Progress in Fusion Energy
Lockheed engineers recently claimed to have a breakthrough idea for a fusion reactor. Cheap, plentiful fusion power is only 20 years away! Cynical observers familiar with the long history of fusion power research contained their enthusiasm. 50 years or so ago, when peaceful fusion power had already frustrated the expectations of its devotees for a while, a prescient wit observed that fusion power was fifty years away - and always would be. If that's been updated to twenty years away - with the same qualification - that might be considered progress of a sort. The possibility of extracting energy from nuclear fusion was first understood in the 1920, and the great astrophysicist Eddington quickly appreciated that such fusion must power the stars. The Wikipedia article cited above notes that the first fusion reactor patent dates to 1948. Getting hydrogen atoms to fuse to form helium is a multi-step process, but the basic idea is simple: get two protons close together and they ...