A breakthrough in US laboratory offers new promise for clean energy

For more than nine decades scientists have tried to replicate the process that produces energy for the sun and the stars — fusion. On Tuesday, researchers at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) in California, USA, announced a milestone in this endeavour. They merged two nuclei to produce a heavier nucleus. Their reactor produced about 1.5 times more energy than what was used in the process. In all the earlier attempts to harness the power of fusion, the reactors used up more energy than what was produced. But scientists say that it will be at least two decades before the process pioneered in the California laboratory can be scaled up. Moreover, the NIF’s primary mandate is defence related, making the immediate prospects of clean energy from its reactors remote. Even then, in a world desperately searching for technologies that can power the developmental needs of nations without…

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