Well, yes, we do. And it's been around since shortly after the United States dropped the equivalent of 80 kajillion X-ray machines on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But that's not nuclear fusion. That's nuclear fission. That's completely different. Sure, it's "clean" in that there's no CO2 emissions, though you eventually have to do something with those spent nuclear control rods. Oh, yeah, and if there's ever any sort of accident you have places like Pripyat in the Ukraine that the Chernobyl nuclear power plant turned into a modern-day wasteland. Oh, and the whole Fukushima Daichii reactor in Japan leaking fissionable materials into the Pacific. Other than that it's completely clean!

No, nuclear fission is obviously not going to solve any of our problems. Nuclear fusion, though - well that's another story entirely. You see, the difference is all in the name: fission is all about splitting atoms to generate energy where as fusion is all about combining atoms instead.

There's a lot about nuclear fusion to recommend it as an alternative energy source. The fuel used is a lot easier to get at: hydrogen, which can be separated from water pretty easily. The byproduct, besides energy, is helium - and that's an inert gas that the birthday balloon industry relies on to stay afloat (har har). Could you imagine the news if there was a leak at a nuclear fusion reactor? Everyone at the entire plant would sound like extras from Alvin and the Chipmunks for a few minutes. Better than having their faces melt off from deadly radiation.

So if nuclear fusion's so awesome, why don't we have it yet, huh smart guy?

The closest thing we've got so far. Looks kind of like a giant burrito. Source

Okay so yeah nuclear fusion is awesome. It's also incredibly hard to trigger at temperatures that aren't, you know, roughly has hot as the inside of a god damned star. Which is more or less where all the magic happens currently. Still, there's hope that we're getting closer and closer to fusion power here on Earth.

There's a ton of research being poured into nuclear fusion, and one of the biggest research centers is in Germany at the Max Planck Institute. The flagship of the nuclear fusion research efforts there is called the Wendelstein 7-X Stellerator, and it's a giant machine that keeps giant twisted rings of searing-hot plasma in check with magnetic fields in order to get a fusion reaction going.

Again, it all comes down to the massive heat requirements involved. There's nothing on Earth that can withstand the temperatures that hydrogen has to be heated to in order to turn it into plasma, which is required for a fusion reaction. Researchers at the W7-X just announced that they've been able to actually create this hydrogen plasma, as they've figured out how to create the requisite magnetic fields with measured deviations below 1 part in 100,000.

So do we have nuclear fusion yet or not?

Well, no. But the W7-X is probably our best hope to getting it off the ground, and that is awesome. Because in the future, do you want to have your world powered by boring old solar electric or wind energy when you can have power that comes from the heart of a god damned star? Yeah, that's what I thought.

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