Researchers are developing a real-life tractor beam, with the goal of pulling defunct satellites out of geostationary orbit to alleviate the space junk problem.
Cold fusion was always a hoax, as far as I know. Regular hot fusion has been 20 years away for 50 years, but we may at last be seeing some progress. ITER is finally being assembled (very slowly), and some of the newer startups like Helion and Commonwealth Fusion Systems seem promising. NIF also achieved Q > 1 last year, but inertial confinement doesn’t easily scale up to a power plant.
Cold fusion was always a hoax, as far as I know. Regular hot fusion has been 20 years away for 50 years, but we may at last be seeing some progress. ITER is finally being assembled (very slowly), and some of the newer startups like Helion and Commonwealth Fusion Systems seem promising. NIF also achieved Q > 1 last year, but inertial confinement doesn’t easily scale up to a power plant.
That does sound promising! So probably about 20yrs now then?