Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough
POSTED December 20, 2022
On Tuesday, Dec 13th, the U.S. Department of Energy announced a scientific breakthrough regarding nuclear fusion. Scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California successfully generated a fusion reaction between two hydrogen atoms and maintained that reaction in a controlled setting. The experiment pointed 192 lasers at a container holding a small pellet of fuel the size of a peppercorn. Those lasers generated 2.05 megajoules of energy, briefly heating it to over 3 million degrees Celsius and generating 3.15 megajoules of energy. This is a huge step forward in renewable energy. Energy Creation like this wouldn’t release gasses into the atmosphere while creating lots of energy. The scientific community is praising this big step forward but they still have lots of work to do before this becomes a reliable source of energy.