Fusion milestone ladder

The sequence of steps commonly used to describe fusion progress, in order: first plasma, running the real fuel (deuterium-tritium) at scale, scientific breakeven, ignition, engineering breakeven, net electricity delivered to the grid, and commercial operation. The ladder is a simplification. In laser fusion, a burning plasma, ignition and scientific breakeven came within about two years of each other, and ignition and breakeven fell on the same shot; a magnetic-confinement power plant need not reach full ignition at all, only a high enough plasma gain. Different steps have been reached by different devices using different fuels, so no single device has climbed the whole ladder, and a company's roadmap should be read against which specific rung it is claiming.

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concept:fusion-milestone-ladder

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