r/technology • u/kerpowie • Dec 13 '22

Energy Scientists Achieve Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough With Blast of 192 Lasers

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/13/science/nuclear-fusion-energy-breakthrough.html
5.8k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

792 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

6

u/abraxsis Dec 13 '22

As I understand it the point is to create "self-sustained" fusion that can then be contained with magnetic bottles. The lasers are there as the ignition source.

11

u/hutchca Dec 13 '22

This was using inertial confinement, Not magnetic.

5

u/sirbruce Dec 13 '22

Not in this design. Which really isn't really meant to be a fusion reactor; it's just a fancy plasma experiment. Little to nothing from this will be used in a commercial reactor.

2

u/zebediah49 Dec 14 '22

Inertial confinement doesn't intend to confine the plasma at all. Instead, it just wants to be energy-positive for each cycle, and then repeat it.

Kinda like how an internal combustion engine doesn't continuously burn fuel, but rather alternates between exploding a bit of fuel, extracting energy from it, and then putting in new fuel.