Fusion Is Nuclear Power Without the Meltdowns and Waste

Abundant fuel. No danger of a meltdown. No lingering radioactive waste.

Nuclear fusion, the process US researchers successfully demonstrated this month, has big potential advantages over the nuclear power plants operating today, which run on an entirely different principle. If perfected into a form that can run in a power plant — not just an advanced government lab — fusion could offer a clean power source that avoids many of the pitfalls that have dogged nuclear energy for decades.

All existing nuclear plants use fission — splitting atoms apart — rather than fusion, which involves fusing them together. Fission plants ...