This is the biggest news on the planet right now, although I understand how most folks don't think so yet. But it has the potential to be literally world changing.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/12/11/fusion-nuclear-energy-breakthrough/
@scalzi I regret to report that that is not the case.
This is an incremental result, not a magical breakthrough.
Net energy gain is not the relevant quantity for a fusion power plant. For example: The National Ignition Facility can only do about 1 shot per day - https://annual.llnl.gov/fy-2021/national-ignition-facility-2021 . Averages down to only a few watts of power.
Nor is net energy gain met in this case if one counts all the energy required to make the fuel pellets & capsules and power the lasers.
@jgordon @scalzi Not included in that piece:
Each NIF shot vaporizes a highest-quality carat-scale synthetic diamond, a little bit of gold, and a little bit of depleted uranium. Along with the rest of the capsules around the deuterium-tritium fuel pellets (and each gram of tritium costs $30,000).
These are not cheap runs.
Scalzi
Michael Busch
John Gordon