In an experiment, using a process called inertial confinement fusion, researchers at the lab in Livermore, Calif., were able to produce more energy than they put into the laser, the first time this has ever been achieved.
“This is one of the most impressive scientific feats of the 21st century,” Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said a press conference. “Today we tell the world that America has achieved a major scientific breakthrough, one that happened because we invested in our research and our national labs.”
Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, center, with Dr. Arati Prabhakar, the president's science adviser, and Marvin Adams, National Nuclear Security Administration deputy administrator for defense programs, discusses the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory's breakthrough in fusion research at a news conference at the Department of Energy in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday.
“This milestone moves us one significant step closer to the possibility of zero-carbon abundant energy powering our society,” Granholm said. “We got out 3.15 megajoules, we input 2.05 megajoules in the laser,” said Mark Herrmann, who is the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s program director for weapon physics and design, in an expert panel discussion that followed the announcement. “That’s never been done before in any fusion laboratory anywhere in the world.”“I want to be clear, ultimately this experiment drew about 300 megajoules from the grid,” Herrmann said. “The laser wasn’t designed to be efficient.
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