Many of my readers enjoy science fiction as much as I do. Jacob Baumgardner recently shared an answer about which emerging technologies may have the greatest impact in the near future. He identified three: fusion power, rail/coilguns, and pre-coolers.

I imagine that all of these will come to be in this century.

Fusion power

This will probably be the last form of energy generation we develop until the advent of anti-matter.

Right now, fusion power is still in the testing phase in the form of ITER. If all goes to plan, the first successful testbed will be operational 5 years from now. It will start with large power plants, then small power plants, then large ships like carriers, and eventually it will be small enough to use in vehicles like aircraft and small ships. It is unlikely cars and the like will use fusion reactors as superconducting batteries are…