Nuclear fusion breakthrough: Scientists make major ‘limitless clean energy’ announcement

LLNL Director Dr Kim Budil said on Tuesday that while there were “very significant hurdles” in science and technology to getting to commercial nuclear fusion, it now was likely that it would happen in a “few” decades as opposed to 60 or 70 years as had been believed previously.

The fusion breakthrough has the potential to significantly impact the trajectory of the climate crisis – driven by the planet-heating emissions created by burning fossil fuels.

“Fusion ‘ignition’ occurs when the power emitted by the fusion reactions exceeds the losses. Experiments at the National Ignition Facility are a bit like striking a match, with this experiment the match kept burning. This is a momentous achievement after 50 years of research into Laser Fusion,” said Dr Robbie Scott, of the Science and Technology Facilities Council’s Central Laser Facility Plasma Physics Group, who contributed to this research.

He continued: “Fusion has the potential to provide a near-limitless, safe, clean, source of carbon-free baseload energy.

The director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Arati Prabhakar, who also serves as President Joe Biden’s science advisor, said on Tuesday that the nuclear fusion achievement is a “scientific milestone,” calling it an “engineering marvel”.

“It’s a century since we figured out it was fusion that was going on in our sun and all the other stars. And in that century, it took so many different kinds of advances that ultimately came together to the point that we could replicate that fusion activity in a laboratory,” Dr Prabhakar added.

“It took not just one generation but generations of people pursuing this goal. It’s a scientific milestone. … It’s also an engineering marvel beyond belief,” she said.

Secretary Granholm said on Tuesday that the fusion experiment recreated “certain conditions that are only found in the stars and sun”.

“Ignition allows us to replicate for the first time certain conditions that are only found in the stars and sun. This milestone moves us one significant step closer to the possibility of zero carbon abundant fusion energy powering our society,” she added. “This is what it looks like for America to lead, and we’re just getting started.”

“If we can advance fusion energy, we could use it to produce clean electricity, transportation fuels, power, heavy industry and so much more,” Ms Granholm added.

The United States has announced a nuclear fusion breakthrough, a historic step towards the promise of “near-limitless” clean energy.

“It will go down in the history books,” said Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm on Tuesday in Washington DC alongside scientists from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.

For 70 years, hundreds of scientists and engineers have attempted to replicate the energy process of atoms fusing together that powers the sun and other stars.

It is an enormously complex – and expensive – process which is highly unstable due to the high temperatures and pressures involved.

Now, for the first time, the California lab team used lasers to achieve a “net energy gain”, producing more energy in a fusion reaction than was used to ignite it.

Scientists have announced a major breakthrough with nuclear fusion power, achieving a net energy gain for the first ever time.

The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California confirmed the news on Tuesday, marking a significant milestone towards realising near-limitless clean energy.

Nuclear fusion mimics the natural reactions occurring within the sun and has been a goal of scientists around the world since the 1950s. The process has been hailed as the “holy grail” of clean energy, as it is almost limitless, requires no fossil fuels, and leaves behind no hazardous waste.

Scientists achieved the feat at the National Ignition Facility, blasting hydrogen plasma with a massive laser in order to trigger a nuclear fusion reaction.

While a net gain nuclear fusion reaction is significant, experts also explained that using the process to produce sustainable electricity for homes and cities is likely decades away.

“This is a key step on a possible pathway to commercial fusion. It demonstrates and underpins our basic understanding of the physics, and is an engineering triumph,” said Professor Sir Robin Grimes, of Imperial College London.

“Nevertheless, extracting this energy in a way that it can be harnessed, and developing the materials that can stand up to continuous operation, are massive challenges,” Dr Grimes said.

The US Department of Energy is set to make an announcement on Tuesday about a “major scientific breakthrough” following media reports that a major milestone in nuclear fusion research has been achieved.

The Financial Times reported on Monday that the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California achieved the significant breakthrough of achieving a net energy gain from nuclear fusion.

While the laboratory confirmed to FT that it had recently conducted a “successful” experiment, it did not share further details, citing the preliminary nature of the study data.

“US Secretary of Energy Jennifer M Granholm and Under Secretary for Nuclear Security and National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Administrator Jill Hruby will announce a major scientific breakthrough accomplished by researchers at DOE’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL),” the Department of Energy noted.

US scientists have reportedly carried out the first nuclear fusion experiment to achieve a net energy gain, a major breakthrough in a field that has been pursuing such a result since the 1950s, and a potential milestone in the search for a climate-friendly, renewable energy source to replace fossil fuels.

The experiment took place in recent weeks at the government-funded Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, where researchers used a process known as inertial confinement fusion, the Financial Times reports, citing three people with knowledge of the experiment’s preliminary results.

The test involved bombarding a pellet of hydrogen plasma with the world’s largest laser to trigger a nuclear fusion reaction, the same process which takes place in the sun.

Researchers were able to produce 2.5 megajoules of energy, 120 per cent of the 2.1 megajoules used to power the experiment.

The laboratory confirmed to the FT it had recently conducted a “successful” experiment at the National Ignition Facility, but declined to comment further, citing the preliminary nature of the data.