What Does The Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough Mean For Clean Energy?

This week, the Energy Department announced that scientists at a U.S. government laboratory in California had successfully created nuclear fusion, a large step toward developing commercial fusion energy, which could prove to be a cleaner, more efficient alternative to common energy sources.

Good News: The Houston Chronicle Editorial Board stated that “we don’t get many moments like this, and when we do, they are enough to make us marvel again, not just at the universe but at our place in it. Big ideas persist. Big breakthroughs happen.” A writer in the New York Post surmised the power of fusion, writing, “the hydrogen in 50 cups of water burned in a fusion reactor would match the energy of 2 tons of coal.” 

Bad News: Nuclear fusion is still a ways away from hitting the market and replacing carbon. The New York Post article laid out the long historical gaps between the invention of a new energy source and its widespread implementation, concluding that “in the real world, it takes a lot of engineering and time to convert new physics into useful machines at society scales.” The Houston Chronicle emphasized that while the achievement was monumental, it was not an instant solution, writing, “we should not assume America has just innovated our way out of a global human-made climate disaster.”

Safety First: A Wall Street Journal (Center Bias) analysis highlighted the safety of nuclear fusion, stating that “if any disturbance occurs during a fusion reaction, the plasma cools and the process stops.”