Energy · around 2045

Commercial fusion electricity

Projection

A fusion plant sends net electricity to the grid on a commercial contract.

Fusion would burn isotopes of hydrogen drawn from water and lithium, with no long-lived high-level waste. A working power plant would open an effectively unlimited, dense and clean energy source.

Why it’s plausible: NIF showed ignition and high-field superconducting magnets have shrunk tokamak designs; still unsolved are sustained high-gain operation, tritium breeding, materials that survive neutron damage and competitive cost.

See it in the living treeWikipedia