Page 12 - aruba-today-20220127

A12 SCIENCE
Thursday 27 January 2022

Hot stuff: Lab hits milestone on long

road to fusion power

By SETH BORENSTEIN
AP Science Writer
With 192 lasers and tem-
peratures more than three
times hotter than the cen-
ter of the sun, scientists hit
— at least for a fraction of
a second — a key mile-
stone on the long road to-
ward nearly pollution-free
fusion energy.
Researchers at the Na-
tional Ignition Facility at
the Lawrence Livermore
National Lab in California
were able to spark a fusion This image provided by the National Ignition Facility at the
reaction that briefly sus- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory shows the NIF Target
tained itself — a major feat Bay in Livermore, Calif.
because fusion requires Associated Press
such high temperatures
and pressures that it easily A team of more than 100 energy that can be de-
fizzles out. scientists published the re- ployed anywhere," she
The ultimate goal, still years sults of four experiments said.
away, is to generate power that achieved what is Researchers around the
the way the sun generates known as a burning plasma world have been working
heat, by smooshing hy- in Wednesday's journal Na- on the technology for de-
drogen atoms so close to ture. cades, trying different ap-
each other that they com- With those results, along proaches. Thirty-five coun-
bine into helium, which re- with preliminary results an- tries are collaborating on a
leases torrents of energy. nounced last August from project in Southern France
follow-up experiments, sci- called the International
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