Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California have reached a key milestone in the course toward generating clean and renewable energy from nuclear fusion by demonstrating for the first time a “burning plasma” in a lab experiment.

The burning plasma regime marks a key step in making fusion reactions become self-sustaining, LLNL said Wednesday.

“Fusion experiments over decades have produced fusion reactions using large amounts of ‘external’ heating to get the plasma hot. Now, for the first time, we have a system where the fusion itself is providing most of the heating,” said Alex Zylstra, a physicist with the national lab and one of the study’s lead authors.

Vice reported that scientists at the National Ignition Facility – the world’s largest laser at the national lab – directed 192 lasers at a small capsule containing the thermonuclear fuel, which is composed of two hydrogen isotopes – deuterium and tritium.

They were able to create the self-heating plasma by developing a strategy to control the implosion process that compresses and heats the fuel through mechanical work and modify the capsule’s spatial scale.

“This is a key milestone on the way to even higher levels of fusion performance,” added Zylstra.

The study was published in the journal Nature.

The Department of Energy is investing $25 million in eight technology projects aimed at harnessing the power of sea waves to generate electricity.

These projects compose the initial round of open-water testing at the PacWave South open-ocean test site off Oregon’s coast, DOE said Tuesday.

DOE selected the projects through a funding opportunity launched by the department’s Water Power Technologies Office.

The projects will focus on wave energy converter designs, as well as technologies that operators would use to manage and control these converters.

“Harnessing the unrelenting power of the ocean is a clean, innovative and sustainable way to curtail carbon pollution — benefitting American businesses and families, especially coastal communities hit hardest by the impacts of climate change,” said Jennifer Granholm, the secretary of energy.

The awardees and their corresponding award values are:

• CalWave Power Technologies: $7.5 million
• Columbia Power Technologies: $4.2 million
• Dehlsen Associates: $1.8 million
• Integral Consulting: $379,329
• Littoral Power Systems: $3.9 million
• Oscilla Power: $1.8 million
• Portland State University: $4.5 million
• University of Washington: $1.3 million

NASA’s 2022 iteration of the annual Spinoff publication features works of 45 companies that used the agency’s technology to develop products and services that address issues on Earth, including the COVID-19 pandemic.

Spinoff highlights results of commercializing NASA technologies in ways that support economy, human life and environmental health, the space agency said Tuesday.

Highlighted products span multiple applications such as soil cleansing, weather forecasting and reducing virus presence in the air.

For example, companies sustainably produced fresh crops with the help of NASA’s vertical farm research, which introduces ways to grow plants in enclosed places.

Technology originally made to support in-space plant growth now also mitigates the spread of airborne viruses.

“We’ve captured these examples of successful commercialization of NASA technology and research, not only to share the benefits of the space program with the public but to inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs,” said Jim Reuter, associate administrator of NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate.