Skip to footer

Harnessing star power

The world’s first successful net energy gain through nuclear fusion is a measure of the infinite range of intelligence.

|
Reuters
Scientists at the National Ignition Facility in Livermore, California, inspect a final optics assembly on the device in which the world's first net energy gain fusion reaction was produced on Dec. 5, 2022.
  • By the Monitor's Editorial Board

For the first time, an experiment in nuclear fusion has produced more power than it consumed in making it. That milestone holds huge potential for the world’s energy security beyond the era of fossil fuels.

The numbers for this achievement are daunting. Scientists at the National Ignition Facility in Livermore, California, shot 192 laser beams at a target smaller than a peppercorn, suspended in a chamber under temperatures 10 times hotter than the sun and twice the pressure at its core. The accuracy of the shot had to be within five-trillionths of a meter, its timing within 25-trillionths of a second. The whole event required less time than it takes light to travel an inch.

But think of it in terms of the nonmaterial values that were at work in creating this scientific breakthrough: insight into the laws of the universe, precision in applying them, and faith in the progress of human knowledge. This historic success is about “seeing what was possible,” said Alex Zylstra, the lab’s principal experimentalist.

Fusion is one of the most common physics processes in the universe, the core activity of every star, including the sun. But reproducing it has posed one of the greatest scientific challenges. There are nearly 100 laboratories worldwide developing different models for fusion. Nearly 40 more are being planned or constructed. Private enterprises have proliferated in the past five years.

It’s not hard to see why interest is accelerating. The fuel inputs for fusion are abundant on Earth – enough to power humanity’s needs for at least 2,000 years, perhaps indefinitely. It is carbon-free, and its radioactive byproduct dissipates quickly. It holds the potential of not just moving humanity beyond dependence on fossil fuels, but also removing carbon already emitted into the atmosphere. Significant scientific and engineering challenges remain. But the Biden administration has set a goal of making fusion commercially viable within a decade.

“We were in a position for a very long time where [commercialization] never got closer,” said Kim Budil, director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where the National Ignition Facility is based, “because we needed this first fundamental step. So we’re in a great position today to begin understanding just what it will take to make that next step."

At a moment of profound concern about the future of life on Earth, a brief starburst in a bucket has given a new view of unprecedented potential. In a hundred-trillionth of a second, humanity has caught a new glimpse of thought unbound.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Harnessing star power
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2022/1213/Harnessing-star-power
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe