US Scientists Achieve Major Breakthrough In Developing Clean Energy Using Nuclear Fusion

Nuclear scientists in the US have successfully conducted an experiment that could bring us to a world where limitless clean energy would be possible with the help of nuclear fusion.

EuroFusion

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The experiment was conducted by scientists from the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the US. Here, scientists focussed lasers from the NIF into tiny capsules containing deuterium and tritium -- different forms of the element hydrogen -- producing extreme temperatures and pressures similar to that of the core of our Sun.

The output of energy lasted just 100 trillionth of a second, but it was able to generate over 10 quadrillion watts of power, perfect for initiating thermonuclear fusion. After the fusion reaction is initiated, it results in the release of sub-atomic entities like alpha particles, which along with the hot plasma surrounding it, heats it up further.

The blazing hot plasma results in more alpha particles to be released, creating a sort of self-sustaining chain reaction that is known as ignition. What¡¯s surprising is that the process of ignition hasn¡¯t really been realised until the success of this experiment.

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As per the research paper which is yet to be published and peer-reviewed, scientists claim that the energy output was of over one megajoule -- a threshold needed for the start of the ignition. Moreover, the energy output was almost six times more than the previous high energy that was recorded.

Commonwealth Fusion Systems

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Now, even though this testing saw more input energy than the energy that was derived from it, scientists at Imperial College, London, who are analysing the data of the experiment revealed that this experiment was the first to even reach ignition. And this would allow more energy to be produced than ever before and eventually come to a break-even point where the energy consumed is equal to energy released.

Professor Jeremy Chittenden, co-director of the Centre for Inertial Fusion Studies at Imperial College London, said in a statement, ¡°This is crucial for opening up the promise of fusion energy and allowing physicists to probe the conditions in some of the most extreme states in the universe, including those just minutes after the Big Bang.¡±

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