And in the United States, scientists managed to generate more energy than the amount of energy used to cause the reaction. So says Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL).
Nuclear fusion has been the holy grail of energy production for decades. However, despite all the good prospects regarding the environment and safety, it seems not possible to make nuclear fusion viable on an industrial scale quickly.
The amount of energy, according to Paul Ryan, a spokesman for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), will be greater than in the previous test in December that was deemed “historic”. “On July 30, the new test produced a greater yield than the December 2022 trial,” says Ryan.
And US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm declared that this breakthrough “will be written in the history books.” By December 2022, scientists had produced 3.15 megajoules of energy, using 2.05 megajoules via a laser. However, it took 300 megajoules from the power grid to activate the laser, which made the operation still incurring losses. The exact results of the experiment, which uses powerful laser beams, are still awaiting results.
For decades, researchers around the world have been trying to develop nuclear fusion, or simply reverse nuclear fission, the technology currently used in nuclear power plants. Nuclear fission consists of splitting the nucleus of a heavy atom, releasing energy. In nuclear fusion, two light nuclei fuse together, which is a perfectly normal reaction in the Sun, for example.
