Fusion breakthrough could end reliance on fossil fuels | Information Age

There’s been a nuclear fusion breakthrough as significant as “man landing on the moon”. Photo: Shutterstock

Enervated Australian scientists are already flagging the prospects for development of a major new domestic industry after US physicists announced they had achieved the “holy grail of physics” by successfully producing surplus energy from a nuclear fusion reaction.

The experiment, conducted within the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California, used strong ultraviolet lasers to heat a fuel capsule filled with deuterium and tritium so much that it imploded.

This increased the pressure and temperature inside the capsule, forcing the deuterium and tritium in the capsule – each a slightly different form…