In early September 2021, advances toward the “Holy Grail” of energy production have occurred at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Current nuclear power plants do not produce greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming, but they yield spent nuclear fuel with no easy disposal options. The current reactors are all based on fission reactions that produce spent nuclear rods that are highly radioactive. Fusion reactions, on the other hand, generate energy with no harmful waste products.
Sustaining a fusion reaction with current materials and technology has always been a very high hurdle. MIT has tested, produced, and tested a high strength magnet reactor that solved several of the previous issues. This breakthrough may very well lead to the first commercially viable fusion power plant by the end of this decade.