The breakthrough announcement was made by Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm and others on Tuesday
(Picture: AP)A breakthrough in nuclear fusion could bring limitless clean energy and help the fight against climate change, experts have predicted.
Scientists from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California on Tuesday announced they have achieved the “Holy Grail” of producing more energy from a fusion reaction than it took to trigger it.
They used 2.1 megajoules of energy and achieved a fusion ignition with a 2.5 megajoules return.
It represents a milestone in the drive to wean the US and other economies from fossil fuels which scientists regard as the main driver of climate change.
Jennifer Granholm, the US energy secretary, said the achievement will pave the way for advancements in national defense and the future of clean power.
“This is a landmark achievement for the researchers and staff at the National Ignition Facility who have dedicated their careers to seeing fusion ignition become a reality, and this milestone will undoubtedly spark even more discovery,” Granholm said at a news conference in Washington.
The fusion breakthrough “will go down in the history books,″ she added.
White House science adviser Arati Prabhakar called the fusion ignition “a tremendous example of what perseverance really can achieve” and “an engineering marvel beyond belief.″
Proponents of fusion hope that it could one day produce nearly limitless, carbon-free energy, displacing fossil fuels and other traditional energy sources.
Producing energy that powers homes and businesses from fusion is still decades away – but researchers said it was a significant step nonetheless.
“It’s almost like it’s a starting gun going off,” said Professor Dennis Whyte, director of the Plasma Science and Fusion Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a leader in fusion research. “We should be pushing towards making fusion energy systems available to tackle climate change and energy security.”
Fusion reactions produce neither carbon nor long-lived, radioactive waste. It also enables vast amounts of energy to be produced from very little hydrogen fuel.It is the process that powers the Sun and other stars.
Earlier this year Don Beyer, the Democratic congressman who started the Fusion Energy Caucus, stressed the technology was different from that used to produce power at Fukushima and Chernobyl.
“Fusion has the potential to lift more citizens of the world out of poverty than any idea since fire," he told a White House summit.
