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STORY: A potentially major scientific breakthrough in fusion energy that could one day provide a cheap source of electricity.

According to two sources with knowledge of the matter, scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California -- for the first time ever -- have produced a nuclear fusion reaction resulting in a net energy gain in an experiment using lasers.

Fusion works when nuclei of two atoms are subjected to extreme heat of more than 100 million degrees Celsius - or 180 million degrees Fahrenheit - causing them to fuse into a new larger atom, giving off enormous amounts of energy - the same process that powers the sun and stars.

But the process consumes vast amounts of energy and the trick has been to make the process self-sustaining and to get more energy out than goes in and to do so continuously instead of brief moments.

If fusion is commercialized, which backers say could happen in a decade or more, it would have additional benefits including the generation of virtually carbon free electricity which could help in the fight against climate change without the amounts of radioactive nuclear waste that today's fission reactors produce.