Good morning. You may know nuclear fusion as the power source for Iron Man’s suit, or the basis of the Mr Fusion Home Energy Reactor that powers the, er, flux capacitor in Back to the Future. (If so, please stop reading, this is not a newsletter for nerds.) Yesterday, after the news was initially reported by the Financial Times, Joe Biden’s energy secretary, Jennifer Granholm, confirmed a scientific breakthrough at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California that’s a very long way from a superhero exoskeleton or a souped-up DeLorean: for the first time, a fusion reaction has produced more energy than it takes in.
Which sounds miles better than a time machine, to be honest. Granholm called it “one of the most impressive scientific feats of the 21st century”. In theory, nuclear fusion reactors could one day be a plentiful source of power without any associated carbon emissions or radioactive waste. Climate crisis solved, and we can all get back to obsessing over Harry and Meghan on Netflix instead.
