Considered the holy grail of energy production, fusion is the opposite of the fission process that powers nuclear plants. Scientists around the world have been working for nearly a century on this clean, potentially limitless source of power.
RELATED: Why higher energy bills could be right around the corner
Scientists have apparently made a critical breakthrough in a long-sought-after energy system that could make clean, carbon-free and non-radioactive electricity production in the decades to come. A Department of Energy news conference is scheduled for Tuesday morning to announce a "major scientific breakthrough." The scientists involved said Monday they were not yet able to comment.
In stories published Sunday evening, the Financial Times and the Washington Post said the agency will announce that scientists at the federal Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have for the first time created a nuclear fusion reaction that produced more energy than it took to create.
Considered the holy grail of energy production, fusion is the opposite of the fission process that powers nuclear plants. Fusion creates power by fusing two atoms together, fission power comes from splitting them apart.
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I don’t get how fusion advances help with nuclear deterrence.
The chinese are already studying its implications on military applications.
LOL fusion weapons have existed since 1952. The US has thousands of them already and so do several other countries. It took the next 7 decades to actually figure out how to harness that power for anything other than destruction.
Please keep this technology at home, build it fast
The chinese are at it and a step ahead.
@Martin Chitembo This applies to literally every technologically break through ever, but with very little to substantiate such claims. Can you prove this?
@MeinTingles the chinese have a lot of spies
@OMNISSIAH seems to me like the Chinese can’t accomplish much without espionage
This scientific breakthrough in nuclear fusion may *save the planet.*
– Thanks China 🇨🇳 for trying to do the reverse.
What sets this fusion apart is that it’s successful by using laser, not electromagnetic, energy.
Hot damn, this is a moment to remember in history! I’m not well versed in physics, by any means, but the breakthrough accomplished by fusion rather than fission is incredible. Wow! Far reaching effects will be felt into the future.
What I don’t get is 300 MJ of power to power the Laser which produces 2 Megajoules of energy which then strikes the target and it produces 3 MJ of energy. OK yes net gain from the laser energy but isn’t the goal to beat the 300MJ needed to power the device?
From what I understood, they can scale up the “2MJ -> 3MJ” part to compensate for the 300MJ they used to power up the laser, so they are not as concerned about that step.
I´m not sure how big this news as the nuclear fusion was the “next big thing” for 80 years but I hope sincirely it´s the breaktrough
They said they put 2 mega-joules in through the lasers, and about 3 came out, everytime before this it has given less or only broken even. A whopping 1.5x increase is a MASSIVE breakthrough.
Wow. Just wow. I hope and pray cold fusion ensures the future for our children and breaks our dependence on fossil fuels. It’s a AMAZING scientific breakthrough!! We must come together to save the planet, if we don’t, we won’t have one anymore.
Hurra ! If we have some fusion power plants we should build one at the moon and mars . With unlimited power space colonization will become much easier.
Amazing achievement for humanity. I’ve been waiting for this since i was a child! I feel so lucky that it happened during my lifetime.
Why do I feel big companies are NOT happy with this news.
I am excited about my Inventions Cold Fusion is very important I am glad that my Work will go down in History as the Man who invented the Process that leads to this Discovery of the ongoing process of making futher advances in the Scientific research studies I have been in, and started the ongoing development of the System’s natural Processing of Carbon Gas Capture to the Molecular Level Cold Fusion Conversion to Hydrogen Gas that has culminated with my ongoing Partnership with NASA, NSF, the DoD Pentagon SoCom, DoE, EERE, The Consortium, Honeywell, Elon Musk and his 80,000,000 Million Dollar Carbon Capture Innovations XPRIZE, and all the other many People and Agencies that have been working and contributing to our World’s well-being..THANKYOU GOD BLESS
SPACE COMMANDER BRETT FRANKLIN SWAIN INVENTOR US SPACE FORCE TIME CORPS R&D NASA-CASA-HONEYWELL-SOCOM AND ALL THE OTHERS THAT GOT US HEAR. MOST OF ALL I THANK GOD.
ALPHA+OMEGA=INFINITY
Wow, totally waiting for this to happen, Kudos Lawrence Livermore!!
I am amazed that this happened in my lifetime. Bring science fiction to life!
Don’t get too excited Mary it’s all BS
What convenient timing during an energy crisis
Not to boast or anything, but while some of the world is in an energy crisis, the United States isn’t. Prices got expensive a while back, and its one of our favorite past times to complain about the price of gas, but there’s no crisis in the country where this all took place.
Is there an engineer with any appreciation of cost-effectiveness who really believes this technology will ever generate affordable electricity?
Let’s not pretend it will ever compete with the likes of, say, GE Hitachi’s BWRX-300 small modular reactor (SMR), to do that job, at approx $2600/kW of installed capacity.
Such science is good for progressing materials, superconductivity, etc. advances, but the $s per unit of ‘advancement’ is tantamount to being out of control.
I am excited to the implications to space travel. I think we are closer to warp fission theory in a Star Trek way.
I was just thinking this earlier, now if we could just create hydrogen and oxygen we would be set
This video makes me very happy.