The US is set to announce a nuclear fusion breakthrough

The US Department of Energy will announce later today that its scientists have produced a nuclear fusion reaction that creates net energy for the first time in history, per the Financial Times, which cited three internal sources.

⚛️⚛️ Why it's a big deal: The achievement brings scientists one step closer to the holy grail of energy production: nuclear fusion, aka the smashing of two atoms together to produce one, which promises immense amounts of clean energy without the Chernobyl downside. On a pound-for-pound basis, fusion generates nearly 4 million times more energy than coal, oil, or gas. It’s also how the sun generates 100% of its power.

Scientists have been experimenting with fusion since the 1950s. But until now, they hadn’t been able to create a reactor that produces more energy than it takes to start up.

• To achieve this breakthrough, researchers at the federal Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory bombarded a tiny pellet of hydrogen plasma with the world’s biggest laser, reportedly producing 2.5 megajoules of energy via fusion vs. 2.1 megajoules from the laser.
• For context, the amount of net energy generated (0.4 megajoules) is enough to power an LED lamp for ~40 hours.

⚡️👀 Looking ahead… While this breakthrough can be looked at as a historic milestone, like the highway exit sign pointing to Abe Lincoln’s birthplace, there’s still a long way to go before large-scale fusion power stations can become a reality. And even if scientists figure out a way to replicate this fusion experiment on a massive scale, engineers still have yet to develop machinery capable of affordably turning said reaction into electricity that can be used to power any grid.