HARNESSING ENERGY FROM LASER FUSION

Abstract

Researchers in nuclear fusion reached a critical milestone on 5 December 2022. On that day, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's National Ignition Facility (NIF) demonstrated for the first time that a controlled nuclear fusion reaction could produce more energy than the energy put into it. The reaction yielded 3.1 MJ of energy from an energy input of 2 MJ.1 In 2023, a similar experiment released 3.9 MJ of energy for the same energy input.