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fusion energy

Since the National Ignition Facility first reported a fusion shot that produced more energy than the lasers put into the fuel, in late 2022, there have been further repeats and refinements of that result, along with steady progress at magnetic confinement facilities. Each is genuinely significant physics. None of them is a power plant, and the distance between the two remains considerable — a point that gets lost in coverage that treats every record shot as a step change in when fusion electricity might arrive.

• Wall-plug efficiency of the lasers used at NIF is roughly 1 per cent, meaning the facility as a whole still consumes far more electricity than any single shot releases.
• Magnetic confinement devices such as tokamaks aim for continuous or long-pulse operation rather than single laser shots, which is a more directly relevant configuration for a power plant.
• No fusion facility anywhere has yet demonstrated sustained net electrical output to the grid.
• Materials that can survive prolonged neutron bombardment from a fusion reaction without excessive degradation remain an active area of research rather than a solved problem.