Part 7/10:
The KSTAR reactor, for example, recently set a new record by sustaining a plasma at over 100 million degrees Celsius for nearly a minute. This is a significant milestone, but still falls short of the conditions needed for net energy gain - where the reactor produces more energy than it consumes.
The slow pace of fusion development can be frustrating, as each new breakthrough is often met with hype and claims of imminent commercialization. In reality, the path to a working fusion power plant is still decades away, requiring further advances in plasma physics, materials science, and engineering.