Fusion Breakthrough

The National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has produced a net energy gain in a fusion reaction. The accomplishment took decades of research. My worry is that some people will assume this solves the climate issue and no other efforts are needed.

According to Daniel Jassby, commercial development won't be anytime soon.

I don’t know if magnetic fusion is ever going to be feasible. Inertial fusion is at least half a century away.

Tony Roulstone says many engineering obstacles remain.

I think the science is great. [But] we don't really know what the power plant would look like.

Update (December 23):  A fact that didn't get highlighted in the initial reporting is that NIF is primarily for military research. Linda Pentz Gunter quotes Edwin Lyman:

This achievement will be far more useful for US nuclear weapon maintenance and "modernization" than for generating clean energy in the foreseeable future.

Update (December 27):  Brian Tokar makes the connection between several hyped climate solutions.

[W]hy all this attention toward the imagined potential for fusion energy? It is yet another attempt by those who believe that only a mega-scaled, technology-intensive approach can be a viable alternative to our current fossil fuel-dependent energy infrastructure. Some of the same interests continue to promote the false claims that a "new generation" of nuclear fission reactors will solve the persistent problems with nuclear power, or that massive-scale capture and burial of carbon dioxide from fossil-fueled power plants will make it possible to perpetuate the fossil-based economy far into the future.

Update (January 27, 2023):  Joshua Frank quotes the LLNL website on the mission of the National Ignition Facility:

NIF's high energy density and inertial confinement fusion experiments, coupled with the increasingly sophisticated simulations available from some of the world's most powerful supercomputers, increase our understanding of weapon physics.