Recently, electricity generation from fusion has moved from the realm of science fiction to the brink of serious development.
Before the most recent advances in energy technologies, fusion power had been sought for over a hundred years without much success. Due to a series of scientific, technical, business, and political developments, fusion has been yanked out of the labs and onto the front pages.
The aim of fusion research is to replicate the nuclear reaction through which energy is created on the sun. It is a “holy grail” of carbon-free power that scientists have been chasing since before the 1950s.
Nuclear power used today is created by a different process, called fission, which relies on splitting, rather than fusing, atoms. The process creates waste that can remain radioactive for tens of thousands of years, and it’s also potentially hazardous, as was seen in the 2011 Fukushima disaster.
While there has been continued progress in fusion science over the past several years, three events stand out because of their significance in reaching practical generation.
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