In January 2022, the JET fusion experiment produced more power over a longer period of time than any past attempt. Two physicists explain the engineering advancements that made the result possible.
Fusion seems nearer than ever - but it won’t be the silver bullet to stop climate change.
Nuclear fusion is what generates the energy of the sun: scientists are getting closer to controlling a sustained fusion reaction on Earth.
Marko Aliaksandr/Shutterstock
A US laboratory has announced an exciting new leap forward in nuclear fusion, but it may be several decades before we see this form of energy come to fruition.
Fire a set of high-power lasers at a tiny speck of hydrogen isotopes and you can initiate nuclear fusion, the process that powers the Sun.
National Ignition Facility
Scientists are working on ways to make lots of energy by converting matter into energy. The trick is keeping the process under control. One possibility is nuclear fusion – the Sun’s power source.
Inside a tokamak fusion reactor.
Shutterstock/dani3315
Despite recent reports, nuclear fusion-powered energy isn’t mere years from solving our clean energy needs. But physicists are making encouraging strides nonetheless.
Inside a fusion reactor tokamak.
Efman/Shutterstock
It’s true that here on Earth, if you want to burn something you need oxygen. But the Sun is different. It is not burning with the same kind of flame you would have on Earth if you burned a candle.
New heavy nuclei are constantly generated in stars and other astronomical bodies.
Erin O’Donnell
People long assumed all the elements we see now were created during the Big Bang. But on May 2, 1952, an astronomer reported spotting new elements coming from an old star and changed our origin story.
The coils winding facility building in France, where a global effort to build the ITER fusion energy reactor is underway.
Rob Crandall/Shutterstock.com
As fusion becomes more technically viable, it’s time to assess whether it’s worth the money because breakthroughs in the lab don’t guarantee success in the marketplace.
Cleanup crew search for radioactive debris.
U.S. Air Force
In what came to be known as the Thule incident, an American bomber crashed in Greenland, spreading radioactive wreckage across 3 square miles of a frozen fjord. Denmark was not happy.
Fusion power, if it works, offers vast amounts of clean energy and almost zero carbon emissions. A new experimental fusion reactor has come online, and it uses a curious twisted stellarator design.
The plasma inside a fusion reactor.
Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory
Fusion development takes time. It cannot be developed in miniature and then be simply scaled up. But we must work now, to make it possible to meet humanity’s need for abundant, clean energy.
‘A-Day’ marked the first of 23 atomic bomb explosions at Bikini.
Department of Energy
In the summer of 1946, the U.S. government detonated the first of many atomic bomb tests in the Marshall Islands. Seventy years of radiation exposure later, residents are still fighting for justice.
Hydrogen is built into helium at a temperature of millions of degrees.
NASA/SDO (AIA)
Fire has played a vital role in human history, and will continue to. Recent advances in fusion herald the freeing of fire from captivity back into its natural form.
Great Scott! We’re in the future.
Ricardo 清介 八木/Flickr
Hoverboards, self-fitting jackets, nuclear fusion generators…. Some of Back to the Future’s wacky inventions are closer to reality than you might think.