Nuclear fusion just passed a major milestone: Generating more energy than used to create the reaction
The National Ignition Facility target chamber at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is where scientists shoot lasers and watch and measure what happens when those lasers collide on a fuel source. Temperatures of 100 million degrees and pressures extreme enough to compress a target up to 100 times the density of lead are created in this facility.
Photo by Damien Jemison/ Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
On Tuesday, the head of the Department of Energy and other federal scientific leaders announced that a fusion reaction run at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California achieved net energy, meaning the reaction generated more energy than was put in to initiate the reaction. It is the first time humankind has achieved this landmark.
Fusion is the way that the sun makes power, but recreating a useful fusion reaction here on earth has eluded scientists for decades. Achieving net positive energy paves the way for fusion to move from a lab science to a usable energy source.
Fusion is particularly attractive given the increasing urgency of climate change because it produces no carbon emissions, nor does it produce the long-lasting nuclear waste associated with nuclear fission, which is the type of nuclear energy used today.
The event happened on Dec. 5, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory said on its Twitter account on Tuesday. “On December 5, 2022 a team from DOE’s @Livermore_Lab made history by achieving fusion ignition.” it wrote. “Also known as scientific energy breakeven, the experiment produced more energy from fusion than the laser energy used to drive it.”
“This is important. Earlier results were records, but not yet producing more energy out than was put in,” Andrew Holland, the CEO of the industry’s trade group, the Fusion Industry Association, told CNBC. “For the first time on Earth, scientists have confirmed a fusion energy experiment released more power than it takes to initiate, proving the physical basis for fusion energy. This will lead fusion to be a safe and sustainable energy source in the near future.”
One step toward the ‘holy grail’ of clean energy
Speculation swirled in the days leading up to the press conference because the interest in fusion as a potential viable energy source has increased dramatically in recent years as concerns about climate change and energy security have become more acute.
More than 90 nuclear power reactors currently operate in the United States, but those nuclear reactors are making energy with nuclear fission, which is when a neutron smashes into a larger atom, causing it to split into two smaller atoms and releasing a lot of energy. Nuclear fission reactions do not release any carbon dioxide emissions and there for are considered clean energy, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
The United States got approximately 19 percent of its utility-scale electricity generation from those nuclear power plants in 2021, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, and the energy from nuclear fission reactors represents half of the clean power generated in the United States, according to the Department of Energy.
However, those reactors generate long-lasting nuclear radioactive waste when they operate, and most countries, including the United States, currently have that nuclear waste sitting on dry cask barrels on nuclear reactor sites all over the country. Efforts to build a permanent, underground geologic storage for nuclear fission waste have thus far been stymied in the United States.
Fusion happens when two atoms slam together to form a heavier atom, releasing huge amounts of energy without generating carbon dioxide emissions or long-lasting nuclear waste. But it’s proven extremely challenging to sustain a fusion reaction here on earth, and scientists have been chasing trying for decades. In particular, it requires massive amounts of energy to generate fusion on reactions, and until this experiment, nobody had demonstrated the ability to get more energy out of the reaction than it takes to power it.
“Scientists have struggled to show that fusion can release more energy out than is put in since the 1950s,” plasma physicist Arthur Turrell told CNBC.
“During those decades, every time anyone has asked for funding for developing fusion power, the response has always been ‘first, you must show that it works in principle,'” Turrell said. “That is, you must show that a fusion experiment can produce more energy than it uses. The researchers at Lawrence Livermore have done this for the first time ever.”
The success could also spur more private investment in fusion, which is already a hot space –so far, investors have poured almost $5 billion in investment into private fusion energy startups, according to the Fusion Industry Association, and more than half of that has been since since the second quarter of 2021.
“Everyone in the laser fusion (or inertial confinement fusion) community has been focused on getting to more energy out than in on a single experiment, because that is the key to showing the proof of principle and unlocking further investment and interest,” Turrell told CNBC.
Indeed, the private fusion industry is seeing this as a win.
“Now, the privately funded fusion industry will take the next steps, turning experimental results like this into a viable source of clean, safe energy,” Holland told CNBC. “In short, this will show the world that fusion is not science fiction: it will soon be a viable source of energy. Of course there are still many steps between these experimental results and fusion power plants, but this is an important milestone that brings us closer to the day when fusion will provide the world with clean, safe, and abundant energy.”
A man in California has sued Amazon as well as the maker of an electric bike that he purchased on Amazon after he claims that the bike malfunctioned, resulting in a crash that left him severely injured.
According to a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court last week, Robert Lewis suffered catastrophic injuries on December 30, 2024, when the handlebars on his foldable e-bike gave out, causing him to fall violently to the ground. The suit names both Actbest Technology Inc., listed as a Los Angeles-based manufacturer, and Amazon.com Inc. as defendants, alleging that both companies were negligent in manufacturing and selling the defective product.
The incident is the latest in a growing wave of safety concerns surrounding low-cost e-bikes sold through major online marketplaces, where oversight of product quality and safety warnings can be minimal or nonexistent.
While the suit does not name the exact model of e-bike involved in the crash, Actbest does sell an ultra low-cost $369 folding e-bike.
The complaint accuses Amazon of continuing to sell the bike in question, even after receiving consumer complaints alleging similar defects. “Consumers of Amazon reasonably relied on Amazon’s service to monitor product complaints and remove unsafe consumer products to prevent the sale of defective products,” the lawsuit reads. “Amazon negligently carries out this service by ignoring obvious design, manufacturing and warning defects. They would have been aware [of the danger] had they actually fulfilled the obligations they voluntarily assumed and promised consumers Amazon would implement.”
The mechanism that failed was apparently the handlebar locking system, which is crucial for folding e-bikes to function safely. According to the lawsuit, the failure of this system during Lewis’s ride caused the handlebars to collapse unexpectedly, resulting in a severe spinal cord injury that has rendered him paraplegic. His family, also named as plaintiffs, is seeking compensation for pain and suffering and loss of enjoyment of life.
Lewis’s legal team, led by Andrew Parker Felix of Morgan & Morgan, is seeking damages for medical costs, lost wages, and punitive damages, pointing to what they describe as a pattern of neglect by Amazon in dealing with dangerous products sold through its platform.
“Similar to the hoverboard phenomenon in the past,” the lawsuit reads, “the e-bikes distributed through and sold by Amazon.com are the latest example of Amazon seeking to profit off of a new consumer product space with complete disregard for the safety of its subscribers.”
While Amazon has previously argued that it acts only as a sales platform for third-party sellers, courts have increasingly scrutinized the tech giant’s role in product liability, especially in cases involving dangerous or defective products. There are cases that could serve as precedents where Amazon has been found liable for injurious products sold on its platform.
This lawsuit may further test where that liability begins and ends, particularly in fast-growing consumer categories like e-bikes, where regulatory standards and safety enforcement have struggled to keep pace with demand.
Neither Amazon nor Actbest has responded publicly to the claims, and details about the specific e-bike model involved have not yet been disclosed.
As e-bike adoption continues to rise, especially among budget-conscious consumers looking for affordable transport, the case raises deeper questions about how safety is – or isn’t – being prioritized in a booming but often unregulated product space.
via: Law360
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Sports2 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike