More Energy Output Than Input Marks a Leap Forward for Fusion Energy Research

Fusion ignition achieved by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is a triumph of science and engineering. It represents the first step to producing unlimited nuclear energy here on Earth with no radioactive waste. What will it take to turn the results of this experiment into a viable commercial fusion reactor? Both scale and speed. The positive energy yield needs to be 50 to 100 times greater. And the rate of controlled ignitions has to go from one every four hours to ten per minute.