A potentially exciting breakthrough shouldn’t detract from urgent energy needs
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm will announce a major breakthrough in nuclear fusion on Tuesday. Over the last two weeks, the National Ignition Facility of the federal Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California shot three lasers at a deuterium-tritium fusion fuel pellet, heating it until it induced a fusion reaction. This particular fusion reaction generated more power than used in the lasers shot at it.
Granholm will hail this as a “major scientific breakthrough.” And it is. But we’re still a long way away from the promise of bountiful clean energy that fusion promises.
BREAKING NEWS: This is an announcement that has been decades in the making.
On December 5, 2022 a team from DOE's @Livermore_Lab made history by achieving fusion ignition.
This breakthrough will change the future of clean power and America’s national defense forever. pic.twitter.com/hFHWbmCNQJ
— U.S. Department of Energy (@ENERGY) December 13, 2022
