Nuclear fusion reaction releases almost twice the energy put in

throwaway389430@lemmy.cafe to News@lemmy.world – 629 points –
Nuclear fusion reaction releases almost twice the energy put in
newscientist.com
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I thought because of the law of conservation of energy you couldn't get more energy out of something you put in.

I'm getting troll vibes, but I'll bite lol. Fusion reactions are the exception since you're turning some mass into energy according to:

E = mc^2

There's many quality videos on YouTube that can provide a better explanation than I ever could.

You can think of the material being fused as fuel. More energy is produced by burning the fuel than in the spark it took to ignite it.