Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/calif-scientists-advance-toward-producing-fusion-energy Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript Spencer Michels reports on the ongoing efforts of scientists in California, who say they are getting closer to producing fusion energy to help fuel American energy independence. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. JIM LEHRER: Next tonight, an update on the long quest for fusion energy. NewsHour correspondent Spencer Michels has our Science Unit report. SPENCER MICHELS, correspondent: Imagine producing energy the same way the sun does: cheaply, cleanly and infinitely. That's what scientists like Ed Moses at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab in California say they think they can achieve. ED MOSES, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories: Fusion energy is the long-term solution. It is infinite — essentially infinite fuel and it has no carbon waste. SPENCER MICHELS: Using a newly completed $4 billion laser that has been 10 years in the making, Livermore is getting close to producing controlled fusion and perhaps solving most of the nation's energy needs. ED MOSES: This is the largest, highest energy, highest power, most precision flexible laser that's ever been built and will be that way for many years. SPENCER MICHELS: Moses, who directs Livermore's National Ignition Facility, says the laser is finally ready to start experiments that he believes will lead to ignition. ED MOSES: When we talk about "ignition," we talk about making a small sun on Earth, getting thermonuclear burn in the laboratory in a controlled manner.