One billion people inhabited this Earth in the year 1750. Now, scientists predict that by 2050, we will have reached 9.7 billion. Historians and scientists alike credit this spike in population to the Industrial Revolution. By utilizing fossil fuels, humans were able to advance leaps and bounds faster than their ancestors. Though the shift into a technological society has come at a price—a price to the planet. The use of fossil fuels has caused irreparable damage to the planet and our supply of these fuels is running dry. Although alternatives exist, such as wind, solar, and nuclear fission, each come with their own challenges.  But what if they didn’t? What if we had access to unlimited energy with virtually no waste? How far could human potential reach? Fossil fuels shifted the very fabric of how we live our lives and nuclear fusion will change the very being of it.

The sun is one of, if not the most crucial, part of life on Earth. In fact, it is 109 times larger than the Earth and filled with hydrogen atoms. Due to its sheer size, the gravity of the sun is able to squish these atoms together, releasing copious amounts of energy in the process. If you were to attempt to push two positively charged magnets together, they would repel each other. High amounts of energy are required in order to have these two meet. This is like the hydrogen atom which has a central nucleus that carries energy, thus when pushing to positively charged atoms together that wish to repel each other, getting them to fuse into one atom releases energy. Scientists hope to recreate this process, harnessing the power of their own “mini sun” in order to produce energy. Theoretically, scientists hope to use seawater, as it contains a high amount of hydrogen atoms, in order to produce energy. This new method for generating energy would be nearly waste free and could last us millions of years.

While nuclear fusion seems like a dream come true, its progress has been stagnant since 1951. Some scientists, unable to produce more energy than it took to combine two atoms, believed that pursuing nuclear fusion was a waste of resources, until last year. The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California was not only able to produce more every then they put in, but they successfully replicated the results. Although only able to produce 1.1 more megajoules, not nearly enough to be profitable, this was a massive step towards clean unlimited energy.

This breakthrough has provided us with a hope, a new look at the future. Further breakthroughs could lead to a future where disputes over energy resources have ended, fossil fuels are no longer used, an entirely new industry is created, and where each country has access to a clean, reliable energy source. This source of unlimited energy, if successful, will push the boundaries of the human mind and human expansion into the stars, just as fossil fuels did during the Industrial Revolution.