Steffi Diem tells Gizmodo:

If funding for fusion energy development continues to increase, then yes, fusion will power the world in the future. Since the 1990s, funding for fusion research in the United States has been for the science of fusion, not for the development of an energy source. The rest of the world has a wide portfolio of fusion research as well, and we are all racing to harness the power of fusion. Major recent advances in technology and a U.S. fusion community consensus to shift the focus to fusion energy development are bringing us closer to powering the world with fusion. It’s a grand engineering challenge to solve and we are getting closer to commercializing fusion energy. I’m really excited about the direction our research is heading!

Fusion has the potential to provide clean, green energy to the world with zero carbon emissions. The fuel for fusion is extremely energy dense—using the deuterium found in one bathtub’s worth of water combined with the lithium from two laptop batteries (used to breed tritium), this provides enough energy for your entire lifetime with no pollution. This tiny amount of fuel for fusion energy is equivalent to 230 tons of coal that would release 380 tons of pollution. As the world transitions to renewable energy, fusion can step in to complement a diverse energy portfolio (fusion is independent of geography, environmental conditions, and has a compact footprint). The fuel for fusion is hydrogen isotopes, making it widely available and an essentially inexhaustible source of energy. [Continue reading…]