This week, the US Department of Energy is expected to announce a “significant scientific accomplishment” after scientists reportedly generated the first fusion reaction with a net energy gain.
Sources told the Washington Post that the invention, a critical milestone in the pursuit of infinite clean energy, was made lately at the government-funded Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.
The net gain reaction, which is regarded as the “Holy Grail” of zero-carbon power, is a significant step toward the development of a technology that could one day provide a virtually unlimited supply of clean energy.
On Tuesday, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm will likely unveil the results of the fusion experiment at a media briefing.
Recent research conducted at the government-funded Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California marked a significant milestone in the pursuit of infinite clean energy.
A lab representative stated that researchers were still finalizing their findings and that nothing would be confirmed until the event.
The Department of Energy also declined to respond.
Since the 1950s, scientists have attempted to duplicate the nuclear reaction that drives the sun as part of a global effort to provide sustainable energy and battle climate change.
To date, however, no researchers have been able to generate more energy than the fusion reaction consumes.
This week, the US Department of Energy will announce the “important scientific breakthrough.”
“It was only a matter of time,” said one of the lab’s senior fusion scientists of the experiment’s success.
The science of nuclear fusion is based on squeezing hydrogen atoms so closely together that they fuse into helium and subsequently unleash enormous amounts of energy.
Despite the new breakthrough, scientists believe that commercial usage of fusion power units is still at least a decade away.
Through the Inflation Reduction Act, the Biden administration has allocated tens of billions of dollars to fusion energy research programs.
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