US announces historic nuclear fusion breakthrough

AFP.com, 13 Dec, 2022- The US Department of Energy announced Tuesday that its researchers have achieved a “major scientific breakthrough” regarding nuclear fusion, a technology seen as a possible revolutionary alternative power source. 

Scientists have been working for decades to develop nuclear fusion – touted by its supporters as a clean, abundant and safe source of energy that could eventually allow humanity to break its dependence on the fossil fuels driving a global climate crisis.

The Energy Department had refused to give any specific details about what it will announce Tuesday, but according to the UK-based outlet, researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California have succeeded for the first time in producing a “net energy gain” from nuclear fusion, meaning more energy was produced in the reaction than was used to activate it.

If the achievement is confirmed, “that is a true breakthrough moment which is tremendously exciting,” said physicist Jeremy Chittenden with Imperial College London.
“It proves that the long sought-after goal, the ‘holy grail’ of fusion, can indeed be achieved.”

Nuclear power plants around the world currently use fission – the splitting of a heavy atom’s nucleus – to produce energy.

Fusion on the other hand combines two light hydrogen atoms to form one heavier helium atom, releasing a large amount of energy in the process.