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Researchers at the National Ignition Facility in Livermore, Calif., home to the world’s most powerful laser, announced Tuesday that they have crossed a tipping point in their quest for fusion power. <\/p>\n
This is 1) a major scientific breakthrough and 2) we still have a long way to go to harness the reaction that powers the Sun, nuclear fusion, as a viable source of abundant clean energy. On December 5, the team fired 192 laser beams at small fuel pellets, producing slightly more energy than the lasers put in. Nuclear Security Administration, at a news conference on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
To make fusion capable of actually producing electricity for the grid, we can’t just cross the ignition finish line. that should blow it away. While this announcement is an important incremental step forward, the breakthrough is far from usable. NIF itself is a research institute, so its technology is not intended for power generation. Therefore, designing a fusion reactor that utilizes this new approach presents itself as an engineering challenge. <\/p>\n