Nuclear Fusion - Are we getting closer?

[Eunos_Cosmo]

Lawrence Livermore national lab has supposedly achieved net-positive energy fusion. If this holds up, it is an achievement with profound consequences. I've often wondered what the next economic era will be as there seems to be a bracket closing around the personal-computing & tech era. Fusion power could be simply enormous with huge impacts throughout the world. What are your thoughts?

The rig (an inertial confinement device) that achieved the fusion is a much different type than those being pursued by the commercial sector (which all seem to be chasing functioning Magnetic Confinement Stellarator/Tokamak designs) and I wonder if it could be configured in a commercial form. The Tokamaks all seem enormously complex and I wonder if they will ever be practical for commercial power production. All I know is this - once a viable commercial design is in the works, I'm going to be investing heavily. It should be noted that this wasn't a true, real world net positive fusion, as the article below mentions:

While the Livermore team achieved what researchers call a scientific break-even or energy gain, it did not achieve an engineering break-even: The inefficient lasers used in the experiment required about 300 megajoules of energy to fire just 2 megajoules of energy into the experiment. The reaction produced about 3 megajoules of energy.

But for the DOE to make an announcement, it must be significant.

We have 'ignition': Fusion breakthrough draws energy gain​

 

[Danoff]

Lawrence Livermore national lab has supposedly achieved net-positive energy fusion. If this holds up, it is an achievement with profound consequences. I've often wondered what the next economic era will be as there seems to be a bracket closing around the personal-computing & tech era. Fusion power could be simply enormous with huge impacts throughout the world. What are your thoughts?

The rig (an inertial confinement device) that achieved the fusion is a much different type than those being pursued by the commercial sector (which all seem to be chasing functioning Magnetic Confinement Stellarator/Tokamak designs) and I wonder if it could be configured in a commercial form. The Tokamaks all seem enormously complex and I wonder if they will ever be practical for commercial power production. All I know is this - once a viable commercial design is in the works, I'm going to be investing heavily.

We have 'ignition': Fusion breakthrough draws energy gain​

While the Livermore team achieved what researchers call a scientific break-even or energy gain, it did not achieve an engineering break-even: The inefficient lasers used in the experiment required about 300 megajoules of energy to fire just 2 megajoules of energy into the experiment. The reaction produced about 3 megajoules of energy.

We still have a ways to go. Last time I looked it up, even a fully functional fusion plant operating efficiently and being mass-produced would still cost more than solar does in most parts of the world. Fusion seems like it could be very useful when/where the sun doesn't shine, or if there were some sort of huge problem with materials for solar panels. But right now it seems like solar already offers the benefits of fusion most places.

 

[Exorcet]

This news is exciting. However it's difficult, for me at least, to understand what it really means. We already know that fusion works because it's literally the most common process in the universe. While this experiment did result in a first for fusion, it doesn't really appear to be that significant in terms of having a practical reactor. I might only feel that way as someone outside the field with limited understanding though.

At the current pace of technology, it seems like fusion age might be not be the next era of human progress, but something one or two steps down the line. Like @Danoff mentioned, solar has come a long way, and solar is more or less fusion without having to build the complex reactor part. Perhaps the next 50-100 years will be dominated by super efficient solar panels and batteries instead of fusion reactors. Although, with the rapid pace of AI development, I feel like trying to predict the future is harder now than ever before.