2023-08-08 11:48:32
Updated Tuesday, August 8, 2023 – 11:48
A team of US scientists claimed on Monday to have succeeded in repeating a nuclear fusion experiment, but this time with greater energy production.
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory facilities HANDOUTAFP
The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the US shocked the world in December by announcing that it had carried out an experimental nuclear reaction that produced more energy than was used to cause it, a feat in the quest for unlimited clean energy to end the world. the age of fossil fuels.
“We can confirm that the experiment produced a higher yield than December 2022,” A spokesman for the lab, Paul Rhien, said in an emailed statement on Monday, without disclosing figures.
He added that the lab will provide details at upcoming scientific conferences and in peer-reviewed publications. The Financial Times was the first to report this new breakthrough.
Nuclear fusion is considered a clean, abundant and safe source of energy that could allow humanity to break its dependence on coal, oil, natural gas and other hydrocarbons that are causing a global climate crisis.
But there is a long way to go before it is viable on an industrial scale, powering homes and businesses.
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Graphic report.
The milestone of nuclear fusion, explained for those who know nothing about physics
Editor: TERESA GUERRERO Madrid Editor: ALBERTO HERNNDEZ Madrid Editor: EMILIO AMADE Madrid The milestone of nuclear fusion, explained for those who know nothing about physics
Nuclear power plants currently use fission, the splitting of the nucleus of a heavy atom to produce energy. Nuclear fusion, by contrast, combines two hydrogen atoms to form a heavier helium atom, releasing a large amount of energy in the process.
This occurs inside stars, including the Sun. On Earth, fusion reactions can be triggered by heating hydrogen to extreme temperatures inside specialized devices.
Like fission, fusion is carbon-free during operation and has other advantages: it poses no risk of nuclear catastrophe and produces far less radioactive waste.
During the December experiment, the lab used 192 ultra-powerful lasers aimed at a capsule smaller than a pea containing isotopes of hydrogen.
It produced 3.5 megajoules of energy using 2.05 megajoules through the lasers. But it took 300 megajoules of energy from the electrical grid to activate the lasers.
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