Revolutionizing Energy: The Implications of Nuclear Fusion Breakthroughs

Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have achieved a major milestone in fusion energy by igniting a fusion reaction that produced more energy than was used to trigger it. However, it will still be years before fusion power progress bears fruit, and it's still not clear if fusion will ever be cheap enough to radically transform our power grid. Most commercial fusion energy projects are using various forms of magnetic confinement, not NIF's laser-based approach, so the engineering challenges are different. Lowering fusion's cost is critical to its success since it'll have to compete against zero-carbon alternatives like today's fission-based nuclear reactors that can generate a steady supply of power and renewables like wind and solar that are cheaper but intermittent.