in California used lasers to beam 2.05 megajoules of light onto a tiny amount of fusion fuel , sparking an explosion that ultimately produced 3.15 MJ of energy – approximately the equivalent of three sticks of dynamite.
But there’s an important caveat to their massive achievement. While the NIF experiment created more energy than was directed beamed into its target, it still was a net energy drain. The laser in the experiment still burned far more energy than just what was beamed onto the fuel, and more than what was ultimately produced. In fact, Wired reported last year that in all likelihood, “The main thing standing in the way of commercialized nuclear fusion is cost.
So far, however, no one has cracked the code on how to make nuclear fusion anything close to affordable. It’s difficult to imagine that nuclear fusion could possibly become cost-competitive with renewable energies like wind and solar any time soon – if at all. “But fusion may still find its place, because the grid needs energy in different forms and at different times,” Wired wrote in a .
Despite what some grandiose headlines have promised, nuclear fusion will likely fill some important energy niches, but it will never serve all of our energy needs. That doesn’t mean, however, that the research unfolding now isn’t worth it. In order to build toward a sustainable, carbon-free future, every form of clean energy production counts. And just because we can’t imagine an avenue for cheap and abundant nuclear fusion now, it doesn’t mean it will never happen.
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