There's no silver bullet to the climate crisis, but nuclear fusion may be the closest thing to it. In the quest for a near-limitless, zero-carbon source of reliable power, scientists have generated fusion energy before, but they have struggled for decades to sustain it for very long.

Scientists working in the United Kingdom announced that they more than doubled the previous record for generating and sustaining nuclear fusion, which is the same process that allows the sun and stars to shine so brightly.

While JET's goal was to prove that nuclear fusion could be generated and sustained, ITER's aim is to produce a tenfold return on energy, or 500 MW of fusion power from 50 MW of fuel put in.