Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough Confirmed

[Ears and Eggs]

Apparently the team of scientists at the National Ignition Facility in California have achieved a burning plasma for the first time with their experimental fusion reactor. Unlike most other large scale nuclear fusion experiments like ITER in France, which use magnetic confinement to control the plasma for fusion, the NIF reactor uses a massive laser to confine and ignite the nuclear fusion reaction.

Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough Confirmed: California Team Achieved Ignition

If we could harness fusion to generate electricity, it would be one of the most efficient and least polluting sources of energy possible.

www.newsweek.com

National Ignition Facility - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[RedCowboy]

Converting hydrogen to helium and producing gobs of clean energy sounds good, but taking a year to confirm this early step is awful slow.

 

[Ears and Eggs]

It looks like the problem was they were unable to repeat the initial result during subsequent experiments. The team has theorized this could be due to "inconsistencies in the fabrication of the target" or some type of minute performance shifts in the lasers powering the device. Clearly some variable that we don't fully understand, or some tolerance that is so small the device might not be able to control it to the desired range has made it harder to draw a complete conclusion from the one very good result.

Exclusive: Laser-fusion facility heads back to the drawing board

US scientists evaluate their options after failing to replicate record-setting experiment from 2021.

www.nature.com