Nuclear Fusion ‘Breakthrough’ Touted by White House, Drawing Praise and Some Skepticism

Nuclear Fusion ‘Breakthrough’ Touted by White House, Drawing Praise and Some Skepticism
Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm briefs reporters at the White House on May 11, 2021. Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Nathan Worcester
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It was 1:03 a.m. on Dec. 5 that experimental physicist Alex Zylstra first spotted it: for the first time, a target yielded more energy from a fusion reaction than a laser put into it—though that’s not counting the much greater input energy that was needed to power the laser in the first place.

“One of the first things I did was call one of the diagnostic experts to double-check the data,” he said during a Dec. 13 press conference with his colleagues from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Nathan Worcester
Nathan Worcester
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Nathan Worcester is an award-winning journalist for The Epoch Times based in Washington, D.C. He frequently covers Capitol Hill, elections, and the ideas that shape our times. He has also written about energy and the environment. Nathan can be reached at [email protected]
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