Fusion Future, Fission Present

For the first time ever, researchers achieved "ignition" in a fusion reaction, meaning they created a fusion reaction that releases more energy than it consumes.

The Department of Energy announced in December that researchers at the National Ignition Facility had, for the first time ever, achieved "ignition" in a fusion reaction, meaning researchers created a fusion reaction that releases more energy than it consumes. Physicist Tom Hartsfield wrote in Big Think that the laser-powered reaction "would not quite power one 40-watt refrigerator light bulb for a day" and that commercial opportunities remain decades away, at best.

Meanwhile, the two fission reactor units at the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant in Rhea County, Tennessee, power roughly 1.3 million homes. Including new plants expected to come online later this year in Georgia, the U.S. has completed construction on three fission units in the 21st century while retiring over a dozen with no plans to replace them.