FUSION power is only 40 years away. No surprise there then: as the old joke goes “fusion has always been 40 years away – and always will be”. All of which might be amusing if fusion research was racing ahead. But negotiations over the next great hope for fusion have stalled, making 40 years look more optimistic by the day.
Huge amounts of energy are released when hydrogen isotopes are raised to such high temperatures that their nuclei fuse. The dream is to tame this process and use the energy to generate electricity. The planned International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) should…
