Hate to nitpick... but clarification is required on the 'Fusion Breakthrough'... yes 1.3MJ of laser POWER created ignition outputting 3MJ of energy, but, as stated by the national ignition laboratory themselves to create 1.3MJ of laser power requires using 300MJ of energy from the power grid.<br><br>Ie it produced around 1% or the total energy required to create ignition.<br><br>The Breakthrough is more showing that lasers can be used to actually create a fusion reaction that generates more energy than the laser power inputed, which is good for research and stuff, but in NO WAY is it helpful to the idea of a fusion power plant that laypeople imagine.,(reply>), I still think it's weird how much emphasis they put on nuclear deterrence in the announcement,(reply>), @Vocassen  also worth pointing out the design and specifications of the reactor are also really hard to get right. There are other labs around the world who have tried to replicate the 0.7 gain recorded a few years ago by them and have struggled, heck even NIL were only able to achieve it once when they published the data... that is to say its incredibly hard to build a 2nd facility and get the same results, ie not great for mass production! <br><br>I'm not in any way trying to downplay the genuine achievements the scientists have made. More trying to correct the laypersons understanding of what the achievements mean in the real world.,(reply>), I'm not saying the work they have done is not insignificant in any way. Scientifically, what they have done is seriously impressive, opens doors to help our understanding etc.. BUT and its a big but, a LOT (if not all) headlines I've seen recently on this greatly confuse the whole net gain with what the layperson thinks it means (ie total power in, including that used to power the lasers).<br><br>As such the Breakthrough is being publicised in a totally inaccurate way (not necessarily the fault of the scientific community involved, although allowing people to misinterpret their work in they way people do does help them keep their funding, but thats just the usual politics of government funded scientific research that is far from new).<br><br>The fuel pellet uses tritium, which others have stated is incredibly rare (estimates currently put world reserves at 12Kg), so to use a tritium based continuous reactor of this style would only allow it to run for a few months before it exhausts the total global supply etc.. (plus the only way to generate tritium is via heavy water based fission reactors)<br><br>The work they are doing IS important and IS useful to scientific knowledge of fusion processes on earth etc.. but its just NOT what the news outlets are writing down and publishing.... and thats a major issue and a big reason why Fusion power plants have always been 10yrs away for the last 50yrs. It'll arrive when it arrives, but we cant wait for it before making major global decisions about decarbonising the world power grids (ie people think if fusion is 'just round the corner' its no point investing in a fission plant here and now).,(reply>), ​@Tams80 The thing is, that reactor design is not intended for continuous self-sustaining operation, they'd need a reactor with completely different requirements to use those 3MJ to initiate the next fusion reaction (or even keep it continuously on). The requirements of the current reactor are so specific (e.g. pellet shape, it has to be in a specific tube, etc.) that it's unlikely that we'll see that anytime soon. Not to mention they currently can only fire it once a day, AND the pellet needs to be pure tritium (costs millions for one pellet). Other reactor designs are much more promising IMO, as they already have continuous operation in mind, and have lesser requirements on materials (less tritium, more deuterium, but also stuff like beryllium which itself is very  rare and expensive, so...),(reply>), @Rogoth01 The Master Wizard Ignition is still only one part, the next part will be sustaining that reaction. And that's still hard to do.<br>I hope they achieve it sooner rather than later, because I want fusion power to succeed, but I have no illusions about seeing working fusion power plants in the foreseeable future.