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US Announces Breakthrough on Fusion Energy

Scientists at a federal facility have created more energy from nuclear fusion reactions than they used to start the process, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm confirmed on Tuesday.

Granholm said the development moved the country significantly closer to the possibility of fusion energy, a carbon-free source, with officials calling the discovery a breakthrough.

“This is one of the most impressive scientific feats of the 21st century,” Granholm said at a press conference, adding that researchers have been working on the effort for 60 years.

Nuclear fusion refers to fusing atoms together to produce energy. The type of nuclear energy that is commonly used today does the opposite, deriving energy from splitting atoms apart.

For decades, scientists have sought to advance nuclear fusion as a clean energy source that doesn’t produce the radioactive waste that occurs when atoms are split apart, though it may have some radioactive byproducts that stay at the power plant site and not require long-term storage, an expert recently told The Hill.

Granholm said that the administration had a goal of achieving commercial fusion within a decade.

However, at the press conference, Kim Budil, director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory where the breakthrough occurred, said it could take “decades” before the technology is commercialized.

“There are very significant hurdles” in both science and technology, Budil said.

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