Missing Megajoules: Nuclear Fusion Isn’t Ready To Go Commercial Just Yet

Early in the morning 9 days ago experimental physicist Alex Zylstra noticed that a target yielded more energy from a fusion reaction ignition than the lasers poured into it at the Lawrence Livermore National Ignition Facility (NIF). Backing up a bit – the prelude seems to have happened in August of 2021 when the facility achieved a true fusion ignition. Better positioned, that’s saying the facility functioned such that the forces cooling the plasma down weren’t strong enough to swamp the forces heating it up, and the NIF was set…