Part 1 of 2 Parts
NearStar Fusion is a five-person startup in Chantilly,Virginia. They have a new energy-generating approach for creating nuclear fusion. The company is training plasma railguns to generate more power than is put in.
Nuclear fusion is considered the holy grail of the energy sector that could solve the world’s energy needs once achieved. In nuclear fission reactors, heavy atoms are split to generate energy. In nuclear fusion reactors, very light atoms are fused together to generate energy.
The major problem faced while replicating this on Earth is that, until recently, the energy output from the process has remained smaller than the energy put in to drive the process. It was only in December of 2022 that the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory was able to produce more energy than a nuclear fusion reaction.
Many of the attempts to create nuclear fusion reactor have relied on the Tokamak design. In a Tokamak, a hydrogen plasma is heated and compressed until fusion is triggered. Inside the donut-shaped vacuum chamber of the Tokamak, researchers try to recreate the conditions on the Sun.
The NIF utilized what is called inertial confinement to achieve its breakthrough. One hundred and ninety-two lasers are focused on a pellet of hydrogen fuel to heat it to the necessary temperature. However, the lasers being used by the NIF are old and inefficient and the extra energy generated was very small.
Startups which aim to replicate the NIF’s successes are using modern lasers that can fire more regularly and efficiently. However, in order for nuclear fusion to be economically viable, the output needs to be 15-20 times more than the energy put in to fire the lasers. This is where NearStar Fusion believes that its approach will be able to reach that goal.
NearStar is a sister company to HyperJet Fusion which is also based in Chantilly. HyperJet is researching fusion energy using plasma jets. Instead of focusing on how to increase output from nuclear fusion reactors, NearStar’s team is working to reduce the energy input needed for ignition which is the beginning of nuclear fusion. According to the company this can be achieved by using plasma railguns because they are energy efficient.
A railgun is a linear motor device, typically used as a weapon. It uses electromagnetic force to launch high-velocity projectiles which do not contain explosives. It relies on the projectile’s high kinetic energy to cause damage. The railgun uses a pair of parallel conductors referred to as rails. A sliding armature is accelerated along the rails driven by electromagnetic effects of a current that flows along one rail, into the armature, and then back down the other rail. The principle is related to that used in a conventional electric motor.
A plasma railgun is a linear accelerator which, like a projectile railgun, uses two long parallel electrodes to accelerate a “sliding short” armature. However, in a plasma railgun, the armature and ejected projectile consists of plasma, a hot, ionized gas, instead of a solid slug of material such as those used in conventional railgun weapons.
Please read Part 2 next