Nuclear fusion heats a charged gas called plasma to nearly 200 million degrees Celsius.
David Parker/Science Photo Library
In March 1951, Argentine President Juan Perón announced the results of a secret project on Huemul Island in northern Patagonia. His scientists have achieved nuclear fusion, harnessing the reaction that powers the sun and said it heralds a future where energy will be sold in “his half-liter bottles like milk.” However, things quickly took a turn for the worse when researchers returned from Humul to report that the whole thing was an expensive and embarrassing scam.
The Huemul hoax was an extreme case. But it definitely set the pattern for a long quest to harness star power for virtually limitless clean energy here on Earth. It explains the sickening persistence of the old joke that fusion has always been and will be 30 years ahead of him.
Still here. In the past year alone, the private fusion company has received more investment than it has in its entire history. “There is a sense of convergence happening among investors,” he says. melanie windridge, is a fusion scientist and founder of the energy industry membership organization Fusion Energy Insights. Some companies have promised to commercialize fusion reactors within a decade. Say, “Progress is coming very quickly.” Annie Kritcher at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California. “As you get closer, things start to work out.”
But what’s hard to tell is that recent advances in large-scale state-funded fusion projects, along with new technologies and reactor designs…
