
The Financial Times reported Sunday that scientists in the California-based Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) had achieved a “net energy gain” from an experimental fusion reactor.
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/us-to-announce-major-scientific-breakthrough-amid-nuclear-fusion-reports-3598437/amp/1
This is being spread across various websites. FT and Washington Post wrote the most details, but both are behind paywalls (boo) so I cited NDTV instead.
If…a BIG if…this report is true, it would still take a decade or more to commercialize fusion to the point where it would make even a dent in climate change.
But it would be a big first step.
A BIG if.
(FWIW, European scientists claimed this back in February …and in June… and again in September, and then it all fizzled out. So I’m not holding my breath on yet another politically charged, puff out our nationalist chest claim until I see scientific evidence that the reaction can be sustained and repeated elsewhere.)
Can you say “billlyons and billyons of dollars”?