This fascinating article from Popular Mechanics ventures inside MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center and takes a look at it's fusion reactor, the C-MOD. Some big science is going on there in pursuit of the "Holy Grail" of clean power.

MIT is making strides, as geniuses are wont to do. But without a breakthrough or two, it may be a while before we bask in clean, nearly limitless energy.

Fusion is, to some extent, the exact opposite of fission: Instead of splitting atoms, fusion combines them, creating larger atoms and releasing a massive amount of energy in the process. Despite the high temperatures often associated with plasma, fusion is a relatively stable reaction, generating little to no radioactive waste. Even in a worst-case scenario, there's no chance of a fusion reactor turning into a catastrophe on the scale of Three-Mile Island or Chernobyl. “Fission can run away,” says Miklos Porkolab, director of the PSFC. “Fusion can only fizzle.” Since there's no chain reaction at work, the biggest danger associated with fusion is a temperature collapse. And even if the materials lining the chamber were to suddenly give way due to sabotage or terrorism, the introduction of debris into the plasma cloud would actually smother the process at an even faster rate. Fusion is fragile, difficult to maintain, and ultimately its own worst enemy. But it is not dangerous.

Hopefully a breakthrough may come when ITER, a reactor 10 times the size of Alcator C-MOD, is completed. It's goal: a self-sustaining reaction.

For now an efficient (more power out than goes in) is still decades away.

[via Digg]