The US Department of Energy is set to announce today a “major scientific achievement” related to the production of energy from nuclear fusion.
Researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have reportedly achieved net energy balance for the first time, that is, producing more energy than was consumed in the experiment.
The National Firing Facility at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory uses an array of powerful lasers to heat a small amount of hydrogen and cause fusion.
The latest round of experiments appears to have produced more energy than the lasers consumed, but probably less than the total amount of energy required to operate the entire system.
“This result is far from the actual positive energy balance required for electricity generation. We can therefore say that this is a scientific success, but it is far from providing free energy,” Tony Raulstone of the University of Cambridge in Britain commented to CNN.
The latest round of experiments appears to have produced more energy than the lasers consumed, but probably less than the total amount of energy required to operate the entire system.
“This result is far from the actual positive energy balance required for electricity generation. We can therefore say that this is a scientific success, but it is far from providing free energy,” Tony Raulstone of the University of Cambridge in Britain commented to CNN.
Scientists around the world have been trying for decades to harness fusion, the nuclear reaction that powers stars, to make the dream of clean, inexhaustible energy a reality.
Unlike nuclear fission reactions, in which heavy atoms such as uranium split into lighter ones, in fission reactions hydrogen atoms combine to form heavier helium atoms.
The products of the reaction have slightly less mass than the original amount of hydrogen, with the missing mass being converted into heat, which can eventually be converted into electricity.
A key obstacle is that these reactions require temperatures of more than 100 million degrees Celsius, more than 10 times hotter than the temperature at the heart of the Sun.
Other experimental setups in the US, Europe and Asia are taking a different approach, using electromagnetic fields to heat hydrogen inside reactors called tokamaks.
The official announcement is expected from the US Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm.
According to the Fusion Industry Association, in 2021 alone private investment in fusion experiments exceeded 2.8 billion.
