Nuclear Fusion, Long Hyped, Inches Closer to Reality: Editorial

In news of the future, Google is buying a boatload of fusion energy. The only problem is that its supplier lacks a power plant, has produced no energy to date, and may never do so on commercially viable terms. Even so, wish them well: Few technologies could have a more profound effect on the future of global energy.

Last month, Alphabet Inc.’s Google agreed to buy 200 megawatts of energy from Commonwealth Fusion Systems, a spinoff from a lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that plans to build a fusion plant in Virginia. (Google is also an investor.) The ...