The recent achievement of fusion ignition—meaning more energy came out of a self-sustaining fusion reaction than was put in—at Lawrence Livermore

The entanglement of fusion energy research and bombs

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2024-11-23 14:00:03

The recent achievement of fusion ignition—meaning more energy came out of a self-sustaining fusion reaction than was put in—at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility (NIF) has brought to the fore long-simmering questions about whether certain experiments violate the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty on nuclear explosions. Fusion research for peaceful use and military use are highly intertwined, despite attempts to cloak nuclear weapons with the aura of the so-called “peaceful atom.” Ignition has been achieved, but there is still a remarkable silence around whether pure fusion weapons—weapons that could kill large numbers of humans with neutron radiation but have blast effects much smaller than current thermonuclear weapons—are an objective of the overall program. Even if not an explicit objective, would they be built if fusion technology makes them feasible?

Research and experiments into weapons-related nuclear fusion and commercial energy fusion are highly entangled, and have been notably so since the 1950s, after the Soviets conducted their “layer cake” nuclear test with a fusion component in 1953, and the US did its 15-megaton Bravo test in 1954—a test of a thermonuclear weapon. To improve the terrible public relations image that those tests cast over the world, the Eisenhower administration came up with a carefully orchestrated propaganda campaign for nuclear power, with the tag line “atoms for peace.” That is happening again after the recent achievement of ignition at the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, with the difference that the world does not even know whether pure fusion weapons are on the agenda.