The results, from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, mark a significant step on the very long road toward generating clean energy from nuclear fusion.“Last week, lo and behold, indeed, they shot a bunch of lasers at a pellet of fuel, and more energy was released from that fusion ignition than the energy of the lasers going in,” White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Arati Prabhakar said at a press conference announcing the achievement in Washington, DC, today.By doing so, reaching a scientific energy breakeven, the researchers achieved what’s called “fusion ignition.”Harnessing nuclear fusion could be revolutionary — giving people an abundant energy source without the nasty side effects of greenhouse gas emissions or long-lasting radioactive waste.One key point is that the DOE is basing this victory on just the output of the lasers, which are pretty inefficient.It’s really important that there has been this incredible amount of US public dollars going into this breakthrough, but all of the steps that we’ll take that will be necessary to get this to commercial level will still require public research and private research.”"