Article Image

IPFS News Link • Science, Medicine and Technology

Putting the brakes on runaway electrons brings fusion power a step closer

• newatlas.com by Rich Haridy

The challenges scientists face in getting nuclear fusion to work are undeniably difficult, but not insurmountable, and two young physicists have recently solved one of the major problems engineers have been grappling with for almost half a century.

Nuclear fusion is the process that powers our sun. Deep inside our home star, hydrogen atoms are squashed together to form helium. This fusion process releases huge amounts of energy, but requires extremely high pressures and temperatures and has been challenging to recreate in a controlled way here on Earth.

Last year, researchers at MIT brought us closer to a fusion future by placing plasma under what they say is the most pressure ever created in a fusion device. Now, two researchers from the Chalmers University of Technology have unlocked another piece of the puzzle.


AzureStandard