The U.S. reaches a fusion power milestone. Will it be enough to save the planet?

https://www.npr.org/2022/12/13/ [login to see] /nuclear-fusion-breakthrough-climate-change
Scientists with the U.S. Department of Energy will announce a breakthrough in nuclear fusion later today.

The achievement came at the National Ignition Facility (NIF), a $3.5 billion laser complex at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. For more than a decade, NIF has struggled to meet its stated goal of producing a fusion reaction that generates more energy than it consumes.

But that changed in the dead of night on Dec. 5. At 1 AM local time, researchers used laser beams to zap a tiny pellet of hydrogen fuel. The energy out significantly exceeded the energy the lasers put in, according to sources familiar with the result.

It's a major achievement, one that the field of fusion science has struggled to reach for more than half a century. Researchers say that fusion energy could one day provide clean, safe electricity without greenhouse gas emissions.