We love it when science fiction becomes science fact. With new breakthroughs in nuclear fusion just around the corner, the day may come when the alternate-worldline lore of "Fallout" comes true; the day may come when PC gamers can run their rigs in their personal miniature fusion reactors; the day may come when the world's first nuclear fusion reactor is built in the United States; the day may come when the world's first fusion reactor is built in the United States.

So far, the primary use for fusion has been thermonuclear weapons, but imagine instead a world where fusion could be used to generate massive amounts of clean energy. It has been an industrial dream for decades, but a report from the BBC (open in new tab) indicates that dream may become a reality.

Researchers at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) in California irradiated frozen deuterium and triple hydrogen with 2.05 megajoules of energy. These fused into plasma. Plasma is an electrically charged gas that is several times hotter than the core of the sun and is notoriously difficult to confine.

As National Geographic (opens in new tab) explains, the process itself is not new. Past fusion experiments have been able to confine plasma, but have never been able to achieve the temperatures and pressures necessary for ignition. This is where this laser-driven fusion process comes in.

With everything in place, NIF managed to generate 3.15 megajoules of energy from the reaction. The idea that it could generate the same amount of energy needed to cause that reaction, and half that much more, is unprecedented. [This is a lavish harvest and could revolutionize the energy supply. According to U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, "This is one of the most impressive scientific feats of the 21st century."

Tritium, or hydrogen 3, is not something the earth naturally produces in large quantities, but it can be made by irradiating lithium in a nuclear reactor. In fact, fission reactors already produce tritium as a byproduct. Deuterium (hydrogen 2), on the other hand, is an abundant resource in the earth's oceans.

The main advantage is, of course, clean energy.

MIT plasma physicist Johan Frenje, who contributed greatly to the groundbreaking work of the NIF, has called the feat "a game changer for the entire thermonuclear fusion field."

One might wonder what the difference is between fusion and current nuclear power generation methods, but current power plants rely on fission. Fission breaks down uranium and produces energy from radioactive decay.

Basically, now that we have finally learned to generate energy from creation rather than destruction, it is only a matter of time before we move on to the next phase as a Type 1 designated civilization on the Kardashev scale (open in new tab). Let's go.