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Title: Since 2022 Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough, US Researchers Have More Than
Doubled Its Power Output
Link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/05/19/...
TechCrunch reports: The world's only net-positive fusion experiment has been
steadily ramping up the amount of power it produces, TechCrunch has learned.
In recent attempts, the team at the U.S. Department of Energy's National
Ignition Facility (NIF) increased the yield of the experiment, first to 5.2
megajoules and then again to 8.6 megajoules, according to a source with
knowledge of the experiment. The new results are significant improvements
over the historic experiment in 2022, which was the first controlled fusion
reaction to generate more energy than the it consumed. The 2022 shot
generated 3.15 megajoules, a small bump over the 2.05 megajoules that the
lasers delivered to the BB-sized fuel pellet. None of the shots to date have
been effective enough to feed electrons back into the grid, let alone to
offset the energy required to power the entire facility - the facility wasn't
designed to do that. The first net-positive shot, for example, required 300
megajoules to power the laser system alone. But they are continued proof that
controlled nuclear fusion is more than hypothetical.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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