With the planet becoming more and more demanding on energy, physicists already began exploring ways of creating unlimited energy. Now, we could be on the brink of unlocking it.
The Sun, our main source of energy in the solar system, generates its energy by nuclear fusion of hydrogen nuclei into helium. At the Sun's core, 500 million metric tons of hydrogen are fused each second, emitting massive amounts of energy. Physicists for some time have been trying to attempt to replicate this same principle of nuclear fusion on Earth, and if that is achieved, we can expect an unlimited supply of electricity.
According to scientists from the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), boron powder has been injected into the plasma allowing for more control of the experiment, a lowering in greenhouse gas emissions, and removal of long-term radioactive waste. Adding boron powder to the mix of plasma prevents the tungsten in tokamak (fusion facilities) walls from interacting with the plasma.
Robert Lunsford, the lead author on the paper, said, "The main goal of the experiment was to see if we could lay down a layer of boron using a powder injector. So far, the experiment appears to have been successful."