Reproducing the mechanism that generates the energy of the stars and the Sun, nuclear fusion, is not a dream, but reality. In these hours a new important news has arrived from the United States: from now on thanks to the results of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a federal research center in California, we know how to do it with a net balance of energy.
The official announcement has not yet arrived, but it has been anticipated by the Financial Times and the Washington Post. According to the two newspapers, the US Department of Energy will confirm it today
In essence, for the first time the energy produced will be greater than that needed to trigger the reaction thanks to the use of hydrogen in the form of plasma, the fourth state of matter after solid, liquid and gaseous one.
The U.S. Department of Energy will announce that a group of scientists have been able, for the first time in history, to produce a nuclear fusion reaction that generates more energy than is needed to trigger it.
The Washington Post writes it speaking of "a milestone in the decade-long and expensive research to develop a technology that provides unlimited, clean and affordable energy".
The discovery would have taken place at the National Ignition Facility housed in Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, California. The purpose of fusion research is to replicate the nuclear reaction through which energy is created on the Sun. In essence, for the first time, the energy produced will be greater than that needed to trigger the reaction thanks to the use of hydrogen in the form of plasma, the fourth state of matter after solid, liquid and gaseous.
The nuclear fusion energy produced in the US was obtained in the National Ignition Facility, which studies inertial confinement fusion using lasers. About 25 megajoules of energy were generated using a laser pulse of just over 20 megajoules.
It would be the first time researchers have been able to produce more energy in a fusion reaction — such as the one that powers the Sun — than they consumed in the process, which would represent a significant step forward in the search for carbon-free energy.