A report teasing a breakthrough in the search for viable nuclear fusion is generating a burst of cautious excitement for the future of energy ahead of a U.S. government announcement next week.

In the past two weeks, scientists at a federal facility in California were able to produce more energy than the amount of energy put into the experiment using laser beams to ignite a fusion reaction with a small amount of hydrogen plasma, sources told the Financial Times.

This net energy gain, which has eluded physicists for decades, was achieved at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and signals the emergence of a technology that could become a zero-carbon alternative to fossil fuels, though scientists stress that fusion power stations are decades away from becoming a reality, the report added.

People inside and out of the scientific community celebrated the news, though with a healthy dose of caution. The report offers some reason to be careful, as two of its sources said the greater-than-expected energy output — 2.5 megajoules of energy in the experiment using 2.1 megajoules of energy in the lasers — damaged some diagnostic equipment.

“If this is confirmed, we are witnessing a moment of history,” said Dr. Arthur Turrell, a plasma physicist, according to the report. “Scientists have struggled to show that fusion can release more energy than is put in since the 1950s, and the researchers at Lawrence Livermore seem to have finally and absolutely smashed this decades-old goal.”

Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA), who is a member of multiple energy caucuses and groups, tweeted, “If this fusion energy breakthrough is true, it could be a game changer for the world.”

If this fusion energy breakthrough is true, it could be a game changer for the world. https://t.co/bSeCnWCE19

— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) December 11, 2022

The report noted the laboratory was not ready to confirm any findings just yet.

“Initial diagnostic data suggests another successful experiment at the National Ignition Facility. However, the exact yield is still being determined and we can’t confirm that it is over the threshold at this time,” the lab said. “That analysis is in process, so publishing the information … before that process is complete would be inaccurate.”

Still, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and Undersecretary for Nuclear Security Jill Hruby are expected to announce “a major scientific breakthrough” at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on Tuesday, according to the Energy Department.

Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is tired of his Republican Party losing to Democrats, and he pins much of the blame on former President Donald Trump.

Once an ally to Trump after dropping out of the 2016 GOP primary contest, Christie has become increasingly critical of the former president, and in a TV appearance Sunday, he put a new spin on one of Trump’s old campaign promises while assessing Republican struggles in recent years. The roundtable conversation on ABC News’ “This Week” focused on Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) defeating Trump-backed Herschel Walker in the Peach State’s runoff election last week.

“We all remember, in 2016, he said, if he got elected, there was going to be so much winning and winning and winning and winning, they’d get sick of winning,” Christie said. “None of us knew at the time he was actually talking about the Democrats were going to do all that winning, not the Republicans. And that’s what he’s wrought.”

Christie noted that in the November general election, another Georgia Republican, Gov. Brian Kemp, coasted to victory over Democratic rival Stacey Abrams with 200,000 votes more than Walker earned. Unlike Walker, Kemp was not endorsed by Trump, who had supported former Sen. David Perdue in the Republican primary. Kemp campaigned for Walker in a bid to shore up more support, but it wasn’t enough to get the former NFL great over the goal line.

“Bad candidates lose,” said Christie said of Walker, who he called a “creation” of Trump. “Good candidates have a chance to win. And Herschel Walker was not a good candidate. And, you know, [Walker] wasn’t a good candidate because of a whole variety of issues that we saw that came out during the campaign.”

In a test of his political might, Trump endorsed more than 250 candidates in the 2022 midterm elections, and had a 82% success rate, according to The New York Times. Still, the report stresses that most of those candidates were incumbents and heavily favored to win.

Christie is one of the handful of Republicans believed to be entertaining a 2024 run for president, which would again pit him against Trump, the only GOP candidate who has announced so far. He recently chastised Trump for suggesting that parts of the U.S. Constitution should be terminated to overturn his 2020 election defeat.

“It should not be hard to say that the 2020 election is over,” he said on ABC’s “This Week” last weekend.