SCIENTISTS have reached a milestone in the development of nuclear fusion – and it could help cheapen energy bills one day.
The Department of Energy on Tuesday announced that scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California had a breakthrough with fusion.
What is Fusion?
Nuclear fusion is when two or more atomic nuclei are combined to form one or more different atomic nuclei and subatomic particles (neutrons or protons).
This typically requires superheated temperatures of around 180million degrees Fahrenheit or higher.
Because the total mass of the resulting single nucleus is less than the mass of the two original nuclei, there is leftover mass that converts to a tremendous amount of energy.
This is the same process that powers our Sun and other stars, but up until recently, man-made nuclear fusion was just a theorized concept.
And now, for the first time ever, researchers achieved a net energy gain in a fusion experiment using lasers, per Reuters.
What does this mean for humanity?
Experts believe that fusion energy has the potential to pave the way for limitless, clean and cheap energy, per Marketplace.
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However, there is a long way to go before the process can become commercialized.
“If you’re thinking about a fusion energy plant, you’re talking about a very complicated, very expensive piece of equipment,” Chris Fall with the nonprofit MITRE Corporation told Marketplace.
“It’s kind of like buying a Rolls Royce at this point, as opposed to a Toyota. What we need is this sort of evolution of the technology that gets us to the lower cost.”
That’s because fusion requires immense amounts of energy – and to get more energy back than goes in, for even a brief moment, is highly challenging.
Dennis Whyte of the Plasma Science and Fusion Center at MIT told NPR: “You need to get fairly high levels of gain to make this a viable energy source, you know, to be a practical power plant.
“But getting over the threshold scientifically of seeing net energy is a major accomplishment because you see for the first time sort of the physical conditions required for a power plant as we extrapolate forward.”
Whyte added that researchers are not even attempting to make electricity out of fusion at this stage of development.
Scientists have been trying to harness the energy of fusion on Earth for more than 60 years, per National Geographic.
Investors who have poured money into making this new breakthrough happen include Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and John Doerr.