How Significant Was The Latest Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough?

Last month the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California announced a significant breakthrough in nuclear fusion research. Since then, a number of people have asked me what this breakthrough really means. First, let’s discuss some basics of nuclear fusion. Today’s nuclear power plants are based on nuclear fission, which is the splitting of a heavy isotope like uranium-235 into two smaller isotopes. (Isotopes are just different forms of an element). In simple terms, nuclear fission is…