New England may soon become the world’s nuclear-fusion capital

The Sun generates its energy by nuclear fusion of hydrogen nuclei into helium. In its core, the Sun fuses 500 million metric tons of hydrogen each second.

Adapted from Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com

Happiest news of the month?

Commonwealth Fusion Systems LLC has just gotten $1.8 billion in private funding to build and operate the world's first commercial fusion-energy machine  at its facility in Devens, Mass. The company, based in Cambridge, thus is moving faster toward what may bring about a revolution in  electricity generation. It could eliminate the scary problem of  trying to find safe places to store the radioactive waste that’s produced by nuclear fission, which is what nuclear-power plants use now.

Commonwealth Fusion hopes that it can prove, by 2025, that its fusion reaction creates more energy than it uses and then build a commercial-scale power plant by 2030.

What an environmental and economic boon for the world – massive amounts of clean, noncarbon-based energy -- and a boon for  New England to have such an enterprise growing in its midst.