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Page added on December 11, 2022

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US scientists boost clean power hopes with fusion energy breakthrough

US scientists boost clean power hopes with fusion energy breakthrough thumbnail

US government scientists have made a breakthrough in the pursuit of limitless, zero-carbon power by achieving a net energy gain in a fusion reaction for the first time, according to three people with knowledge of preliminary results from a recent experiment. Physicists have since the 1950s sought to harness the fusion reaction that powers the sun, but no group had been able to produce more energy from the reaction than it consumes — a milestone known as net energy gain or target gain, which would help prove the process could provide a reliable, abundant alternative to fossil fuels and conventional nuclear energy. The federal Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, which uses a process called inertial confinement fusion that involves bombarding a tiny pellet of hydrogen plasma with the world’s biggest laser, had achieved net energy gain in a fusion experiment in the past two weeks, the people said. Although many scientists believe fusion power stations are still decades away, the technology’s potential is hard to ignore. Fusion reactions emit no carbon, produce no long-lived radioactive waste and a small cup of the hydrogen fuel could theoretically power a house for hundreds of years. The US breakthrough comes as the world wrestles with high energy prices and the need to rapidly move away from burning fossil fuels to stop average global temperatures reaching dangerous levels.

Through the Inflation Reduction Act, the Biden administration is ploughing almost $370bn into new subsidies for low-carbon energy in an effort to slash emissions and win a global race for next-generation clean tech. The fusion reaction at the US government facility produced about 2.5 megajoules of energy, which was about 120 per cent of the 2.1 megajoules of energy in the lasers, the people with knowledge of the results said, adding that the data was still being analysed. A diagram explaining how the US government’s National Ignition Facility is experimenting with inertial confinement fusion to obtain energy from fusion reaction The US department of energy has said energy secretary Jennifer Granholm and under-secretary for nuclear security Jill Hruby will announce “a major scientific breakthrough” at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on Tuesday. The department declined to comment further. The laboratory confirmed that a successful experiment had recently taken place at its National Ignition Facility but said analysis of the results was ongoing. “Initial diagnostic data suggests another successful experiment at the National Ignition Facility. However, the exact yield is still being determined and we can’t confirm that it is over the threshold at this time,” it said. “That analysis is in process, so publishing the information . . . before that process is complete would be inaccurate.” Two of the people with knowledge of the results said the energy output had been greater than expected, which had damaged some diagnostic equipment, complicating the analysis. The breakthrough was already being widely discussed by scientists, the people added. “If this is confirmed, we are witnessing a moment of history,” said Dr Arthur Turrell, a plasma physicist whose book The Star Builders charts the effort to achieve fusion power. “Scientists have struggled to show that fusion can release more energy than is put in since the 1950s, and the researchers at Lawrence Livermore seem to have finally and absolutely smashed this decades-old goal.”

The $3.5bn National Ignition Facility was primarily designed to test nuclear weapons by simulating explosions but has since been used to advance fusion energy research. It came the closest in the world to net energy gain last year when it produced 1.37 megajoules from a fusion reaction, which was about 70 per cent of the energy in the lasers on that occasion. At the launch of a new White House fusion power strategy this year, Congressman Don Beyer, chair of the bipartisan fusion energy caucus, described the technology as the “holy grail” of clean energy, adding: “Fusion has the potential to lift more citizens of the world out of poverty than anything since the invention of fire.” Most fusion research is focused on a different approach known as magnetic confinement fusion, in which the hydrogen fuel is held in place by powerful magnets and heated to extreme temperatures so the atomic nuclei fuse. Historically, that science has been done by large publicly funded laboratories, such as the Joint European Torus in Oxford, but in recent years investment has also flooded into private companies promising to deliver fusion power in the 2030s. In the 12 months to the end of June, fusion companies raised $2.83bn in investment, according to the Fusion Industry Association, bringing total private sector investment to date to almost $4.9bn. Nicholas Hawker, chief executive of Oxford-based start-up First Light Fusion, which is developing an approach similar to that used at NIF, described the potential breakthrough as “game-changing”. “It couldn’t be more profound for fusion power,” he said.

FT



35 Comments on "US scientists boost clean power hopes with fusion energy breakthrough"

  1. makati1 on Sun, 11th Dec 2022 9:44 pm 

    How could FT be about anything but “investment” propaganda, which this article is in spades.

    IF, and that is a humungus IF, fusion is ever practical, it has to be hugely profitable before it will ever be more than a toy for the engineers and scientists. That will never happen. The entire economic/financial system of the world is melting down as I type. Not to mention that a world war is just waiting in the wings to bust up every dream.

    I don’t read ads, especially long ones full of unicorn farts and rainbows. They never come to pass. I learned that a long time ago when they promised that “electric would be too cheap to meter” so they could promote nuclear power plants (and the ability to make nukes at the serf’s expense.

    The only real fusion power is the light that comes up in the East and sets in the West. The only truly “renewable” energy.

  2. We know it all on Mon, 12th Dec 2022 10:23 am 

    GOD and I runs everything important here: electrical grid, entropic decay, human body.

    It has been shown to the energetic beings of earth that we indeed run the electrical grid mathematical equations on my last car trip to Canadian Tire.

    We also know that you plan on using the mayors of big cities, the big mutual funds like Blackrocks, Vanguad, the big corporation like ABB, Siemens and the so called intellectual elite to take control of the world.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9cArGj8KHA

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSVpth7uqb4

  3. Duncan Idaho on Mon, 12th Dec 2022 10:29 am 

    “I have lived with several Zen masters… all of them cats.”
    —Eckhart Tolle

  4. We control everything on Mon, 12th Dec 2022 10:52 am 

    We control everything including the weather.

    RUSSIA PLUNGES TO -61C (-77.8F); RECORD-COLD AND SNOW-CHAOS HIT THE UK, SENDING ENERGY PRICES TO UNPRECEDENTED HIGHS; SIERRA SLAMMED WITH SNOW, MORE THREATENS CENTRAL US; + AUSTRALIA BUSTS 20+ MONTHLY LOW TEMPERATURE RECORDS

    electroverse_co/russia-plunges-to-61c-record-cold-uk-sierra-slammed-with-snow-australia-busts-20-monthly-records/

  5. peakyeast on Tue, 13th Dec 2022 8:21 am 

    The fact that they need to write 120% – instead of honestly saying it produces 20% while not subtracting the vast amounts of energy needed to get the tritium and other inputs shows how much of a piece of propaganda this is.

    They are still 30 years away from anything remotely useful to society.

  6. the following elite whitey (((supertard))) ALICE (RA, SWT, SAWS) did not MUZZ-19 neither is elite whitey supertard KAT on Tue, 13th Dec 2022 9:10 am 

    ahamdudillah elite whitey supertard and (((supertards))) won’t expire soon due to MUZZ-19

    DROPOUT-19 created MUZZ-19 in his basement. He mixed his semen with it.

    supertards please change ur undies after 3 weeks

    please feel at ease among friends
    we’re all lovers of supremacist muzzies here

  7. ahamdudillah elite whitey (((supertard))) ALICE (RA, SWT, SAWS, PBUH) did not MUZZ-19 neither is elite whitey supertard KAT on Tue, 13th Dec 2022 9:20 am 

    adhamdudilah supertards please change ur undies after 3 weeks

    please feel at ease among friends, we’re all lovers of supremacist muzzies here

  8. Daiwai on Wed, 14th Dec 2022 2:00 am 

    I agree with makati1 and, if it’s to be cheap, abundant energy, how will investors get a return?

  9. Dredd on Wed, 14th Dec 2022 9:14 am 

    Yeah but Edith Ann made a sandwich (On The Origin of The Containment Entity – 5).

  10. PM Lee of Singapore is a loser on Wed, 14th Dec 2022 12:55 pm 

    You are not supposed to be proud to drink sewage water like Singapore does. The Asian race are low IQ losers. There is something call human dignity where you don’t drink your own piss and shit. You move somewhere else, if they land you are on, has no water.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73u9jFYfNh0

  11. makati1 on Wed, 14th Dec 2022 4:19 pm 

    PM, Americans drink water, from polluted rivers, that has been in and out of more bodies than you can imagine, human and animal. Their rivers have so many pass through drugs and farm runoff chemicals that they are affecting the fish. That runoff is causing a huge dead zone at the mouth of the Mississippi River in the Gulf of Mexico.

    Their wells are polluted with chemicals poured on GMO crops that sink into the water table and get pumped up to their kitchen table. No natural spring or brook is safe to drink. And on and on. Do some real research if you don’t believe me. Been there. Done that.

    We won’t even get into the chemicals in the food they and YOU eat. Read labels.

    All you did with your rant is prove your ignorance, arrogance, xenophobia and stupidity. Well done!

  12. Duncan Idaho on Thu, 15th Dec 2022 3:46 pm 

    Fat Boy problems:

    “The problem isn’t some highfalutin moral issue, such as Republican lawmakers putting their party over their country. It’s something far more prosaic. They want to keep their jobs.

    Which means the GOP continues to rot as a political party, as a governing institution, and as a moral entity. That may be good for Democrats in 2024, but in the larger sense it’s bad for us all.”

  13. Duncan Idaho on Thu, 15th Dec 2022 4:17 pm 

    Florida pastor and son arrested in alleged $8m Covid relief fraud scheme

    Only 8 million?
    They are embarrassing their fellow pastors.
    They can rip better than that—

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/dec/15/florida-pastor-son-arrested-alleged-8m-covid-relief-scheme

  14. makati1 on Thu, 15th Dec 2022 4:38 pm 

    Since the US is now a fascist corporatocracy, it does not matter if there are no Dumbocrats or Repuglicans. They are all government whores anyway. The US is nothing more than a clown show with antique nukes, soon to be replaced by Russia and China as the world leaders.

    If the US tries to use those antique nukes, it will be obliterated in the first hour. The US generals know that, but the clowns in DC are in denial. So be it.

  15. Duncan Idaho on Thu, 15th Dec 2022 5:04 pm 

    Prosecutors say Iowa police chief lied to buy machine guns

    Pigs and guns.
    Is it a small dick problem, or just cowards?

    Pigs and lying are a given.

    https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2022/12/15/prosecutors-say-iowa-police-chief-lied-to-buy-machine-guns.html

  16. Dredd on Fri, 16th Dec 2022 7:14 am 

    “clean power hopes”

    Global warming induced climate change bling (On The Origin of Quantum Bling).

  17. Duncan Idaho on Fri, 16th Dec 2022 10:41 am 

    Some are losing:

    https://i.redd.it/afbjna4r7aw61.jpg

  18. Outcast_Searcher on Fri, 16th Dec 2022 4:43 pm 

    I have to agree with the bears on this one.

    Aside from the false claim of “break-even” (re Q(practical) or Q(engineering) energy production, this is a nothing-burger in a long line of gradual progress, but still LIGHT YEARS away from practical commercial scale production.

    Don’t take my word for it. Google things like “fusion q values”. Concept — the practical energy production needed for commercial viability is likely on a scale of 10 to 50 times higher than the Q(scientific) or Q(experimental) value the hype is touting (in quest for more funding). o

    And sadly, both the popular press and scientists aren’t beating the drum hard enough to point this out to the voting public.

    And hey, I’m rooting on this (some day), but for $billions we can build a HELL of a lot of traditional green energy and batteries REAL SOON NOW, vs. investing $billions in hopes and dreams on commercial fusion power.

    For example:

    https://news.newenergytimes.net/2022/04/08/fusion-q-values-and-breakeven-explained/

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ4W1g-6JiY

  19. Outcast_Searcher on Fri, 16th Dec 2022 4:45 pm 

    Duncan Idaho: Are you suffering from brain damage or a drug problem? If you can’t even REMOTELY discuss the topic, why post?

  20. makati1 on Sat, 17th Dec 2022 1:14 am 

    Outcast, your “renewable” dream is just that. Not going to get beyond a small percent of energy production in the future and may just fade away due to cost. The resources to make it possible will not be allocated to it as they have to come from basic survival needs like home construction, food production/distribution, home heating, repairing existing infrastructure, not to mention the dreams of the developing world that want what you have been enjoying.

    So your billion 1st world wasters are going to lose to the other seven billion, most of whom have those resources you need for your dream and they want to use them themselves. The days of Western plundering of the rest is over. Adjust.

  21. Duncan Idaho on Sat, 17th Dec 2022 10:12 am 

    Can we admit now that crypto is a festering cesspool of alt-right sympathizers and scammers?

    Let’s do it comrades!

  22. makati1 on Sat, 17th Dec 2022 4:52 pm 

    Crypto was always a joke. As if any government was going to let it exist when they had plans for their own digital system to control all financial activities and you. Just another gambling casino until it is shut down.

  23. Duncan Idaho on Sun, 18th Dec 2022 3:18 pm 

    Bible studies:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQFI66E12sU

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