It's the science news of the week. A group of scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore Laboratory succeeded in producing a nuclear fusion reaction that generated more energy than it consumed. This is the same reaction produced by stars and has the advantage of not producing radioactive waste, as is the case with today's nuclear power plants, which use a nuclear fission reaction, in which atoms are split apart. Nuclear fusion could be a game-changing technology for the energy sector..

Scientists have been working for decades on nuclear fusion experiments, which require large amounts of energy. But getting more energy than is consumed in the process has been an elusive result.

Despite this, nuclear fusion research is attracting increasing investment from the private sector. According to a report by the consulting firm McKinsey, there were 25 companies working on such research in 2021, up from just one in the early 2000s. Private funds to finance this research have also increased, from a few tens of thousands of dollars 20 years ago to some US$4.4 billion in 2021 and directed to laboratories that have a commercial, not just a scientific, vision. Some of these labs have been raised by startups specifically for this purpose, while others are spin-off programs from university or state research centers.

The emergence of new technologies, such as 3D printing, which makes it possible to produce the complex geometric profiles of the elements that form the walls of fusion machines quickly and cheaply, as well as the increased computational processing capabilities available today, are some of the factors that have made it possible to reduce costs and revitalize developments in the area of nuclear fusion.

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