‘Breakthrough’ claimed as fusion experiment generates excess energy for the first time

Before getting too excited, note that the energy used was ‘enough to boil six kettles of water’, at vast expense and effort. Still some way to go to ‘save the planet‘, to borrow a time-worn phrase from climate melodrama.
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FUSION FIRST – Scientists have hailed a ‘true breakthrough’ as a fusion reaction has successfully generated more energy than was used to create it, says Imperial College London.

For over seventy years, scientists have been attempting to harness thermonuclear fusion – the power source of stars – to generate energy.

Fusion has the potential to produce vast quantities of clean energy using few resources, requiring only a small amount of fuel and generating limited carbon emissions.

Once a fusion plasma is ‘ignited,’ it will continue to burn for as long as it is held in place.

However, fusion reactions have proven difficult to control and no fusion experiment had previously produced more energy than had been put in to get the reaction going.

At a press briefing today, it was announced that a fusion experiment at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the US has achieved this ‘holy grail,’ producing more energy than the laser pulse that was used to heat the fuel.

The energy in the laser pulse was 2.05 megajoules – equivalent to the energy of two Mars chocolate bars, or enough to boil six kettles of water.

The energy from the fusion reactions was 50% higher than the energy of the laser pulse. It was released in the form of energetic neutrons.

Full article here.