Energy breakthrough

Commercial nuclear fusion may still be decades away

A recent experiment at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) in the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California indicates that nuclear fusion could be commercially viable, although it is still at least 15 to 20 years in the future. But together with encouraging results at the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in France (where India is also involved), this should lead to more investments, including private sector investments, in fusion research and development. Humanity has dreamt of clean, cheap, limitless energy since the 1950s, when scientists started working on fusion. But achieving commercial power means solving intractable problems at the cutting