The biggest news last week wasn’t another of Elon Musk’s Twitter tantrums, but the announcement that scientists had finally cracked one of fusion power’s biggest challenges — successfully getting more energy out of a controlled fusion reaction than they had put in.
Fusion power, which has always seemed like science fiction and just about as plausible, suddenly took a very tangible step toward reality.
That doesn’t mean that anyone is going to hook a fusion power plant up to the grid tomorrow or even in 10 years. But it does give a boost to a field that’s been brimming with confidence of late. A confluence of advances has led to a tidal wave of startups and investments. In the last year alone, investors bet $2.7 billion on fusion startups.
Many of those investments have bee …
