Nuclear fusion net energy gain breakthrough confirmed by DoE
The United States Department of Energy has confirmed that a team at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories conducted the first controlled fusion experiment to achieve net energy gain on December 5, 2022.
Net energy gain means that more energy was produced by fusion than the laser energy used to squeeze heavy-hydrogen atoms together and ignite the fusion process. The Department of Energy said the experiment delivered 2.05 megajoules (MJ) of energy to the target resulting in 3.15 MJ of fusion energy output.
This is a key step towards sustainable and abundant energy production for human use as an alternative to fossil fuels and energy based on nuclear fission.
The DoE said many advanced science and technology developments are still needed to achieve affordable inertial fusion energy (IFE) delivery to homes and businesses. It added that the department is restarting a coordinated IFE program in the US. “Combined with private-sector investment, there is a lot of momentum to drive rapid progress toward fusion commercialization.”
In a press conference announcing the achievement Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said that President Biden’s administration had a goal o achieving commercial fusion energy supply within a decade. Kim Budil, director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, said it may take decades to perform the technology research to design and build a fusion-based power plant.
“This astonishing scientific advance puts us on the precipice of a future no longer reliant on fossil fuels but instead powered by new clean fusion energy,” said US Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, in a statement issued by the Department of Energy.
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