WASHINGTON — The Department of Energy on Tuesday announced a scientific breakthrough in nuclear fusion at a national lab in California, marking a major step toward developing a new, sustainable form of energy that releases virtually no carbon dioxide or other types of air pollution.
Scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California successfully generated a fusion reaction between two hydrogen atoms and maintained that reaction in a controlled setting, marking the potential to use such reactions to generate huge amounts of energy without burning fuels.
"Today, we tell the world that America has achieved a tremendous scientific breakthrough. When that happened it was because we invested in our national labs and we invested in fundamental research, and tomorrow will continue for a future that is powered, in part by fusion energy," she said. The experiment pointed 192 lasers at a container holding a small pellet of fuel the size of a peppercorn, specifically made up of deuterium and tritium – both isotopes of hydrogen.
The lasers themselves required 300 megajoules to power, which Budil said is in part because the lasers are based on older technology. But they believe it can be made more efficient to potentially create much more power than was represented by the lab experiment with decades more research and significant private sector investment.
The idea is frequently represented in science fiction coming to life, said Paul Dabbar, a distinguished visiting fellow at Columbia University and former Department of Energy undersecretary for science, who oversaw the national labs in his role at the department.
"If we could bring a star down to earth, right. You've got a bunch of stars, basically controlled stars in buildings around the Earth. And we're taking the most abundant element in the universe and converted into energy, just like the sun but in boxes here. And no environmental impact and we have literally unlimited energy based on the amount of hydrogen there is," he said.
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