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A team of scientists reportedly made a historic breakthrough in the decades-long quest for unlimited, sustainable, clean energy. According to a report by the Washington Post, the United States Department of Energy is expected to announce that scientists from the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California have, for the first time ever, created a nuclear fusion reaction that produced a net energy gain.
Scientists around the world have spent countless billions of dollars over the past several decades trying to unlock the secrets behind nuclear fusion, which is the same process that powers the sun.
While several people who work at the lab confirmed the initial findings, they said that researchers are still analyzing the data and would not comment until the official announcement, which is scheduled for Tuesday (December 13).
While the latest breakthrough could be a game-changer in the energy industry, the promise of affordable, clean energy is still in the distant future. If scientists can recreate the experiment, which requires one of the largest and most powerful lasers in the world, they would then have to figure out how to convert the energy from the reaction into electricity that can be safely used to power our electric grid.
“There is going to be great pride that this is something that happened in the United States,” David Edelman, who leads policy and global affairs at TAE, a large private fusion energy company, told the Post. “This is a very important milestone on the road toward fusion energy.”