Manmade mini-star a “fantastic achievement” in quest for unlimited clean energy to tackle climate change

London – Scientists in a UK laboratory have made great strides in creating electricity through nuclear fusion. Development has put them in place, they say, to take advantage of an unlimited source of clean energy, with no Greenhouse gas emissions – in a matter of decades.

Nuclear fusion is the opposite of nuclear fission, the technology used today in nuclear power plants around the world. Fission breaks down particles to create energy. Fusion forces the particles together and can be done, scientists say, much more safely, with much less radioactive material and a much lower risk of accidents.

Scientists have not yet managed to carry out the merger in a way that produces enough electricity to be the clean energy supply that they believe could eventually be, but they say it would be unfair for humanity and the planet not to keep up the pressure. hi.

“Fusion has such a high potential to solve, or help solve, the energy problem … in a way that is compatible with the health of our planet,” said Dr. Ambrogio Fasoli, a physics professor and president of the consortium. international research that did the research. great breakthrough, he told CBS News. “It would be utterly immoral in the history of mankind not to attempt to exploit it.”

What was the breakthrough?

The advancement of Fasoli’s team at the UK-based JET Lab saw them create a miniature star and, using magnetic fields, managed to hold it together for a record five seconds. The star only produced enough electricity to boil about 60 teapots full of water, and needed more power to create it than it emitted.

But Fasoli said these 60 power teapots were remarkable, because the experiment validated the design choices that have been made for a much larger reactor, which is currently being built in France, called ITER.

ITER is a multi-decade international project led by 35 countries, including the United States, China, Russia, and the countries of the European Union. When finished, scientists believe it will provide a plan for the sustainable global commercialization of fusion energy.

“A planetary challenge must be tackled with a planetary approach,” Fasoli said. “This fantastic scientific achievement is based on the fact that even when you have political difficulties, science and, in a sense, technology have no barriers. We all work together. We find ways to collaborate regardless of the configuration. politics … In short, the goal is really a goal for the good of all humanity. “

Fasoli said he hoped the ITER project would be completed by 2050 and that it would bring scientists to the point where they could design, in collaboration with private industry, a demonstration commercial fusion reactor.

It may seem distant, but harnessing the power of the stars on Earth has never been easy.

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