Nuclear scientists hail US fusion breakthrough

Nuclear scientists using lasers the size of three football fields say they generated a huge amount of energy from fusion

Nuclear scientists using lasers the size of three football fields said Tuesday they had generated a huge amount of energy from fusion, possibly offering hope for the development of a new clean energy source.

Experts focused their giant array of almost 200 laser beams onto a tiny spot to create a mega blast of energy -- eight times more than they had ever done in the past.

"This result is a historic advance for inertial confinement fusion research," said Kim Budil, the director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which operates the National Ignition Facility in California, where the experiment took place this month.

It differs from fission, a technique currently used in nuclear power plants, where the bonds of heavy atomic nuclei are broken to release energy. 

In this experiment scientists used two isotopes of hydrogen, giving rise to helium. 

"The NIF teams have done an extraordinary job," said Professor Steven Rose, co-director of the center for research in this field at Imperial College London. 

But, warned Jeremy Chittenden, co-director of the same center in London, making this a useable source of energy is not going to be easy.

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