New Energy

Fusion Is Nuclear Power Without the Meltdowns and Radioactive Waste

  • Fusion has big advantages over fission, if commercialized
  • Despite new breakthrough, power plants still decades away
US Scientists Make Breakthrough in Nuclear Fusion
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Abundant fuel. No danger of a meltdown. No lingering radioactive waste.

Nuclear fusion, the process US researchers successfully demonstrated this month, has big potential advantages over the nuclear power plants operating today, which run on an entirely different principle. If perfected into a form that can run in a power plant — not just an advanced government lab — fusion could offer a clean power source that avoids many of the pitfalls that have dogged nuclear energy for decades.