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However, as the team was quick to point out, there's still a long road to a commercial fusion reactor. Nonetheless, they hope that by demonstrating it's possible — despite many decades of research, the feat of achieving a net energy gain had long seemed to remain perpetually elusive — the industry will be encouraged to keep trying to realize its goal of a greener future.
Unlike nuclear fission, nuclear fusion involves smashing together particles under extreme conditions. There are several different types of fusion reactors currently being investigated, including the "tokamak," a donut-shaped device that confines plasma using magnetic fields at extreme pressure and temperatures. The National Ignition Facility's reactor at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory takes a notably different tack, bombarding small packets of hydrogen isotope fuel usingThe resulting temperatures are immense, exceeding those found in the Sun. Despite the landmark achievement, there's still plenty of room for improvement, the LLNL's Richard Town toldFor one, the amount of energy the team got out from the December 2022 trial was minuscule. At the time, the reaction produced around 2.5 megajoules of energy, or about"A bigger hammer always helps," Town told. "If we can get a bigger hammer, I think we could get to target gains of about roughly ten."to switch out the current lasers with high-power laser diodes to bring down the energy consumption and improve yields. But will we ever see a future where fusion reactors can put a dent in our reliance on fossil fuels before it's too late?"Fusion is already too late to deal with the climate crisis," nuclear fusion research fellow at the University of Manchester Aneeqa Khan, who was not involved in the research, toldMore on fusion:
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