The US announces a breakthrough on nuclear fusion thanks to the production for the first time in history of a reaction that generates more energy than needed to trigger it.
With the laser technique, and not with the magnetic confinement one in which the EU has preferred to invest instead.
The historic scientific result, which sees the United States win the planetary race towards this goal, will be officially presented tomorrow in a press conference by the secretary of the US Department of Energy Jennifer Granholm.
But it has already been anticipated by some media, arousing a vast, if cautious, enthusiasm around the world.
Someone has already called it the 'Holy Grail' of carbon-free energy that scientists have been chasing and dreaming of since the 1950s.
when they studied how to amplify the power of an atomic device arriving at the H bomb. A revolutionary step towards unlimited, clean and low-cost energy which in a single blow could allow to reduce pollution, curb climate change, guarantee development of the poorest countries.
And change the balance of power on the geopolitical map, reducing the power of countries whose economy largely depends on the export of fossil fuels, such as Russia and the Gulf countries.
The turning point also confirms the primacy of the US in scientific research and technological innovation, thanks also to public and private investments unparalleled in the world, including the maxi aid package for the green economy of the recent anti-inflation law passed by the Biden administration.
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But the road seems marked and in the meantime, environmentalists warn, we must not abandon renewables, even if they have the limit of environmental impact and their intermittence.
"For most of us, it's just a matter of time," one of the scientists at the National Ignition Facility of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, where the discovery was made, assured the Washington Post.
Unlike the energy from nuclear fission, the one produced in atomic power plants with the dangerous splitting of a heavy nucleus into two lighter ones and the problem of waste, that from fusion reproduces the process that takes place in the stars and in the Sun, with the combination without risks of two light cores in one heavy core.
Hydrogen is used as fuel, which is practically inexhaustible.
Two nuclei approach each other until they melt together at very high temperatures and densities (millions of degrees Celsius) to overcome the electromagnetic repulsion.
In this way the energy of the reaction is transformed into electricity which can power homes, offices and companies without emitting carbon into the air or producing radioactive waste to be disposed of in the environment.
For decades, scientists have experimented with fusion reactions but until now they had used up more energy than they got.
One of the largest lasers in the world has been successfully used in the laboratory in California.
The energy produced, about 25 megajoules, was generated thanks to 192 laser beams which in a few billionths of a second hit the inside of a small cylinder containing two key elements (deuterium and tritium), as explained to ANSA nuclear fusion expert Stefano Atzeni, from the Sapienza University of Rome, and Fabrizio Consoli, head of the Abc fusion laser at Enea.
The obstacles in the future are not lacking,
starting from the gigantic costs and technical difficulties to recreate the reaction on a large scale and to develop machinery (until now non-existent) capable of transforming it at sustainable costs into electricity to be put into the network.
But a new future doesn't seem far off.
"This breakthrough demonstrates that there is a strong need to continue investing in nuclear fusion," underlined the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
'We need various approaches to ensure this clean energy in the future, but this shows that intensified work and research are worth it,' she added.
underlined the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
'We need various approaches to ensure this clean energy in the future, but this shows that intensified work and research are worth it,' she added.
underlined the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
'We need various approaches to ensure this clean energy in the future, but this shows that intensified work and research are worth it,' she added.