Nuclear Fusion

Why Fusion Ignition is Being Hailed as a Major Breakthrough in Fusion

By Carolyn Kuranz

American scientists have announced what they have called a major breakthrough in a long-elusive goal of creating energy from nuclear fusion. The U.S. Department of Energy said on Dec. 13, 2022, that for the first time – and after several decades of trying – scientists have managed to get more energy out of the process than they had to put in. But just how significant is the development? And how far off is the long-sought dream of fusion providing abundant, clean energy? Carolyn Kuranz, an associate professor of nuclear engineering at the University of Michigan who has worked at the facility that just broke the fusion record, helps explain this new result.

What happened in the fusion chamber?

Fusion is a nuclear reaction that combines two atoms to create one or more new atoms with slightly less total mass. The difference in mass is released as energy, as described by Einstein’s famous equation, E = mc2 , where energy equals mass times the speed of light squared. Since the speed of light is enormous, converting just a tiny amount of mass into energy – like what happens in fusion – produces a similarly enormous amount of energy.

Researchers at the U.S. Government’s National Ignition Facility in California have demonstrated, for the first time, what is known as “fusion ignition.” Ignition is when a fusion reaction produces more energy than is being put into the reaction from an outside source and becomes selfsustaining.

A gold and plastic canister. The fuel is held in a tiny canister designed to keep the reaction as free from contaminants as possible. U.S. Department of Energy/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

The technique used at the National Ignition Facility involved shooting 192 lasers at a 0.04 inch (1 mm) pellet of