By Daniel Clery, ScienceNOW In the high-stakes race to realize
fusion energy, a smaller lab may be putting the squeeze on the
big boys. Worldwide efforts to harness fusion—the power source
of the sun and stars—for energy on Earth currently focus on two
multibillion dollar facilities: the ITER fusion reactor in
France and the National Ignition Facility (NIF) in California.
But other, cheaper approaches exist—and one of them may have a
chance to be the first to reach “break-even,” a key milestone in
which a process produces more energy than needed to trigger the
fusion reaction. Researchers at the Sandia National Laboratory
in Albuquerque, New Mexico, will announce in a Physical Review
Letters (PRL) paper accepted for publication that their process,
known as magnetized liner inertial fusion (MagLIF) and first
proposed 2 years ago, has passed the first of three tests,
putting it on track for an attempt at the coveted break-even.
Tests of the remaining components of the process will continue
next year, and the te