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Advances in the potential energy source may not be about electricity, at least at first.
Performance was gradually improved until, as of 2024, the fusion energy routinely exceeded 2 MJ. [31] To be useful for energy production, a fusion facility must produce fusion output at least an order of magnitude more than the energy used to power the laser amplifiers – 400 MJ in the case of NIF. [32]
Nuclear fusion, the reaction that powers the sun and other stars, involves smashing two or more atoms together to form a denser one, in a process that releases huge amounts of energy.
Jennifer Granholm, secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy, says that the U.S. is aiming to create a working fusion reactor by 2035.
Fusion ignition is the point at which a nuclear fusion reaction becomes self-sustaining. This occurs when the energy being given off by the reaction heats the fuel mass more rapidly than it cools. In other words, fusion ignition is the point at which the increasing self-heating of the nuclear fusion removes the need for external heating. [ 1 ]
Researchers at this Livermore, Calif., facility had spent more than 13 years trying and failing to attain fusion ignition, meaning that the reaction outputs more energy than scientists put into it.
The overall efficiency of this approach is many times that of the conventional approach. In the case of NIF the laser generates about 4 MJ of infrared power to create ignition that releases about 20 MJ of energy. [2] This corresponds to a "fusion gain" —the ratio of input laser power to output fusion power— of about 5.
In January, Mr Altman said that a nuclear fusion breakthrough would be needed to meet the vast energy needs of future AI. “There’s no way to get there without a breakthrough,” Mr Altman said ...