U.S. scientists announced a fusion energy breakthrough that could mean clean, carbon-free power in the future.
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California scientists have achieved a major advance in fusion energy, a technology that could potentially provide clean, carbon-free power in years to come, the Department of Energy announced Tuesday.
The breakthrough was made at 1:03 a.m. on Dec. 5 at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's National Ignition Facility, 50 miles east of San Francisco. The work uses giant lasers to create heat and pressure close to that found in the sun, enough to drive atoms together, releasing tremendous energy.
The advance described Tuesday was that researchers have been able to create more energy in the process than they put into it, what's known as "ignition." In a news conference, U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm described it as a "fusion breakthrough" that "will go down in the history books."
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And as an engineer I can tell you it will be another 60 years plus, for This research to be fully developed and in use. Sorry folks these people are trying to divert our attention for some reason.
Clear message about the last time we found a ‘new’ power source. And, what we may have made with it instead. Less a message to us, than to others who might speculate about our new power tech and think bombs. If we can, that will be the first thing we do with it.
Thing is this technology is only on paper they haven’t even got a working prototype so therefore this is a theory. But you are right the weapons people will probably figure it out before these guys will.
We thought the same when we discovered radiation. We used it for bombs instead of wide spread clean power production. Let us hope we can do better.
For national security reasons, the US and Canada should not let Chinese Visa students enroll in Postgraduate Nuclear Fusion programs.
This scientific breakthrough in nuclear fusion may *save the planet.*
– Thanks China 🇨🇳 for trying to do the reverse
“If you can’t afford gas just buy a 80k electric car”
This is such an exciting advancement.
I get that it’s a great step. I question the cost effectiveness of powering hundreds of lasers to achieve it. This will obviously have to be part of the equation in future development.