclear fusion power remains a distant goal.
+ Energy Efficiency and Safety: Nuclear fusion continues to promise a clean energy source with the
potential for large-scale energy production and minimal risk of radioactive waste compared to nuclear
fission.
+ Technical and Financial Challenges: Maintaining and controlling nuclear fusion reactions remains a
significant challenge, especially in terms of maintaining stable plasma conditions. Additionally, nuclear
fusion projects require substantial investment and long development timelines.
+ International Collaboration: There has been an increase in international collaboration in the field, with
the participation of many countries and organizations. This is important for optimizing resources and
sharing knowledge.
+ The Future of Energy: Nuclear fusion is considered an important part of the future energy landscape,
especially in the context of efforts to reduce carbon emissions and combat climate change.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:
First and foremost, I would like to express my profound gratitude to Dr. Nguyen Thi Anh Thu for
providing guidance, expertise, and wholehearted support throughout the course of this research project.
Dr. Thu's dedication and deep knowledge have not only been inspirational but also instrumental in the
success of this research.
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