Fusion power could be a silver bullet for the world’s energy and environmental woes, but it’s famously always 30 years away. A recent flurry of announcements is raising hopes that maybe the timeline has started to tighten.
The technology has huge potential because it promises to generate enormous amounts of energy from abundant fuel that can be cheaply extracted from seawater. On top of that, the process doesn’t create any long-lived radioactive waste, unlike conventional nuclear power plants.
The catch is that finding a way to contain the same reaction that powers the sun here on Earth is no easy feat. Now, though, MIT spinout Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) has taken a significant step in that direction after carrying out the first tests of a magnet that can reach a field strength of 20 teslas, the highest ever achieved on Earth.
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