![]() “Fusion could generate four times more energy per kilogram of fuel than fission (used in nuclear power plants) and nearly four million times more energy than burning oil or coal,” the IAEA says on its website. The upsides to fusion over fission have long been known to scientists. The waste byproduct of a fusion reaction is far less radioactive than in fission, and decays far more quickly. “Fusion, on the other hand, does not create any long-lived radioactive nuclear waste.” “Nuclear fission power plants have the disadvantage of generating unstable nuclei some of these are radioactive for millions of years,” the International Atomic Energy Agency states on its website. While fission and fusion both produce clean energy in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, fission comes with a glaring downside. Nuclear fission is the opposite of nuclear fusion in that the former unleashes energy by splitting heavy atoms apart. When that chemical reaction happens, it gives off energy. In order for that process to occur, the atoms must be subjected to extremely high temperatures and pressure. Nuclear fusion occurs when two atoms of a light element such as hydrogen are heated and fused together to form a heavier element such as helium. Being able to harness and replicate it means that humankind could one day tap an almost limitless source of energy that wouldn't contribute to the climate crisis caused by the burning of fossil fuels.īut what is nuclear fusion, and how did the team of scientists in California succeed in achieving what Granholm characterized as a breakthrough? Learning from the sun Nuclear fusion, after all, is the same energy that powers the sun and every other star in the universe. After several unsuccessful attempts, the same lab was able to repeat the achievement in July 2023.When Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm announced Tuesday that the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California had successfully produced a nuclear fusion reaction that creates a net energy gain, she hailed the event as “one of the most impressive scientific feats of the 21st century.” It suggested that the core physics of controlled fusion had been cracked, creating the possibility of a process to produce cheap, carbon-free electricity. ![]() The result, known as “ignition” or net energy gain (meaning more energy out than in), was an accomplishment that scientists had been pursuing for decades. The difference, a little more than a megajoule, is roughly the amount of energy released by a hand grenade. The beams delivered 2.05 megajoules of energy, triggering a reaction that fused the hydrogen into helium and released 3.15 megajoules. In December 2022, scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California focused the world’s most powerful laser on a peppercorn-size diamond capsule filled with hydrogen. However, the US and other governments are pushing bold visions Bloomberg Terminal for fusion, and some of the world’s richest investors have piled into startups targeting one of the biggest and toughest challenges in science. The field remains full of vexing technological challenges and skepticism about near-term prospects. ![]() In late 2022, researchers celebrated a long-sought scientific milestone and replicated it in July. Fusion is the process that fuels the sun, where a crushing gravitational force smashes atoms together and unleashes their energy. Nuclear fusion has long been seen as the ultimate prize in the quest for clean and abundant energy.
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