Electricity produced through fusion could be available by 2040, Oak Ridge theorist says

From the article

>According to [Don Spong](https://www.oakridger.com/story/lifestyle/things-to-do/2024/06/16/next-orion-program-to-offer-a-look-at-smart-telescopes/73963995007/), a fusion theorist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, electricity from a government-funded fusion pilot plant may be fed to the grid as early as 2040-2045. He provided an update on international fusion research recently to a Friday Lecture Series class of the Oak Ridge Institute for Continued Learning.

>“When I first started getting into fusion in graduate school decades ago, a professor told me, ‘It’s a nice field to go into, but I don’t think you’ll see it come to fruition in your career, maybe not even your lifetime,” Spong said, adding that he hopes he will witness the start of commercial fusion power in his lifetime.

isn’t it like always been around 20 years away, for like a 80 years now?

They still have some hefty hurdles to overcome. Recent reports that they achieved net power were misleading, because they didn’t include all the energy that is necessary for the reaction – they only included the energy needed for the lasers. When all energy is taken into account, they are still only producing about 10% of that input energy from the reaction.

Have “they” found a way to charge the end users hundreds of more dollars on their bill? /s

From the school of Elon Musk. Over promise, under deliver and deliver 10 years late.