According to a media report, researchers in the USA have made a breakthrough in research into nuclear fusion as the energy source of the future. Accordingly, for the first time it is possible to release more energy than is required for the operation of the experiment.
It could be a milestone in energy production: The US Department of Energy wants to announce a breakthrough in nuclear fusion research on Tuesday. According to the Financial Times, researchers have succeeded for the first time in generating a fusion reaction that yields a net energy gain. That means more energy was gained from the reaction than was put into it. This is the crucial requirement for a usable energy source.
Should it be possible to use CO2-free nuclear fusion to generate energy, this would be an opportunity to replace fossil and climate-damaging energy sources such as oil, coal and gas. And unlike nuclear fission, which has been used for decades to generate energy in nuclear power plants, there is no long-lived radioactive waste. In addition, very little fuel is required – one gram of hydrogen can provide as much energy as eleven tons of coal.
Researchers have been trying to use nuclear fusion as an energy source since the 1950s. However, despite intensive efforts, this has not yet been achieved. “For most of us, this was only a matter of time,” a senior fusion scientist familiar with work at the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, where the discovery was made, told the Washington Post. .
At the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, researchers are working with so-called inertial fusion. A capsule filled with hydrogen is fired at with the largest laser in the world. According to the Financial Times, in the past two weeks it has been possible to generate more energy than is required for the operation of the plant: The fusion reaction in the plant has generated about 2.5 megajoules of energy, which is about 120 percent which corresponds to 2.1 megajoules of energy in the lasers, people familiar with the results said.
US Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm wanted to comment on a “major scientific breakthrough” on Tuesday, it said. The laboratory in California confirmed that a successful experiment had recently occurred. “However, the exact yield is still being determined and we cannot confirm that it is above the threshold at this time,” it said. The results would still be evaluated.
