Breakthrough: Laser-Powered Fusion Experiment Nears ‘Ignition’
The post Breakthrough: Laser-Powered Fusion Experiment Nears ‘Ignition’ appeared first on POWER Magazine.
An experiment at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s (LLNL’s) National Ignition Facility (NIF) appears to have approached fusion ignition as it recreated the extreme temperatures and pressures at the heart of the sun for a tiny fraction of a second. The momentous step has fueled new optimism for fusion energy.
The experiment on Aug. 8 “was enabled by focusing laser light from NIF—the size of three football fields—onto a target the size of a BB that produces a hot-spot the diameter of a human hair, generating more than 10 quadrillion watts of fusion power for 100 trillionths of a second,” LLNL reported on Aug. 18. It achieved a yield of more than 1.3 megajoules (MJ)—and initial analysis suggests this is an eightfold improvement over experiments conducted in spring 2021, and an increase of 25 times over NIF’s 2018 record yield.
The production of that energy—which is more than any previous inertial confinement fusion experiment—proves ignition is possible, said experts from the Imperial College London, which are part of the “very large team” of industry and academia that has worked over many decades to demonstrate ignition.…
Gas Exploration and Production Company to Buy Gas-Fired Power Plant in Texas
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BKV Corp., a privately held natural gas exploration and production company headquartered in Denver, Colorado, said it will purchase the Temple 1 power plant in Temple, Texas. The deal, valued at $ 430 million and subject to customary closing conditions, is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2021.
“We’re excited about this acquisition, and the strategic steps we are taking to position BKV as a leading integrated energy company with cleaner, greener energy,” Chris Kalnin, CEO of BKV, said in a statement issued to POWER. “By extending our natural gas business into a power business we are able to deliver to unprecedented grid reliability, while also creating industry leading ESG [environmental, social, and governance] standards because we can directly certify our emissions footprint at each step in the value chain, from underground molecule to burner tip.”
State-of-the-Art Facility
Temple 1 (Figure 1) is a 758-MW combined cycle facility built in 2014.…
PSEG Agrees to Sell 6.8-GW Fossil Fleet to ArcLight Capital
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Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG) has agreed to sell its 6.8-MW portfolio of non-nuclear generating assets—a fleet of 13 gas plants—to a fund controlled by ArcLight Capital Partners LLC for about $ 1.92 billion. The sale, which effectively sets up its exit from the competitive generation business, is expected to be completed late in the fourth quarter of 2021 or the first quarter of 2022.
The divestiture revealed on Aug. 12 follows PSEG’s announcement in August 2020 that it would shed part of its merchant generation fleet to reduce overall business risk and earnings volatility; improve its corporate credit profile; and enhance its environmental, social, and governance (ESG) position. “Our intent is to accelerate the transformation of PSEG into a primarily regulated electric and gas utility—a plan we have been executing successfully for over a decade,” Ralph Izzo, PSEG chairman, president, and CEO, said in a statement at the time.
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