MIAMI, United States. – The US Department of Energy confirmed this tuesday that scientists in the country had managed, for the first time, to produce a fusion reaction capable of generating a net gain of energy, which means unlimited, cheap and clean energy production.
According to the Department of Energy itself, this is “an important scientific breakthrough that has been decades in the making and will pave the way for advances in defense and the future of clean energy.”
The prestigious American newspaper The Washington Post He stressed that, in the decades that scientists have been experimenting with fusion reactions, they have so far been unable to create one that produces more energy than it consumes, so the current achievement is “significant.”
“This landmark, first-of-its-kind achievement (…) will provide invaluable insights into the prospects for clean fusion energy, which will be a game-changer for efforts to achieve President Biden’s goal of a zero-carbon grid economy.” , noted the Department of Energy.
US Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm also called the discovery “historic” and recalled that researchers and staff at the National Ignition Facility had dedicated their careers to making fusion ignition a reality. “This milestone will undoubtedly lead to even more discoveries,” she noted.
BREAKING NEWS: This is an announcement that has been decades in the making.
On December 5, 2022 a team from DOE’s @Livermore_Lab made history by achieving fusion ignition.
This breakthrough will change the future of clean power and America’s national defense forever. pic.twitter.com/hFHWbmCNQJ
— US Department of Energy (@ENERGY) December 13, 2022
“We’ve had a theoretical understanding of fusion for over a century, but the journey from know-how can be long and arduous. Today’s milestone shows what we can do with perseverance,” said Dr. Arati Prabhakar, Senior Advisor for Science and Technology at the White House.
According to US media, the goal of the fusion research is to replicate a nuclear reaction similar to the one the sun uses to create energy.
“It’s a ‘holy grail’ of carbon-free energy that scientists have been chasing since the 1950s. Commercial use would still be at least a decade away, maybe longer, but the Biden administration is likely to achieve its full development with new massive investments in the coming years”, has indicated The Washington Post.
Although many scientists believe that fusion power plants are still decades away, according to the news agency EFEthe potential of this technology is hard to ignore.
Fusion reactions do not emit carbon, do not produce long-lived radioactive waste, and in theory a small cup of hydrogen fuel could power a house for hundreds of years.
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