I guess we’re still twenty years away - sigh.
Has Pons and Fleischmann weighed in on this yet?
Now that’s cold. 
Applause 
I cracked up.
This always makes me think of a brainstem covered in margerine.
ASSUMING that the technologic challenges of achieving net energy gain are all overcome, there is still a major issue that prevents the plane from taking off. Not enough of the fuel needed for the tank.
https://www.science.org/content/article/fusion-power-may-run-fuel-even-gets-started
Not them personally, but I know the various patent offices 'round the world are still getting patent applications in which the applicants allege they’ve finally figured it out.
Lots of other new sources repeating the news:
National Ignition Facility:
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2014.14710
Important to note that this is only above breakeven in the sense that 2.1 GJ of laser energy went into the pellet, and 2.5 GJ supposedly came out. But lasers are very inefficient, and it took a hell of a lot more than 2.1 GJ of energy to generate 2.1 GJ of laser power. Lasers can be as little as 1% efficient in converting input power to laser energy.
That, plus the problem of neutron bombardment of the structure means this is probably not a path to a feasible power plant. It’s important to show that it’s possible to to get above unity gain, but it doesn’t get us much closer to practical fusion.
Someone leaked an internal communication. The fusion folks at DOE find it impossible to keep this stuff to themselves, to the point where I (neither a fed nor a fusion guy) hear about it before public release half the time. I expect Granholm will announce something in a couple days based.
Granholm will speak tomorrow:
Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, NNSA Administrator Jill Hruby and LLNL Director Kim Budil will hold a press conference tomorrow, Dec. 13 at 7 a.m. PT/10 a.m. ET, where they will make a special announcement about a major scientific breakthrough at LLNL. Following the press conference, a panel of LLNL experts will discuss details of the announcement.
…
Is it at all meaningful that the Secretary of Energy is taking time to address this? At a layman’s level, I understand that this doesn’t mean “Free energy tomorrow!!!” But how about “Free energy in 2072!”? Or is it more like “Free energy in 2272!”
In Excel, it’s ="Free energy in " & Year(Today()+365.25*20)
There are so many practical problems that remain, I don’t think it’s even estimable.
Probably free energy when we no longer need it. Renewables will cover all our needs before fusion can. I hope, because otherwise we are not going to make it.
By make it I mean survive as a technological species and save the planet at the same time. Fusion will not be enough (as Stranger has brilliantly explained it, thank you!) and it will come to late.
“So cheap, it won’t even have to be metered”, they told us. Hasn’t happened yet.
We can hope, at least. Renewables (which on a global scale are really limited to solar, offshore wind, and wave) certainly can provide all of the energy that is needed for terrestrial applications, provided that it can be collected, stored, and transferred from where it is collected to the end user. We have a lot of challenges in that today but none that really require great technological advances; it is mostly a problem of infrastructure and logistics. The ultimate renewable energy source would be a glucose-based economy where solar is converted to the carbohydrate that can be used in biologically-based or biomemetic industrial infrastructure but that is certainly a future development. Regardless, we shouldn’t be expecting nuclear fusion as any kind of replacement for fossil fuels to mitigate climate change or depletion of known energy supplies.
Where fusion is actually needed is as an energy source for exploration of the outer solar system (and likely for permanent habitation on Mars or the Moon, if you think that’s a good idea) where insolation levels are too low for solar power to be practical. Right now we use radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTG) for small, low power probes, and will probably use compact nuclear fission for advanced propulsion and energy for larger probes, but for any kind of crewed exploration beyond Mars the use of nuclear fusion for both propulsion and the energy required to sustain habitation is a sine qua non technology. There is no particular need for this capability in the foreseeable future and so no reason to pour enormous amounts of money into crash programs to develop it even if it was practicable to overcome the known issues with extensions of current technology.
It would be better to continue to develop high temperature superconductors, radiation-resistant materials, ‘alternative’ nuclear fission technologies that provide better utilization of fissionable materials and full burnup of actinide products to reduce the waste issues, et cetera than to focus on trying to make fusion power production work. The much delayed and problematic ITER has been a case study in trying to bring a capability to fruition before the technology really exists, and while there will probably be a lot learned from operating ITER whenever it finally comes on line, as a ‘Big Science’ project it has consumed the lion’s share of funding in plasma and fusion physics that could have gone to other high energy physics projects in its member nations.
Stranger
Cross your fingers, folks. We get this rolling and we reduce OPEC to lubricants salesmen. Can’t wait for my Mr. Fusion home reactor.
This could be awesome. Emphasis on the word “could.”
We’ll need to cut back on plastics and fertilizer first.
Plastic actually uses only a very small percent of petroleum used.
In the US it is less than 2.3% that is used for plastics & fertilizer.
Honestly I thought fertilizer was a bigger slice of the pie. But I knew plastics was a very tiny sliver.