The finding will be officially presented at 10 a.m. EST (4 p.m. in the Basque Country) and, according to US media reports, means that for the first time more energy will be produced than consumed. However, it will take more than a decade for commercial use.
“A clean, cheap and unlimited energy“This is what promises the historic find, which according to the American media Financial times Y the Washington Post, announced today by the US Department of Energy. A team from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California has for the first time produce by fusion more energy than used to generate it.
The announcement will be made officially at 10 a.m. EST (4 p.m. in the Basque Country). If the finding materializes, it would be an important milestone in research that has evolved over decades and with multimillion-dollar investments to develop a technology that provides unlimited and low-cost energy.
For years, science has tried to recreate a nuclear reaction similar to the one the sun uses to generate energy (fusion). So far, the only technology that has been developed is that of Nuclear fission which generates highly radioactive waste and is hazardous. Moreover, this energy produces only 10% of the world’s energy, much less than coal and gas.
The process to be advertised uses a process called inertial confinement fusion which consists of bombarding a small ball of hydrogen plasma with the world’s largest laser. Fusion reactions emit no carbon, produce no long-lived radioactive waste, and in theory a small cup of hydrogen fuel could power a home for hundreds of years.
The reaction they obtained in the U.S. lab yielded about 2.5 megajoules of energy, compared to the 2.1 megajoules used to drive the lasers, according to Financial times.
Although the results represent great progress, there is still a long way to go to create a viable technology (talk decades for commercial use), not to mention providing enough clean energy to help the world move away from fossil fuels and mitigate climate change.
(function(d, s, id) {
var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
if (d.getElementById(id)) return;
js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;
js.src = “//connect.facebook.net/es_ES/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.8”;
fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);
}(document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’));
Source: EITB
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
