Scientists Produce Nuclear Fusion With Laser

[NASAFanboy]

Just in from a bunch of news articles.

Researchers at a laboratory in California say they've had a breakthrough in producing fusion reactions with a giant laser. The success comes after years of struggling to get the laser to work and is another step in the decades-long quest for fusion energy.

Omar Hurricane, a researcher at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, says that for the first time, they've produced significant amounts of fusion by zapping a target with their laser. "We've gotten more energy out of the fusion fuel than we put into the fusion fuel," he says.

Strictly speaking, while more energy came from fusion than went into the hydrogen fuel, only about 1 percent of the laser's energy ever reached the fuel. Useful levels of fusion are still a long way off. "They didn't get more fusion power out than they put in with the laser," says Steve Cowley, the head of a huge fusion experiment in the U.K. called the Joint European Torus, or JET.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/02/12/275896094/scientists-say-their-giant-laser-has-produced-nuclear-fusion

Laser fusion is possible.

We've done it! We are on step closer to fusion. Its a small step, but a step, nevertheless. Pull out your champagne bottles! Pull out your confetti! Lets celebrate!

We're still far off from making it profitable.

But we've proved that we can fuse hydrogen with lasers.

[sal_vager]

Cough http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/69435-Nuclear-Fusion-Achives-Milestone /Cough

[Seret]

Just to be clear, they got more energy out of the fuel than they put in. They didn't get more energy out of the whole machine than they put in. IIRC the energy released was about 1% of the energy consumed. That's great but it still puts inertial confinement well behind magnetic in terms of the energy in/energy out balance.

Interesting news nonetheless.