{"id":21577,"date":"2016-02-03T14:01:27","date_gmt":"2016-02-03T22:01:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2016\/02\/scientists-in-germany-take-a-major-step-towards-nuclear-fusion"},"modified":"2017-06-04T20:13:07","modified_gmt":"2017-06-05T03:13:07","slug":"scientists-in-germany-take-a-major-step-towards-nuclear-fusion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2016\/02\/scientists-in-germany-take-a-major-step-towards-nuclear-fusion","title":{"rendered":"Scientists in Germany Take a Major Step Towards Nuclear Fusion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/scientists-in-germany-take-a-major-step-towards-nuclear-fusion.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Excellent news!<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>Physicists in Germany have used an experimental nuclear fusion device to produce hydrogen plasma in a process similar to what happens on the Sun. The test marks an important milestone on the road towards this super-futuristic source of cheap and clean nuclear energy.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier today in an event attended by German Chancellor Angela Merkel (herself a PhD physicist), researchers from the Max Planck Institute in Greifswald <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/aponline\/2016\/02\/03\/world\/europe\/ap-eu-nuclear-fusion.html\" target=\"_blank\">turned on<\/a> the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Wendelstein_7-X\" target=\"_blank\">Wendelstein 7-X stellarator<\/a>, an experimental nuclear fusion reactor. (Actually, the researchers let Merkel do the honors.) This \u20ac400 million ($435 million) stellarator is being used by physicists to test the technical viability of a future fusion reactor.<\/p>\n<p>Unlike nuclear fission, in which the nucleus of an atom is split into smaller parts, nuclear fusion creates a single heavy nucleus from two lighter nuclei. The resulting change in mass produces a massive amount of energy that physicists believe can be harnessed into a viable source of clean energy.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/gizmodo.com\/scientists-in-germany-take-a-major-step-towards-nuclear-1756826763\" target=\"_blank\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Excellent news! Physicists in Germany have used an experimental nuclear fusion device to produce hydrogen plasma in a process similar to what happens on the Sun. The test marks an important milestone on the road towards this super-futuristic source of cheap and clean nuclear energy. Earlier today in an event attended by German Chancellor Angela [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":362,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[873,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nuclear-energy","category-particle-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/362"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21577"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21577\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68616,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21577\/revisions\/68616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}