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Advances in the potential energy source may not be about electricity, at least at first.
Though fuel was added to the fire by the U.S. achieving fusion ignition in December of 2022, realizing the promise of nuclear fusion still faces many engineering and technological obstacles.
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.
The National Ignition Facility (NIF) is a laser-based inertial confinement fusion (ICF) research device, located at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, United States. NIF's mission is to achieve fusion ignition with high energy gain .
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]
U.S. scientists have achieved “ignition” — a fusion reaction that produced more energy than it took to create — a critical milestone for nuclear fusion. ... The best toys of 2024. AOL.
As of 2022, the record for energy production using nuclear fusion is held by the National Ignition Facility reactor, which achieved a Q of 1.5 in December 2022. [15] Beyond just heating the plasma, the total electricity consumed by the reactor and facilities will range from 110 MW up to 620 MW peak for 30-second periods during plasma operation ...
Nuclear fusion occurs when two atoms under extreme pressure and heat fuse into one atom, releasing a packet of energy. (Photo: National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory)