This lab achieved a stunning breakthrough on fusion energy By Bill Weir, CNN Chief Climate Correspondent Updated 9:04 AM EDT, Fri May 12, 2023 https://amp-cnn-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/05/12/us/fusion-energy-livermore-lab-climate/index.html Jason Laurea/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Target chamber operators at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. (CNN) — After generations of trying to produce the power of a star on Earth, a successful nuclear fusion ignition happened in the middle of a December night and was over in 20-billionths of a second. That’s more than 100 billion times shorter than the Wright Brothers’ first, 12-second flight — but a brief, shining moment that could have even bigger implications for humanity. But while the science teams at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are still buzzing over their Wright-Brothers moment, we only remember that name because their third flight stayed in the sky for 39 minutes.
As I understand it, fusion isn't a mystery. (Nuclear bonds do it.) The real challenge is to create more energy from fusion as it takes to make fusion.
And that's been "twenty years away" my whole life. Keep researching fusion, sure, but it's fission power plants we should be building, and building literally as fast as humanly possible.
This ignition was very big news but I don't understand exactly why. The overall efficiency is absurdly low and even Livermore admits that fusion power this way is unlikely. We know how to cause fusion. Thermonuclear bombs do it quite successfully as do, on a somewhat smaller scale, high school kids in their parents' basements.
