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US scientists have carried out the first ever nuclear fusion experiment to achieve a net energy gain, paving the way for a “clean energy source that could revolutionise the world”.

During a landmark news briefing at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, officials revealed the successful fusion experiment had taken place last week.

As it happened: ‘Amazing’ scientific breakthrough could create limitless energy

It was the result of “60 years of global research, development, engineering, and experimentation”, which could eventually become the backbone of commercial electricity generation.

Such a result would supercharge the world’s shift to renewable energy, helping to fight climate change.

US energy secretary Jennifer Granholm said the breakthrough “will go down in the history books”.

“This is one of the most impressive scientific feats of the 21st century,” she added.

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How was the experiment carried out?

The experiment involved 192 high-powered laser beams being fired at a capsule containing the elements deuterium and tritium, heating it to a temperature of more than three million degrees centigrade – thus briefly simulating the conditions of a star.

Dr Marvin Adams said it had been carried out “hundreds of times before”, but had never successfully produced more energy than was consumed.

“For the first time, they designed this experiment so that the fusion fuel stayed hot enough, dense enough, and round enough for long enough that it ignited, and it produced more energy than the lasers had deposited,” he said.

“About two mega joules in, about three mega joules out – a gain of 1.5, the energy production took less time than it takes light to travel one inch.”

It was, as he quipped, “kind of fast”.

High-powered lasers were used, converging on a target 'about the size of a peppercorn'
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High-powered lasers were used, converging on a target ‘about the size of a peppercorn’

While the target was smaller than a pea, the lasers – part of the so-called NIF system – are powerful enough to deliver more energy than the whole power grid sustaining all of the US.

Chief engineer Jean-Michel Di Nicola said it was “the size of three football fields and delivers energy in excess of two million joules with a peak power of 500 trillion watts”.

“For a very short amount of time, a few billionths of a second, it exceeds the entire US power grid,” he said.

Fusion energy breakthrough announced by U.S. scientists
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The NIF system features 192 lasers

How long before the process can create useable energy?

The question on everyone’s lips following the news briefing was how long it would take before the process can be utilised for creating energy that we can actually use.

Dr Kim Budil, director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, admitted it would take “probably decades”.

President Joe Biden has said he hopes a commercial fusion reactor will be in place within 10 years, and officials acknowledged that the private sector would have to play a big role in accelerating the shift from lab experiments to commercial electricity production.

Other nuclear fusion projects will also have a role to play – and the scientists in California cited the work of a team in Oxfordshire, who earlier this year used their JET machine to generate around 11 megawatts of energy.

That was far more than was generated in the NIF experiment, but – crucially – did not achieve net energy gain.

A significant scientific milestone – but lasers require huge power



Tom Clarke

Science and technology editor

@aTomClarke

As Dr Marv Adams was holding up the cylindrical target containing the “peppercorn-sized” pellet of fusion fuel, he confirmed they had achieved “ignition” of a fusion reaction.

He also revealed the scientists put about 2MJ of energy into their fusion reaction and got about 3MJ out.

That’s the evidence of the “energy gain” that this announcement is all about.

That’s the significant scientific milestone: proving a fusion reaction itself can generate more energy than you put into in.

But they had to use 300MJ of electricity to power up their lasers.

So from an energy production point of view, they’re still having to put in 99% more power into the machine as a whole as they are getting out.

University of Oxford Professor Gianluca Gregori, a specialist in the kind of lasers used at the lab, stressed that the amount of energy produced was smaller than that needed to power a wall plug.

“While this is not yet an economically viable power plant, the path for the future is much clearer,” he added.

Jeremy Chittenden, professor of plasma physics at Imperial College London, said scientists “will need to find a way to reproduce the same effect much more frequently and much more cheaply”.

If they do, it would be a huge shot in the arm for the world’s push towards renewables.

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Climate-vulnerable islands storm out of COP29 negotiation room in row over funding

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Climate-vulnerable islands storm out of COP29 negotiation room in row over funding

Representatives of dozens of climate vulnerable islands and African nations have stormed out of high-stakes negotiations over a climate funding goal.

Patience is wearing thin and negotiations have boiled over at the COP29 climate talks in Azerbaijan, which were due to finish yesterday but are now well into overtime.

After two weeks of talks, the more than 190 countries gathered in the capital Baku are still trying to agree a new financial settlement to channel money to poorer countries to both curb and adapt to climate change.

Talks have now run well into overtime at COP29, but a deal now feels much more precarious.

The least developed countries like Mozambique and low-lying island nations like Samoa say their calls for a portion of the fund to be allocated to them have been ignored.

Samoa’s minister of natural resources and environment Toeolesulusulu Cedric Schuster is one of the representatives who walked out.

“We are here to negotiate but we have walked out… at the moment we don’t feel we are being heard in there,” he said on behalf of more than 40 small island and developing states, whose shorelines are being lost to rising sea levels.

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Shortly after he made a veiled threat of leaving COP29 altogether, saying: “We want nothing more than to continue to engage, but the process must be INCLUSIVE.

“If this cannot be the case, it becomes very difficult for us to continue our involvement here at COP29.”

Evans Njewa, who chairs a group of more than 40 least developed countries, said the current deal is “unacceptable for us. We need to speak to other developing countries and decide what to do.”

The last official draft on Friday pledged $250bn a year annually by 2035.

This is more than double the previous goal of $100bn set 15 years ago, but nowhere near the annual $1.3trn that experts say is needed.

Sky News understands some developed countries like the UK were this morning willing to bump up the goal to $300bn.

Developing countries are angry not just about the finance negotiations, but also on how to make progress on a pledge from last year to “transition away from fossil fuels”.

A group of oil and producing countries, spearheaded by Saudi Arabia, have tried to dilute that language, while the UK and island state are among those that have fought to keep it in.

Mr Schuster said all things being negotiated contain a “deplorable lack of substance”.

He added: “We need to see progress and follow up on the transition away from fossil fuels that we agreed last year. We have been asked to forget all about that at this COP, as though we are not in a critical decade and as though the 1.5C limit is not in peril.”

“We need to be shown the regard which our dire circumstances necessitate.”

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At least 11 killed in Israeli strikes on central Beirut, Lebanese authorities say

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At least 11 killed in Israeli strikes on central Beirut, Lebanese authorities say

At least 11 people have been killed and 63 injured in an Israeli strike on central Beirut, Lebanese authorities have said.

Lebanon‘s health ministry said the death toll could rise as emergency workers dug through the rubble looking for survivors. DNA tests are being used to identify the victims, the ministry added.

State-run National News Agency (NNA) said the attack “completely destroyed” an eight-storey residential building in the Basta neighbourhood early on Saturday.

Footage broadcast by Lebanon’s Al Jadeed station also showed at least one destroyed building and several others badly damaged around it.

The central Basta neighbourhood in Beirut, where four people were killed in an Israeli airstrike
Image:
The central Basta neighbourhood in Beirut, where four people were killed in an Israeli airstrike

Map of Lebanon and Israel

The Israeli military did not warn residents to evacuate before the attack – the fourth targeting the centre this week.

At least four bombs were dropped in the attack, security sources told Reuters news agency.

The blasts happened at about 4am (2am UK time).

A seperate drone strike in the southern port cuty of Tyre this morning killed one person and injured another, according to the NNA.

The blasts came after a day of bombardment of Beirut’s southern suburbs and Tyre. The Israeli military had issued evacuation notices prior to those strikes.

Pic: AP
Image:
Pic: AP

Israel has killed several Hezbollah leaders in air strikes on the capital’s southern suburbs.

Heavy fighting between Israel and Hezbollah is ongoing in southern Lebanon, as Israeli forces push deeper into the country since launching a major offensive in September.

Read more:
No 10 indicates Netanyahu would be arrested
‘Dozens’ of Palestinians killed in Israeli airstrike

US envoy Amos Hochstein was in the region this week to try to end more than 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, ignited last October by the war in Gaza.

Mr Hochstein indicated progress had been made after meetings in Beirut on Tuesday and Wednesday, before going to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Israel Katz.

According to the Lebanese health ministry, Israel has killed more than 3,500 people in Lebanon and wounded more than 15,000.

It has displaced about 1.2 million people – a quarter of Lebanon’s population – while Israel says about 90 soldiers and nearly 50 civilians have been killed in northern Israel.

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Vladimir Putin vows to increase production of Russia’s ‘unstoppable’ missile – as NATO and Ukraine to hold talks

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Vladimir Putin vows to increase production of Russia's 'unstoppable' missile - as NATO and Ukraine to hold talks

President Vladimir Putin has said Russia will ramp up the production of a new, hypersonic ballistic missile.

In a nationally-televised speech, Mr Putin said the intermediate-range Oreshnik missile was used in an attack on Ukrainian city Dnipro in retaliation for Ukraine’s use of US and British missiles capable of striking deeper into Russian territory.

Referring to the Oreshnik, the Russian president said: “No one in the world has such weapons.

“Sooner or later other leading countries will also get them. We are aware that they are under development.”

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Putin’s warning to the West

Russia war latest: Long-awaited US air defences arrive in Ukraine

He added: “We have this system now. And this is important.”

Detailing the missile’s alleged capabilities, Mr Putin claimed it is so powerful that using several fitted with conventional warheads in one attack could be as devastating as a strike with nuclear weapons.

More on Russia

General Sergei Karakayev, head of Russia’s strategic missile forces, said the Oreshnik could reach targets across Europe and be fitted with either nuclear or conventional warheads – while Mr Putin alleged Western air defence systems will not be able to stop the missiles.

Mr Putin said of the Oreshnik: “There is no countermeasure to such a missile, no means of intercepting it, in the world today. And I will emphasise once again that we will continue testing this newest system. It is necessary to establish serial production.”

Read more from Sky News:
What are storm shadow missiles?
How bionic limps are helping Ukrainian troops

Testing the Oreshnik will happen “in combat, depending on the situation and the character of security threats created for Russia“, the president added, stating there is “a stockpile of such systems ready for use”.

NATO and Ukraine are expected to hold emergency talks on Tuesday.

Meanwhile Ukraine’s parliament cancelled a session as security was tightened following the strike on Dnipro, a central city with a population of around one million. No fatalities were reported.

EU leaders condemn Russia’s ‘heinous attacks’

Numerous EU leaders have addressed Russia’s escalation of the conflict with Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk saying the war is “entering a decisive phase [and] taking on very dramatic dimensions”.

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Russia’s new missile – what does it mean?

Speaking in Kyiv, Czech foreign minister Jan Lipavsky called Moscow’s strike an “escalatory step and an attempt of the Russian dictator to scare the population of Ukraine and to scare the population of Europe”.

At a news conference, Mr Lipavsky gave his full support for delivering the additional air defence systems needed to protect Ukrainian civilians from the “heinous attacks”.

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