They are joined by MICHAEL PHILLIS, JENNIFER McDERMOTT, MADDIE BURAKOFF and Matthew Daily.
A "major scientific breakthrough" was set to be announced by the Energy Secretary on Tuesday.
Net energy gain is a term used to describe the amount of energy produced in fusion reactions than was used to ignite them. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to talk about the breakthrough.
Granholm was going to be at an event in Washington. The Department of Energy wouldn't give any information before the event. It was reported by the Financial Times.
Proponents of fusion hope that it will one day be able to produce carbon-free energy. It is decades away from being possible to produce energy from fusion. Researchers said it was a step in the right direction.
"It's almost like it's the beginning of something," said Professor Dennis Whyte, director of the Plasma Science and Fusion Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Making fusion energy systems available to tackle climate change and energy security should be a priority for us.
Net energy gain is hard to achieve because fusion happens at high temperatures and pressures.
It is possible to release enormous amounts of energy and heat when hydrogen atoms are pressed into each other. It doesn't create radioactive waste.
Billions of dollars and decades of work have gone into fusion research that has produced exciting results for a short time. The National Ignition Facility used 192 lasers and temperatures hotter than the center of the sun to make a fusion reaction.
A small metal can is being focused by the lasers. The result is a very hot environment.
An announcement that net energy had been gained in a fusion reaction would be significant according to Professor Betti. He said there is a long way to go before sustainable electricity is generated.
He said that the breakthrough was similar to when humans first learned how to make an explosion.
Betti said that you don't have the engine and the tires. You cannot say you have a car.
The total amount of power it took to operate the lasers and run the project was not applied to the net energy gain achievement. It will need more power to be viable.
The physics of stars are hard to control. It has been difficult to get to this point because the fuel has to be hotter than the sun's center. The fuel wants to leak out and be cold. He said thatContaining it is an amazing challenge.
According to Jeremy Chittenden, a professor at Imperial College in London, the California lab's net energy gain isn't a big deal because of the progress it has already made.
He said that the fact that this is a significant milestone does not detract from it.
It takes a lot of money and time to advance fusion research. One way to turn hydrogen into a gas is to use humongous magnets to control it. This method is being explored in France as well as by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a private company.
The teams working on those projects in two continents made significant improvements to their magnets.
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