Green light for fusion project

A British-led team of scientists has won European Union approval to seek to make nuclear fusion, the physicist’s dream, a reality.

Nuclear fusion has the potential to solve the world’s energy crisis with carbon-neutral technology by harnessing the process that drives the Sun. So far, decades of research have generated little more than hype.
The energy needed to stoke the vast temperatures at which such reactions can occur still outweighs the energy they produce, and supposed breakthroughs such as “cold fusion” have turned out to be false dawns. Physicists joke that they have been predicting the technology is “30 years away” for the past 30 years.

The British-led team will use lasers to start fusion reactions that generate more energy than they consume and they have won the backing of an influential EU science panel, The Times can disclose. The decision paves the way for a seven-year,