The National Ignition Facility (NIF) in the US is claiming to be on the threshold of commercial nuclear fusion. The science institute recently completed an experiment that demonstrated its laser-powered approach was close to the ‘ignition’ point for the elusive clean energy technology. However the journey from this breakthrough to full fusion power, may still represent decades of work. The approach, referred to as inertial confinement fusion, was first adopted over ten years ago. It uses tiny blasts from the world’s highest energy laser’s 192 beams to heat and compress hydrogen isotopes (deuterium and tritium), with the goal of initiating a nuclear fusion reaction. Two weeks ago, a single 20 nanosecond shot from this laser sparked a fusion explosion that…