{"id":97717,"date":"2019-10-22T13:23:39","date_gmt":"2019-10-22T20:23:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/10\/giant-plasma-guns-could-be-the-answer-to-limitless-fusion-power"},"modified":"2019-10-22T13:23:39","modified_gmt":"2019-10-22T20:23:39","slug":"giant-plasma-guns-could-be-the-answer-to-limitless-fusion-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/10\/giant-plasma-guns-could-be-the-answer-to-limitless-fusion-power","title":{"rendered":"Giant Plasma Guns Could Be the Answer to Limitless Fusion Power"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/giant-plasma-guns-could-be-the-answer-to-limitless-fusion-power2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Generating endless energy with zero emissions by just slamming hydrogen atoms together has been somewhat of a pipe dream for decades. Now, scientists may be getting a tiny step closer to feasible fusion power, thanks to a futuristic experiment and dozens of plasma guns.<\/p>\n<p>Eighteen of 36 plasma guns are in place on the machine that could make <a href=\"https:\/\/www.livescience.com\/23394-fusion.html\">fusion<\/a> power a reality. Those guns are the key components of Los Alamos National Laboratory\u2019s Plasma Liner Experiment (PLX), which uses a new approach to the problem. PLX, if it works, will combine two existing methods of slamming single-proton hydrogen atoms together to form two-proton helium atoms. That process generates enormous amounts of energy per speck of fuel, much more than <a href=\"https:\/\/www.livescience.com\/23326-fission.html\">splitting heavy atoms (fission)<\/a> does. The hope is that the method pioneered in PLX will teach scientists how to create that energy efficiently enough to be worthwhile for real-world use.<\/p>\n<p>The promise of fusion is that it produces tons of energy. Every time two hydrogen atoms merge into helium, a small portion of their matter converts into a whole lot of energy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Generating endless energy with zero emissions by just slamming hydrogen atoms together has been somewhat of a pipe dream for decades. Now, scientists may be getting a tiny step closer to feasible fusion power, thanks to a futuristic experiment and dozens of plasma guns. Eighteen of 36 plasma guns are in place on the machine [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":513,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-futurism","category-particle-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97717","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\/513"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97717\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}