In California 1.3 megajoules from nuclear fusion

The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has announced a major breakthrough in research into nuclear fusion, the least known and opposite reaction to nuclear fission. Fusion is the sun’s way of producing energy, and the laboratory in Livermore, California announced that it was able to produce 1.3 megajoules, albeit very briefly. Omar A. Hurricane, chief scientist for the fusion program, explained to CNBC: “Our achievement is a significant step forward in understanding what is needed for it to work.” At the National Ignition Facility, the space dedicated to these experiments with the size of three football fields, super-powerful laser beams create temperatures and pressures similar to those produced in the nuclei of stars: focusing a laser beam on a target produced “a hot spot the diameter of a human hair, generating more than 10 quadrillion watts of fusion power per 100 trillionths of a second, ”they explain in a written note. “Ignition is a turning point in the merger process. Once that happens, a feedback process is generated where heating creates more fusion, which creates more heating, which creates more fusion, and so on. “But getting to the point where a fusion reaction produces more energy than it does. uses, is still to come. With this experiment there has not yet been any net gain in energy compared to the electricity taken to carry out the experiments. But the fusion energy generated was still about 5 times the energy absorbed and about 70% of the laser energy fired at the target. The news certainly represents progress, but does not yet highlight a sea change in the way energy will be generated in the near future: “” The current experiment produces a great amount of energy but only for a very short time. Other experiments like this will produce more energy for longer durations, important steps on the road to commercial power generation that require production. net positive energy over long periods of time, “said the director of nuclear innovation at the Clean Air Task Force. But there is still a long way to go.