Fusion researcher here. Yes, this piece is sensationalized, as are most pieces about fusion, and about science/technology in general, unfortunately. It's depres

Fusion researcher here. Yes, this piece is sensationalized, as are most pieces about fusion, and about science/technology in general, unfortunately. It's depressing that tokamak performance hasn't improved much in all that time. The only two ways to scale up the gain are to build the device larger (like ITER) or with higher magnetic field (like SPARC). The existing devices have been around for many years and have been pushed basically as far as they can go, the only way forward is to build new devices. There's really no reason to expect a breakthrough on tokamak performance that will suddenly change the game. The only really positive news for tokamaks in the last ~30 years is the advent of REBCO superconductors & the success Commonwealth Fusion has had so far in capitalizing on this technology.