The Energy Department is expected to announce Tuesday that scientists have produced the first nuclear fusion reaction that creates a net energy gain, according to multiple reports.
The DOE is expected to make the news official on Tuesday when the agency will announce a “major scientific breakthrough.”
This will be a major development in the search for clean and cheap energy sources to help move the world away from fossil fuels.
“For most of us, it was just a matter of time,” a senior fusion scientist familiar with the work of the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California told The Washington Post.
Nuclear fusion technology produces energy by breaking two or more atoms together, as opposed to nuclear fission, which is used in nuclear power plants and splits atoms to release heat and radiation. Nuclear fusion is the only reaction that powers the Sun. The news was first reported by the Financial Times.
Jeremy Chittenden, professor of plasma physics at Imperial College London, told The Guardian: “If what is reported is true and more energy is extracted than is used to produce the plasma, then that is a moment of real breakthrough which is very exciting.”
This technology still has a long way to go to be cheaply reproduced on a large scale, as it needs to be self-sustaining on a continuous basis as opposed to short bursts.
While the technology is years or even decades away from being used for commercial purposes like powering the grid, the Biden administration is likely to tout the news as a major breakthrough for its climate and energy agenda.