The U.S. Department of Energy announced a breakthrough in nuclear fusion on Tuesday that puts the world one step closer to harnessing an abundant energy source free from carbon emissions and long-lived radioactive waste.

U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm confirmed that scientists achieved a reaction that created more energy than was used — known as a net energy gain — at the federally-funded Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. Thermal Fuse 172c

“Last week at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, scientists at the National Ignition Facility achieved fusion ignition,” Sec. Granholm said. “It’s the first time it’s ever been done. … Simply put, this is one of the most impressive scientific feats of the 21st century.”

Such a development carries broad implications for renewable energy and long-term solutions to replace fossil fuels, though the benefits are still decades away.

“It'd be an enormous game changer,” Constellation Energy CEO Joe Dominguez told Yahoo Finance Live on Monday (video above). “We've been chasing this for a long time. But the developments we saw out of Lawrence Livermore are, I think, the best developments on fusion energy that we've seen since the work at Princeton probably 30 years ago with the TFTR [Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor]. So it's very exciting. It's transformational.”

A nuclear fusion reaction, which is what keeps the sun and other stars burning, occurs when the nuclei of two atoms fuse into one atomic nucleus. When that happens, the excess mass converts into energy. (The reverse process, nuclear fission, powers existing nuclear power plants and bombs.)

Scientists have been working to achieve sustained nuclear fusion since the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory was founded in the 1950s, but replicating the conditions found within the massive cores of stars in labs on earth has proven to be a seemingly intractable problem.

One difficulty has been in running the reaction long enough to ignite a chain of reactions. Another related challenge has been unleashing larger amounts of energy.

Experts say that nuclear fusion releases 4 million times more energy than burning oil or coal. Put another way, a pickup truck filled with nuclear fusion fuel has the equivalent energy of 2 million metric tons of coal or 10 million barrels of oil. And it produces that energy without the drawbacks of other sources, namely climate change causing carbon emissions and lasting hazardous waste.

Recent years have shown more promising results, partly due to improved technology and a growing appetite for zero-carbon energy. Donut-shaped reactors using large magnets have been able to extend the time of the reaction. Earlier this year, one such reactor in China set a record for the longest sustained nuclear fusion reaction at 17 minutes. Other tests have claimed to reach a breakeven point, meaning the energy output equaled the energy put into the test.

The development at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory has seemingly gone further. The National Ignition Facility (NIF) uses a different method of causing fusion by directing powerful lasers at a capsule of hydrogen atoms to generate the pressure and heat necessary.

According to The Financial Times, which first reported the news Sunday, preliminary results show ignition took place, producing 2.5 megajoules of energy, or 120% of the energy that was consumed by the lasers.

That marks a long-awaited advancement in what has been considered a moonshot technology for decades. However, there's still a long runway ahead to move from small reactions in laboratory settings to commercial nuclear reactors.

Specifically, nuclear fusion won't help the world reach its 2030 net-zero targets. It may start to come into play by 2050.

“I still think we're decades away,” Dominguez said. “But this development, where we're now getting more energy out of the reaction than we're putting in to create the reaction, is a gigantic milestone.”

Grace O'Donnell is an editor for Yahoo Finance.

Read the latest news on the climate crisis from Yahoo Finance

Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance

Follow Yahoo Finance on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Flipboard, and LinkedIn

After setting aside almost half a trillion dollars to date tackling its energy crisis, Germany is also poised to take on the risks associated with 216 billion euros ($229 billion) of derivatives built up by energy giant Uniper. Germany is nationalising Uniper in what is the biggest corporate bailout in the country's history, after Russia's move to choke off gas threw Europe's biggest economy into chaos. Uniper has already booked billions of euros of losses on derivatives, exacerbating a crisis as it rushed to plug the gap left after Russia turned off the taps.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The Republican leader of the Wisconsin Senate said Thursday that he opposes spending any state money to help Madison bring a passenger rail line that would connect the capital city to Milwaukee, joining the state's other top GOP legislative leader in opposition to the project. Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu told The Associated Press that he opposes state funding for the project but had not been briefed by Madison city leaders on what they were attempting. Assembly Spe

TD Bank (TSX:TD) stock is a dividend stud that's ending 2022 at a very modest multiple. The post TD Bank Stock Looks Too Good to Pass Up! appeared first on The Motley Fool Canada.

Aurion Resources Ltd. (TSXV: AU) (OTCQX: AIRRF) ("Aurion" or the "Company") reports an update on its investment in Strategic Resources ("Strategic"), which is listed on the TSX Venture under the ticker SR. Strategic announced on December 13, 2022, that it has entered into an agreement to merge with BlackRock Metals, which owns a 100%-interest in the BlackRock Vanadium-Titanium-Iron Project in Quebec. In the view of Strategic, the transaction would create a leading critical minerals company in ti

U.S. stock index futures extended their loss-making streak on persistent concerns that the Federal Reserve's resolve to combat runaway inflation could tip the economy into a recession. Canada's benchmark index had registered its biggest one-day drop in more than a month on Thursday, with technology and materials stocks dragging as a hawkish outlook from the European Union, the U.S. and the UK central banks sparked a global selloff. The U.S. Federal Reserve on Wednesday raised its overnight lending rate by an expected 50-basis points, but signaled that rate hikes were far from over.

A total of 156 companies listed their shares on the bourse this year, raising nearly $15 billion in initial public offerings, a far cry from 743 firms that raised $180 billion in what was a blockbuster 2021, data from the exchange operator showed. The slump in the IPO activity comes as U.S. stock markets wobbled through much of the year due to a spate of selloffs as the Fed took an aggressive stance on interest rates. The Fed's policy-setting committee projected it would continue raising rates to above 5% in 2023, a level not seen since a steep economic downturn in 2007, quashing hopes that the central bank would hit the brakes on its hiking-cycle early next year.

Novavax, Inc. (Nasdaq: NVAX), a biotechnology company dedicated to developing and commercializing next-generation vaccines for serious infectious diseases, today announced the pricing of an underwritten public offering to sell 6,500,000 shares of its common stock at a public offering price of $10.00 per share, or $65 million worth of shares of its common stock. In connection with the common stock offering, Novavax granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 975,000 s

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Puerto Rico’s power company appears destined for an even longer bankruptcy than expected after several creditors rejected a new debt restructuring plan filed late Friday following years of failed negotiations. A federal control board that oversees the island’s finances filed a plan that proposes to cut by nearly half the more than $10 billion of debt held by Puerto Rico’s Electric Power Authority, the largest of any local government agency. Board chairman David Skeel

As Haruhiko Kuroda's decade helming Japan's central bank nears an end, more of his senior colleagues are seeing a case to remove the bank's cap on bond yields, a key but problematic piece of his radical monetary stimulus. The rare hawkish shift inside the Bank of Japan (BOJ) comes after years of heavy money printing failed to fire up anemic consumer demand and amid growing anger about the impact of ultra-low interest rates on bank lending margins and, more recently, the cost of living. A dozen people familiar with the BOJ's thinking say debate over how to remove a controversial cap on bond yields, introduced in 2016 as part of the bank's yield curve control (YCC) programme, could gather pace next year, provided wages perk up and major economic risks remain contained.

LONDON (Reuters) -Forget a year-end rally in financial markets. The message from major central banks is loud and clear: the battle to tame inflation is far from over. Central banks in the United States, euro zone, Britain and Switzerland met on Wednesday and Thursday and all slowed the pace of aggressive rate moves.

LONDON (Reuters) -Unilever said on Thursday that its litigation with the independent board of Ben & Jerry's over the sale of its Israeli ice cream business has "been resolved". Unilever in June sold its Ben & Jerry's ice cream business in Israel and the West Bank to its local licensee, Avi Zinger, for an undisclosed sum. The next month, Ben & Jerry's filed a lawsuit against a Unilever subsidiary to try to block the sale.

Recession or not, here are two Canadian stocks you can feel great about buying today and holding for the long term. The post 2 Stocks to Buy Whether or Not a Recession Is Coming appeared first on The Motley Fool Canada.

Rising interest rates have pushed qualifying rate above 8% for some borrowers

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin banned the use of several Chinese-owned apps, including TikTok and WeChat, on state government devices and wireless networks on Friday, calling them a threat to national security. Youngkin’s executive order covers apps developed by ByteDance and Tencent. Businesses who contract with Virginia must also prohibit their use on state-owned devices or IT infrastructure. “TikTok and WeChat data are a channel to the Chinese Communist Party, and their con

SQI Diagnostics Inc. ("SQI" or the "Company") (TSXV: SQD) (OTCQB: SQIDF), a life sciences and diagnostics company that develops and commercializes proprietary technologies and products for advanced microarray diagnostics, today announced that it has completed the second tranche of its previously announced non-brokered private placement (the "Private Placement") of 1,500,000 units ("Units") of the Company at a price of $0.09 per Unit for gross proceeds of approximately $135,000 . Each Unit consis

Artis Real Estate Investment Trust ("Artis" or "the REIT") (TSX: AX.PR.E) announced that its trustees have declared a quarterly cash distribution of $0.342 per Series E preferred unit ("Series E Unit") of Artis for the quarter ending December 31, 2022. The cash distributions will be made on December 30, 2022, to Series E Unitholders of record on December 30, 2022.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Energy Department said on Friday it will begin buying back oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, or SPR, the first purchase since this year's record 180 million barrel release from the stockpile. The department will buy up to 3 million barrels for delivery in February, a senior official told reporters. President Joe Biden announced the 180 million sale in late March to combat surging gasoline prices that boosted inflation after the February invasion of Ukraine by Russia, the world's largest exporter of fossil fuels.

(Reuters) -Twitter's unprecedented suspension of at least five journalists over claims they revealed the real-time location of owner Elon Musk drew swift backlash from government officials, advocacy groups and journalism organizations across the globe on Friday. In a 24-hour poll later by Musk on Twitter on whether to restore the journalists' accounts, 58.7% votes were in favor of restoring them immediately. The accounts were still suspended approximately 15 minutes after the poll closed, a check by Reuters showed.

Looking for sustainable, high-yielding dividend stocks on the TSX? Here are two to avoid and one to buy right now. The post 3 Top Dividend Payers on the TSX – Should You Buy Today? appeared first on The Motley Fool Canada.

Honeywell Thermostat Air India is close to a deal to order more than 200 Boeing jets including 190 narrowbody 737 MAX and 30 widebody 787s - part of an historic fleet shake-up roughly split with Boeing's European rival Airbus, industry sources said on Friday. The deal is also expected to include an unspecified number of Boeing 777X long-range jets, they added. Airbus is separately moving towards a deal with Air India including at least 200 of its A320-family narrowbody jets as well as dozens of larger A350s, industry sources said.