Seriously, this is very, very exciting:
The U.S Department of Energy officials announced a history-making accomplishment in nuclear fusion Tuesday: For the first time, US scientists produced more energy from fusion than the laser energy they used to power the experiment.
A so-called "net energy gain" is a major milestone in a decadeslong attempt to source clean, limitless energy from nuclear fusion – the reaction that happens when two or more atoms are fused together.
The experiment put in 2.05 megajoules of energy to the target and resulted in 3.15 megajoules of fusion energy output – generating more than 50% more energy than was put in. It's the first time an experiment resulted in a meaningful gain of energy.
This kind of energy production has been a part of the popular imagination for many years.
It's not quite that flashy, of course, but here's a good brief explainer from the DOE of how it works:
Nuclear Fusion reactions power the Sun and other stars. In a fusion reaction, two light nuclei merge to form a single heavier nucleus. The process releases energy because the total mass of the resulting single nucleus is less than the mass of the two original nuclei. The leftover mass becomes energy.
In case this jargon is hard to understand, picture it this way:
Instead of digging for coal or gas (or covering the landscape with solar panels), you take hydrogen – the most abundant thing in the universe (easily found, say, in water) – and you smash it together to create more energy than you could possibly imagine.
How much energy?
Fusion projects mainly use the elements deuterium and tritium – both of which are isotopes of hydrogen.
The deuterium from a glass of water, with a little tritium added, could power a house for a year.
