Fusion … nearly there

While the politicos have been obsessed with CAGW and combing roof tops of the well to do with solar panels, quietly, and in the background, other scientists have been beavering away – on fusion, and the prospect of cheap power. This may prove to be a life saviour – in more ways than one. At http://phys.org/print299241680.html … we are transported to the National Ignition Facility in the US. Here, lasers deliver 1.8 megajoules of energy and 500 terrawatts of power – just like that. The paper can be seen in the journal Physics of Plasmas – and the sour point is that they have not entirely overcome all the obstacles – but they are nearly there, we are assured.