As we all know that the moment is coming when Google and Amazon merge and take over the world, completely, for better or worse, the clean-energy/ Nuclear Fusion race may have just brought us one step closer.
Nuclear fusion is the goal that all energy companies are striving towards. It’s a pollution-free form of power that could potentially solve the world’s power problems. Enter Try Alpha Energy (owned by Google). They seem to have have come up with a new computer algorithm that optimizes plasma — an ionized gas that conducts electricity. How much of an optimization? According to a new paper that was published in the Journal Scientific Reports, they’ve gotten a 50% reduction in the energy loss rate and in increase in total energy produced.
“Google is always interested in solving complex engineering problems, and few are more complex than fusion,” wrote Ted Baltz, senior staff software engineer, Google Accelerated Science Team, on Google’s research blog. “Physicists have been trying since the 1950s to control the fusion of hydrogen atoms into helium, which is the same process that powers the Sun. The key to harnessing this power is to confine hydrogen plasmas for long enough to get more energy out from fusion reactions than was put in. This point is called ‘breakeven.’ If it works, it would represent a technological breakthrough, and could provide an abundant source of zero-carbon energy.”