Sandia's dark - horse entry in the fusion race still consumes far more energy than it releases, but that is also true of the more conventional — and more expensive — approaches to fusion, such as bombarding encapsulated fuel with laser light from every direction (as the National Ignition Facility in Livermore, Calif., does) or using
giant superconducting
magnets to heat levitating plasma for minutes at a time
inside a doughnut - shaped chamber (as the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor in France may do when it's completed around 2027).