Could fusion arrive in time to solve climate change?

WHEN researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California announced on Dec 13 that they had achieved the first controlled nuclear fusion reaction to produce more energy than it took to start, they brought humanity one step closer to the decades-long dream of harnessing the power of the sun – not by absorbing its rays from 149.7 million kilometres away, as solar panels do, but by igniting, in effect, a miniature star on earth.

The Biden administration has said that it aims to make commercial fusion energy a reality by 2032, in the hopes that the still-speculative technology could help wean the United States off fossil fuels and reach net-zero emissions by 2050. “This shows that it can be done,” said Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm.

But the history of nuclear fusion is long and riddled with false starts and hopes. Is this time really different, and what are the chances that it could play a meaningful role in the global effort to halt climate change? Here’s what people are saying.