Scientists made a breakthrough in fusion energy. Here’s what it means. | USA TODAY

Could scientists' recent breakthrough in fusion energy help solve climate change? Here's what we know.

RELATED: Fusion energy breakthrough could lead to clean, carbon-free power

California scientists have achieved a major advance in fusion energy, a technology that could potentially provide clean, carbon-free power in years to come, the Department of Energy announced Tuesday.

The breakthrough was made at 1:03 a.m. on Dec. 5 at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's National Ignition Facility, 50 miles east of San Francisco. The work uses giant lasers to create heat and pressure like those found inside a star, enough to drive atoms together, releasing tremendous energy.

The advance described Tuesday was that researchers have been able to create more energy in the process than they put into it, what's known as "ignition." In a news conference, U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm described it as a "fusion breakthrough" that "will go down in the history books."

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6 comments

  1. ๐Ÿ‘† – ะะVะ• ะ GะžะžD ะขIะœะ• – FIND YะžUR LะžVะ•! ๐Ÿ’ฆ๐Ÿ˜w๐Ÿ’ž

  2. If one bothers to read a more in-depth article about this ‘breakthrough’, it sounds way less impressive. They spent decades and billions of dollars to produce the amount of a 60 Watt light bulb which lasted less than 5 seconds. A ‘practical implementation’ of this technology is equally decades away … if it will ever happen.

    1. The point is that the theory has now been proven to work. It is decades away, but that doesn’t by it an unworthy cause, when you look at what it can do for generations ahead.

  3. Naysayers, negative nancies, doom and gloomers,,conspiracists, religious nutters, flat earthers, moon landing truthers and boomers are hilarious

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