Submitted by Rough-Lavishness-401 t3_zy8tjv in wallstreetbets
naratas t1_j24rtin wrote
No, It's not the first time humans have created nuclear fusion. It's been demonstrated in laboratories many times. Thermonuclear bombs works by creating nuclear fusion. Deuterium and Tritium (heavier isotopes of Hydrogen) is fused together to create Helium (and lots of energy is released). This fusion process is initiated with a conventional fission bomb.
We are still far away from commercial fusion reactors. We can only hope that they will be available within our lifetime. It would solve our energy needs forever.
What was groundbreaking with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory experiments was that the fusion energy they got out from their little "fusion pellet" was larger than the energy the bombarding lasers put in to the pellet. This is a huge step, but unfortunately when counting in all the energy needed to drive the lasers they still put in more energy than they got out.
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