According to the Washington Post, there are looming breakthroughs in fusion.
But the technical challenges of essentially creating an artificial mini-star have been daunting. Scientists have made fusion happen with various approaches, but more energy was expended in those experiments than was released. The turning point will come when more energy is produced than goes in.
The roadblocks have started to fall away in recent years, thanks to the use of supercomputers to model and optimize the design of fusion systems, and to a new generation of superconductors that increase the magnetic fields that contain the artificial star, thereby dramatically decreasing the required size of fusion devices. Advanced manufacturing techniques for specialized fusion materials have also been developed.
Washington Post
The title of the article is “The fusion energy dream is inching toward planet-saving reality”. Would this “save the planet”. Well, if it were clean, cheap, and safe, it could move us closer to that world of abundance some envision. The problem with fission has been that the infrastructure required to make it safe has been so big, complicated, and costly, that by the time it can be put into place it is already obsolete by a decade or more. And then there is the weaponization problem which has prevented widespread use in poor countries.
Let’s assume it will be clean, cheap, and safe. It could solve our carbon emission problems, air pollution problems, and generally free up a lot of resources for other things, making us quite a bit richer. Whole industries would be created and destroyed, which we could expect to cause some political and financial turmoil. It wouldn’t solve our land use, biodiversity, or water pollution problems.