After the press rumors, the confirmation arrives.

The secretary of the US Department of Energy Jennifer Granholm has in fact announced the US breakthrough on nuclear fusion, after the production for the first time in history in a California laboratory of a reaction that generates more energy than that needed to trigger it. "This is a historic achievement for researchers and staff at the National Ignition Facility who have dedicated their careers to seeing fusion ignition become a reality, and this turning point will spark more breakthroughs," Granholm said.

According to Jill Hruby, US undersecretary for nuclear safety, the US has undertaken «i

first steps towards a source of clean energy that could revolutionize the world».

The test carried out last week - the national laboratory "Lawrence Livermore" explained in a tweet, which depends on the US Department of Energy - "produced more energy with the fusion than that of the 192 lasers used" to cause the reaction itself.

According to experts it will take at least thirty years for nuclear fusion to go from being an experimental technology to a reality, with reactors capable of powering our cities with zero emissions.

Both to make inertial containment fusion with lasers usable (the one that led to the result obtained at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the USA) and for magnetic confinement fusion (the Iter reactor technique under construction in the south of France) will in fact need many intermediate steps.

«Making predictions is really difficult - explains Stefano Atzeni, professor at the Sapienza University of Rome - because we are just at the threshold of demonstrating that the inertial scheme physically works, while for the magnetic one we will have the proof from Iter in about fifteen years ».