Nuclear Fusion

Nuclear fusion — the process that powers the Sun — fuses light atoms (hydrogen isotopes) under extreme heat and pressure, releasing enormous energy with no long-lived radioactive waste. If harnessed, it could provide virtually unlimited clean energy. The challenge: sustaining a plasma at 150 million degrees (10x hotter than the Sun's core) long enough to produce more energy than input. In December 2022, the National Ignition Facility achieved fusion ignition — producing more energy from the fuel than the lasers delivered to it — for the first time in history. ITER, the international fusion reactor under construction in France, is designed to produce 10x more energy than it consumes by the early 2030s. Commercial fusion may be arriving sooner than expected.