Fusion ignition happened in 2022. Grid-scale energy: median bet, 2046.
On December 5, 2022, the National Ignition Facility achieved fusion ignition — more energy out of the fuel pellet than the lasers put in. It was the first demonstration of net energy gain from controlled fusion in human history. It was also one shot, in a building-sized laser, into a fuel pellet that cost more than the energy it produced. The path from physics demonstration to grid-scale fusion power runs through engineering, supply chains, and capital that don't yet exist. The Manifold prediction market's median estimate for the first commercial fusion reactor producing net grid energy is 2046.
First net-energy fusion event in human history.
JWST Cycle 5 begins observations around July 2026, and among its targets: K2-18b, the sub-Neptune 124 light-years away where a 2023 Cambridge-led team claimed to detect dimethyl sulfide — a molecule produced by marine life on Earth. A 2025 NASA-led reanalysis (Welbanks et al., arXiv:2508.05961) found the evidence does not meet the scientific standard of detection. Cycle 5 data could settle it — or complicate it further. This is the scientific method running in public, in real time.
In September 2023, a molecule made by phytoplankton showed up in a headline about a planet 124 light-years away. Two years and more than 250 atmospheric retrievals later, the molecule has mostly evaporated — and the fight over K2-18b became a fight over how you're even allowed to say the word "detection."
