Major nuclear fusion milestone reached as ‘ignition’ triggered in a lab
Meta-question about fusion energy -something I don&#x27;t understand about the movement. I spent a few years as CTO of a company providing heat-to-electricity plants. We financed and built them off high-heat plants like natural gas turbines. The &quot;fuel&quot; was heat going up the stack - so it was essentially free. We still couldn&#x27;t compete with conventional electricity plants, even with a $30&#x2F;tonne price on carbon in Canada.<p>Geothermal energy is the same: sustainable, long-life electricity with no &quot;fuel&quot; costs, but it costs 2-3x as much to build a geothermal plant (in most areas, depends on geology) as e.g. a natural gas turbine powered plant, so the overall cost of electricity is much higher and you can&#x27;t get financing.<p>How is fusion different? The fuel will be free and unlimited, but the &quot;levelized cost of electricity&quot;, dominated by the capital cost of the plant, will still be much higher than other sources of electricity. I don&#x27;t think there&#x27;s a world -- even one where the onerous regulations go away and a  market price on carbon is available -- where the LCOE of fusion power is less than that from natural gas, or even close.