the fusion announcement is <i>way</i> overblown; while this is a meaningful development in the technology, only qplasma &gt;1.0 was achieved, not qtotal. the qtotal is what needs to be &gt;1.0 in order to actually produce energy and not just be an important step towards energy, not to mention that it actually has to be <i>far</i> higher than 1.0 in order for us to be able to extract enough energy from the reaction and convert it to usable electricity, since a large portion of the reaction energy is lost during conversion (usually steam turbines, though other more efficient methods are being investigated). this news has made its way across the entire internet getting people all worked up for limitless clean energy within a decade and that is simply not happening. fusion research is very important, even critical - but it is also much, much further out than most want to admit.