The fusion breakthrough accomplished late last year by the US National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is a remarkable step forward on the road to commercial fusion power. As the first ever controlled fusion reaction to produce more energy than it took to initiate, the laser-based inertial fusion project has achieved a major milestone - nearly 200 lasers delivered 2.05 megajoules (MJ) of energy to a tritium/deuterium target. The result was an output of 3.15 MJ of fusion energy. Without taking anything away from the brilliance of the scientists and engineers behind this achievement, perhaps more remarkable is that this success is just one of a host of recent fusion developments. Collectively, they serve as clear evidence not only of re-energised interest in fusion power, but obvious pathways to commercialisation.
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