It was 1:03 a.m. on Dec. 5 that experimental physicist Alex Zylstra first spotted it: for the first time, a target yielded more energy from a fusion reaction than a laser put into it—though that’s not counting the much greater input energy that was needed to power the laser in the first place. “One of…

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm announced a “major scientific breakthrough” Tuesday in the decades-long quest to harness fusion, the energy that powers the sun and stars. Fusion energy could help end dependence on fossil fuels. The former CEO of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX has been arrested in the Bahamas. The U.S. has filed criminal charges…

Fusion energy experts spanning the government, academia, and the private sector testified on the prospects of fusion research before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Sept. 15. “We believe we have a real shot at commercial fusion power plants on the grid starting in the early 2030s,” said Bob Mumgaard, CEO of the…

On Aug. 8, 2021, scientists took a laser the size of three football fields and focused all 192 of its beams of light on a capsule of hydrogen the size of a BB pellet. When 192 laser beams focus on an area that size, it creates temperatures of more than 100 million degrees and pressure…