E=MC^2

Quite possibly the most important discovery in decades is on the brink of being science fact....namely.... Fusion

In short the work at the National Ignition Facility

will target 192 laser beams focused through holes in a target container called a hohlraum. Inside the hohlraum is a tiny pellet containing an extremely cold, solid mixture of hydrogen isotopes Lasers strike the hohlraum's walls, which in turn radiate X-rays, X-rays strip material from the outer shell of the fuel pellet, heating it up to millions of degrees

If the compression of the fuel is high enough and uniform enough, nuclear fusion can result....

They are saying they could have a working Fusion reactor by the end of the decade which will mean limitless clean energy from abundant sources such as Hydrogen and Deuterium (sea water basically)

Siegfried Glenzer, the NIF plasma scientist, led a team to test that theory, smashing records along the way.

"We hit it with 669 kiloJoules - 20 times more than any previous laser facility," NIF's Siegfried Glenzer told BBC News.

That isn't that much total energy; it's about enough to boil a one-litre kettle twice over.

However, the beams delivered their energy in pulses lasting a little more than 10 billionths of a second.

By way of comparison, if that power could be maintained, it would boil the contents of more than 50 Olympic-sized swimming pools in a second.

Before those experiments can even begin, however, the target chamber must be prepared with shields that can block the copious neutrons that a fusion reaction would produce.

But Dr Glenzer is confident that with everything in place, ignition is on the horizon.

He added, quite simply, "It's going to happen this year."

Which basically means that when rather than if Fusion is possible ........all those bloody wind farms dotted around the country can go to the scrapyard and Swalec's profits will nose dive :)