Fusion power breakthrough promises cheaper and simpler reactors

Commercial fusion power plants may be 关键字1cheaper and easier to build thanks to a breakthrough by TAE Technologies that allows reactors to generate their own containment fields without the need for massive magnetic coils and other systems.

Practical fusion power has been touted as only 25 years in the future ever since 1945, but there are some bright spots on the horizon that suggest that it could come to pass as soon as the next decade.

Part of the problem has been that the tokamak reactor, the front-runner design for a fusion power plant, has become a bit like that home extension that got out of hand and sucked up a lot more time and money than originally budgeted for until you wish you'd never started it in the first place.