On August 8th, 2021, scientists at the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore Lab made a break through that brings them ever closer to sucessful nuclear fusion. An experiment took place that used a powerful laser to generate a temendous amount of energy. The new method of ignition moves the fusion pocess away from the eletro-magnetic field containment systems used in current Tokamak experiements or Stellarators.
In the experiment, which uses a process called, "inertial confinment fusion,' a pellet of hydrogen no larger than a BB, was struck by a total of 192 laser beams. The result was the release of 1.3 megajoules or 10 quadrillion watts of power for about 100 trillionth of a second. Chief scientist for the ICFP (Inertial Confinement Fusion Program), Omar A. Hurricane, considers this a significant step. The expeiment is leading to the eventual self sustainment of the fusion process.
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