The breakthrough marks the first time that the core of a fusion reactor has given out more energy than it has taken in, but significant obstacles still need to be overcome.
Researchers at U.S. government lab say they have made a"major scientific breakthrough" in the fiery heart of a nuclear fusion reactor. For the first time ever, a reactor's core has been detected putting out more energy than was put into it — a small but consequential step in the race to unleash a near-limitless, zero-carbon alternate energy source to fossil fuels or conventional nuclear power plants.
Scientists have been trying to build practical methods of harnessing nuclear fusion — the process that makes stars like our sun burn — ever since the 1940s. By fusing hydrogen atoms to make helium under extremely high pressures and temperatures, main-sequence stars convert matter into light and heat, generating enormous amounts of energy without producing greenhouse gases or long-lasting radioactive waste.
But replicating the conditions found inside the hearts of stars is no simple task. Besides recreating the hellish temperatures and pressures, vast quantities of energy are needed to transform fuel into a plasma, ignite it, and safely corral it with powerful magnetic fields or laser beams. It has taken decades and many billions of dollars to get here, but ignition has finally been achieved.
The experiment, which took place in less than ten billionths of a second, streamed photons into two ends of a cylinder inside the reactor's core to strike the inner walls of a capsule, producing X-rays which heated a pellet of fuel into a burning plasma. Once hot, the plasma burned for an infinitesimal instant, before winking out of existence.
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