The U.S. Department of Energy is set to announce that scientists have made a breakthrough on fusion energy – the process that powers the sun and stars – that could provide a cheap source of electricity one day, sources told Reuters. More here:
The scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California have achieved a net energy gain for the first time, in a fusion experiment using lasers, one of the people said.
But the process consumes vast amounts of energy and the trick has been to make the process self-sustaining and get more energy out than goes in and to do so continuously instead of for brief moments. If fusion is commercialized, which backers say could happen in a decade or more, it would have additional benefits including the generation of virtually carbon-free electricity which could help in the fight against climate change without the amounts of radioactive nuclear waste produced by today's fission reactors.
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm is slated to hold a media briefing on Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. EST on a "major scientific breakthrough."Lawrence Livermore focuses mainly on national security issues related to nuclear weapons and the fusion experiment could lead to testing safer testing of the nation's arsenal of such bombs.
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