{"id":255432,"date":"2023-08-09T20:06:32","date_gmt":"2023-08-09T14:36:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=255432"},"modified":"2023-08-09T20:06:32","modified_gmt":"2023-08-09T14:36:32","slug":"unleashing-limitless-energy-us-scientists-repeat-nuclear-fusion-breakthrough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/unleashing-limitless-energy-us-scientists-repeat-nuclear-fusion-breakthrough\/","title":{"rendered":"Unleashing Limitless Energy: US Scientists Repeat Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Source: <\/b>The post is based on the article<\/span> \u201c<\/b>Unleashing Limitless Energy: US Scientists Repeat Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough<\/b>\u201d\u00a0 <\/b>published in <\/span>News18 on 7th August 2023.<\/b><\/p>\n

What is the News?<\/b><\/h2>\n

Scientists in the US have successfully conducted a second nuclear fusion reaction experiment that resulted in a net energy gain.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What is Nuclear Fusion?<\/b><\/h2>\n

Nuclear fusion is the process which gives the Sun its energy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Scientists from more than 50 countries have been trying to recreate it on Earth since the 1960s.<\/span><\/p>\n

They hope it could eventually provide huge quantities of clean energy for the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

In nuclear fusion, pairs of tiny particles called atoms are heated and forced together to make one heavier one.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is the opposite of nuclear fission, in which heavy atoms are split apart. Nuclear power stations currently use nuclear fission to generate electricity.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why is nuclear fusion so important?<\/b><\/h2>\n

Nuclear fission produces radioactive waste, which can be dangerous and must be stored safely – potentially for hundreds of years.<\/span><\/p>\n

The waste produced by nuclear fusion is less radioactive and decays much more quickly.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nuclear fusion doesn’t need fossil fuels like oil or gas. It also doesn’t generate greenhouse gases, which trap the Sun’s heat and are responsible for climate change.<\/span><\/p>\n

Most fusion experiments use hydrogen, which can be extracted cheaply from seawater and lithium, meaning fuel supplies could last for millions of years.<\/span><\/p>\n

It has been described as the “<\/span>holy grail” of energy production.<\/b><\/p>\n

How does Nuclear Fusion work?<\/b><\/h2>\n

When two atoms of a light element such as hydrogen are heated and combine to form a single heavier element such as helium, the nuclear reaction produces massive amounts of energy which can be captured.<\/span><\/p>\n

But getting two identical elements to combine is actually very hard.<\/span><\/p>\n

Because they have the same positive charge they naturally repel each other.A lot of energy is needed to overcome this resistance.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the Sun, this happens thanks to extremely high temperatures of around ten million degrees Celsius, and significant pressure – more than 100 billion times that of the Earth’s atmosphere.<\/span><\/p>\n

On Earth, scientists have used various different techniques to attempt to recreate these conditions. But it has proved very difficult to maintain the high temperature and pressure needed for long enough.<\/span><\/p>\n

What have the scientists achieved now?<\/b><\/h2>\n

In 2022, scientists in the US first achieved a net energy gain in a fusion experiment using lasers. That experiment briefly achieved what\u2019s known as fusion ignition by generating 3.15 megajoules of energy output after the laser delivered 2.05 megajoules to the target.<\/span><\/p>\n

In other words, it produced more energy from fusion than the laser energy used to drive it.<\/span><\/p>\n

The scientists <\/span>have successfully conducted this nuclear fusion reaction experiment for a second time that resulted in a net energy gain.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source: The post is based on the article \u201cUnleashing Limitless Energy: US Scientists Repeat Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough\u201d\u00a0 published in News18 on 7th August 2023. What is the News? Scientists in the US have successfully conducted a second nuclear fusion reaction experiment that resulted in a net energy gain.\u00a0 What is Nuclear Fusion? Nuclear fusion is… Continue reading Unleashing Limitless Energy: US Scientists Repeat Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10317,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1566,1738,9],"tags":[11265],"class_list":["post-255432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-factly-articles","category-science-and-technology-daily-factly-articles","category-public","tag-news18","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10317"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255432\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}