Finally, Fusion Power Is About to Become a Reality

Long considered a joke, or a pipe dream, fusion is suddenly making enormous leaps

Scientists inside a fusion reactor, UK. Photo: Monty Rakusen/Getty

The idea first lit up Dennis Whyte when he was in high school, in the remote reaches of Saskatchewan, Canada, in the 1980s. He wrote a term paper on how scientists were trying to harness fusion (the physical effect that fuels the stars) in…