The running joke among scientists and others engaged in nuclear fusion research is that genuine progress toward producing energy is 20 years away … and has been stuck 20 years out for decades.
The breakthrough announced Dec. 13 by scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California may mean fusion has reached a point where commercial energy production is closer to a “hard” 20 years away versus a perpetually moving target.
In the meantime, expect other uses of fusion in industrial and medical science to produce results much sooner — and in places as close to home as Rock County.
Greg Piefer, founder and chief executive officer of SHINE Technologies in Janesville, heads a company that recently recorded its first profitable quarter in industrial imaging products and may be within a year of producing essential medical isotopes on a massive scale. He thinks the Livermore “milestone” is a step toward clean energy that could power mankind for eons … but not next week, year or decade.
Read the full article here.
