On December 5, 2022, the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), operated for the US Department of Energy, produced 3.15 megajoules (MJ) of fusion energy from 2.05 MJ of laser energy delivered to its target — the first controlled fusion experiment in history to produce more energy from fusion than the laser energy used to drive it CITE:E2. The lab describes this as "scientific energy breakeven," a result achieved inside a research experiment rather than a power-generating facility CITE:E2.
NIF's reported gain compares fusion output only against the 2.05 MJ of laser light that reached the target, not against the total electrical energy consumed to generate that laser pulse CITE:E3. NIF's capacitor bank stores approximately 400 MJ of electrical energy for each shot and discharges approximately 330 MJ of that stored electrical energy to drive the laser system CITE:E3. Set against the 2.05 MJ of laser light that actually reaches the target and the 3.15 MJ of fusion energy that comes back out, the roughly 330 MJ of electrical input shows why NIF's result is described as a "scientific" gain rather than the "engineering" gain — energy out versus total electricity in — that a power plant would need CITE:E3.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) describes fusion and fission as physically opposite nuclear processes: fission splits a heavy atomic nucleus into fragments, while fusion joins two light nuclei to form a heavier one CITE:E1. Fusion does not create any long-lived radioactive nuclear waste, and a fusion reactor's byproduct is helium, an inert gas, according to the IAEA CITE:E1.
Three fusion programs using three different technical approaches have set three different target dates for delivering power. ITER, the international magnetic-confinement tokamak project, updated its baseline in 2024 and now targets the start of its deuterium-tritium operation phase in 2039, a four-year delay from the previous baseline that ITER attributes to the COVID-19 pandemic and repairs required on key machine components CITE:E4. Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) signed a power purchase agreement with Google in June 2025 for 200 MW of electricity from its first commercial ARC tokamak plant, which is designed to generate 400 MW of net electricity and which CFS expects to put on the grid in Chesterfield County, Virginia, in the early 2030s CITE:E5. Helion Energy signed what it calls the world's first fusion power purchase agreement, with Microsoft, in May 2023; the plant is expected to be online by 2028 and, after a one-year ramp-up period, is targeted to generate 50 MW or more CITE:E6.
| Program | Approach | Contract Partner | Target Capacity | Target Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ITER | Magnetic confinement (tokamak) | International project (no single offtake contract) | Start of deuterium-tritium operation phase | 2039 |
| CFS ARC | Magnetic confinement (tokamak) | Google (PPA, June 2025) | 200 MW purchased of 400 MW net design | Early 2030s |
| Helion | Magnetized target | Microsoft (PPA, May 2023) | ≥50 MW after 1-year ramp-up | 2028 |
Global tritium production from CANDU reactors runs on the order of 20 kilograms per year, while an industrial electricity-producing fusion plant will require an average of 70 kilograms of tritium per gigawatt of thermal power per year at full power, according to ITER CITE:E7. Because that external supply falls well short of projected plant-level demand, deuterium-tritium power plants must breed their own tritium on-site from lithium to become self-sufficient, and large-scale in-plant tritium breeding has not yet been demonstrated CITE:E7.
NIF's 2022 result set fusion output (3.15 MJ) against the 2.05 MJ of laser light delivered to the target, not against the roughly 330 MJ its capacitor bank actually discharges per shot, meaning the demonstrated gain is scientific rather than plant-level CITE:E2CITE:E3. Against that backdrop, CFS's 200 MW agreement with Google and Helion's deal with Microsoft both target power delivery in 2028 and the early 2030s — years before ITER's own 2039 deuterium-tritium start date CITE:E5CITE:E6CITE:E4. Those commercial timelines also run ahead of any demonstrated fix for the tritium gap between roughly 20 kilograms of global annual supply and about 70 kilograms per gigawatt-thermal per year of plant-level demand CITE:E7. Read together, two open engineering questions — converting scientific gain into net electrical output, and proving on-site tritium self-sufficiency — sit underneath contracts that are already dated for 2028 and the early 2030s.
On December 5, 2022, the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), operated for the US Department of Energy, produced 3…
NIF's reported gain compares fusion output only against the 2.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) describes fusion and fission as physically opposite nuclear processes: fission splits a heavy atomic nucleus into …
Three fusion programs using three different technical approaches have set three different target dates for delivering power.
The gap between NIF's 3.15 MJ fusion output and the roughly 330 MJ its capacitor bank actually discharges per shot is the clearest evidence that 'scientific ignition' and 'net grid power' remain two separate engineering problems. Corporate offtake deals — Google's 200 MW agreement with CFS and Microsoft's deal with Helion for 50 MW by 2028 — effectively bet that this scientific-to-engineering conversion, plus tritium self-sufficiency at roughly 70 kg per gigawatt-thermal per year against today's ~20 kg of global annual supply, can be solved within a single decade, well ahead of ITER's own 2039 fuel-cycle start. The number worth watching next is whether CFS or Helion publishes an engineering-scale gain figure — fusion output measured against total plant electricity input — or a demonstrated on-site tritium-breeding rate, before their contracted 2028 and early-2030s commissioning dates arrive.
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