The US Department of Energy is expected to announce a major development in fusion energy on Tuesday.
Scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California have achieved a “net energy gain” for the first time in a fusion experiment using lasers, according to a person familiar with the matter.
In fusion, two atomic nuclei are exposed to heat of 100 million degrees Celsius or more and then fuse into one large atom, releasing an enormous amount of energy.
Controlled fusion, which also powers the Sun, is considered an unlimited and extremely cheap source of energy. But for fusion energy to be used, fusion power plants need to produce much more energy than they consume.
