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Nuclear Fusion is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It's a source of clean, cheap,
plentiful energy that has powered the stars in the night sky for billions of years. Unfortunately,
we just don't seem to be able to reach it. Since experiments first proved fusion theory
in the 1950s, commercialising the technology has always been 30 years away. And it still
is today, because we simply cannot get more energy out of Fusion than it takes to make
it happen. And when it does happen, the radiation that's emitted, mostly high energy neutrons,
is very hard to capture and turn into electricity, because of the vast amount of shielding that's
needed to seperate the reaction from the outside world.
But new research shows both of those problems are, at least, a step closer to being overcome.
Firstly, the question of how much energy Fusion produces for the amount put in. In late September,
the National Ignition Facility in California reported that, using 192 beams from the world's
most powerful laser, they had managed to heat two isotopes of hydrogen so that they fused
together and, briefly and for the first time in a lab, released more energy than was put
into them. The reaction was brief, but the result was a milestone towards self-sustaining
fusion or 'ignition'. It's now thought most of the theoretical,
practical barriers to working fusion have been overcome, and what remains is purely
technical. Which unfortunately is still a big hurdle. Because being able to make something
is what makes it real. The second piece of news is also pretty exciting,
and concerns the capture of energy bit of the problem. Scientists at the Ecole Polytechnique
in France have successfully fused hydrogen and boron isotopes, which creates alpha particles,
much more useable forms of radioactive energy than hydrogen alone which can more easily
be converted into electricity. Boron has been fused before, but using improved laser techniques,
this latest experiment produced orders of magnitude more energy. Which is pretty exciting.
Who knows, maybe Fusion will really just be 30 years away?