The US government confirmed on Tuesday that its scientists have achieved a nuclear fusion with a net energy gain, which allows a less costly and cleaner production with the environment.
"This is just the beginning," said US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm at a press conference with White House Science and Technology Policy Director Arati Prabhakar and other government officials and scientists.
On 5 December, experts at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California achieved for the first time a nuclear fusion reaction with a net energy gain, meaning they produced more energy than was used in the process.
National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Undersecretary Jill Hruby told the media that 5 December, when scientists achieved nuclear fusion with a net energy gain, was "an important day for science". "Achieving ignition in a controlled fusion experiment is an achievement that comes after 60 years of global research development, engineering and experimentation," he said.
Hruby explained that to achieve this feat, scientists directed 192 lasers against a popcorn-sized target, specifically a capsule containing deuteron and triton, at about 3 million degrees Celsius. In this way, "they briefly simulated the conditions of a star and achieved ignition," said Hruby.
However, the California lab's director, Kim Budil, noted that there are still "significant scientific and technological hurdles" to commercial purposes. "This was just a capsule that burned once, and to have commercial fusion energy you need many capsules to be able to produce several fusion ignition events per minute," Budil said.
He estimated that it will take "a few decades" of concerted investment and effort to build a nuclear fusion power plant.
NNSA Deputy Administrator for Defence Programs Marvin Adams said that fusion is an "essential process in modern nuclear weapons and has the potential to create clean energy in abundance". He said this finding will allow laboratory experiments that will help NNSA's weapons deterrence programmes, "without explosive nuclear testing".
It also, he said, "underpins the credibility of our deterrent by demonstrating to the world leadership in expertise and relevant weapons technology".