Scientists at a California-based lab have replicated and improved upon a ‘breakthrough’ test in which they got more energy out of a nuclear fusion reaction than was put in.

Last year, scientists at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California managed to release 2.5 MJ of energy after using just 2.1 MJ to heat the fuel with lasers.

The process involved firing pellets containing hydrogen fuel at around 200 lasers to create a series of rapid, repeated explosions at the rate of 50 times per second.

Now in a replicated test, the scientists have managed to improve upon the results of the initial run.

Of the successful second test, a spokesperson for Lawrence Livermore told the Guardian: “Scientists… repeated the breakthrough in an experiment in the National Ignition Facility (NIF) on 30 July that produced a higher energy yield than in December.”

While significant, the net energy gain from nuclear fusion realised at the National Ignition Facility is still happening on a much smaller scale than what would be needed to power electric grids or heat buildings, noted Jeremy Chittenden, co-director of the Centre for Inertial Fusion Studies at Imperial College in London.

“It’s about what it takes to boil 10 kettles of water,” Chittenden said after the first experiment. “In order to turn that into a power station, we need to make a larger gain in energy – we need it to be substantially more.”

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