The long-cherished dream of creating nearly limitless clean energy from nuclear fusion–the same process that powers our sun–is looking slightly more possible thanks to a new series of experiments. Researchers working with a reactor at MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center have managed to control the motion of million-degree plasma using high-power radio waves. “Ours is the first definitive result showing that high-power radio waves can significantly affect the flow of the plasma,” said physicist Earl Marmar [EE Times]. The radio waves successfully propelled the plasma inside the dount-shaped chamber without hitting the cooler vessel walls, which would halt the fusion reaction, and also prevented the plasma from causing turbulence, which can interfere with reactions.
Fusion is thought to have enormous potential for future power generation, because fusion plant operation would produce no emissions, fuel sources are potentially abundant, and it produces relatively little (and short-lived) radioactive waste. That’s unlike nuclear fission (the splitting apart of a heavy atom to release energy), the process that powers all existing nuclear plants [LiveScience]. However, researchers stress that commercial fusion power plants are still a long way off. Physicists still don’t know how to make a reactor that generates more power than it consumes, a rather large problem for a potential energy source.
A researcher who stirred up controversy when he claimed to have carried out 
