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Fusion Breakthrough: NIF Achieves 8.6 Megajoules, Shattering Previous Record
- The National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory achieved a fusion yield of 8.6 megajoules in recent experiments in the US.
- This breakthrough followed a series of experiments starting with a 3.15 megajoule yield in December 2022 that first demonstrated fusion ignition.
- The system employs 192 laser beams to compress a tiny, diamond-coated fuel pellet inside a vacuum chamber, producing temperatures exceeding 100 million °F alongside pressures billions of times greater than those found in Earth's atmosphere.
- The lasers delivered 2.05 megajoules to the pellet, while the fusion produced more energy than the lasers supplied, though powering the lasers consumed about 300 megajoules overall.
- Despite remaining far from practical clean energy production, this advancement supports fusion's potential as a safe, carbon-free power source and indicates momentum in overcoming engineering challenges.
19 Articles
19 Articles
Officials announce $53 million investment in pursuit of nearly limitless energy device — here's what we know
France is making an exciting leap toward sustainable energy with a new research program focused on developing advanced superconductors for fusion energy, reported Energy News. The French National Centre for Scientific Research and the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission have joined forces on the innovative SupraFusion program. With €50 million ($53.35 million) in funding over seven years, this initiative involves more than 2…
Livermore Has Reached 4X Times the Energy Gain from Laser Fusion
In April 2025, Lawrence Livermore National lab (LLNL) had its eighth successful ignition experiment and set another record for energy yield, delivering 8.6 MJ from 2.08 MJ of energy to the target and further demonstrating that NIF can repeatedly conduct fusion experiments at multi-megajoule levels of energy output. They got over four times the energy ...
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