Nuclear fusion power was supposed to be a dream come true. As soon as we discovered that you could smash little atoms together to make bigger atoms and release a small amount of energy in the process, scientists around the world realized the implications of this new bit of physics knowledge. Some wanted to turn it into weapons, but others wanted to develop it into a clean, efficient, inexhaustible supply of electrical energy.
But it turns out that fusion power is … hard. Really hard. Really complicated. Full of unexpected pitfalls and traps. We’ve been trying to build fusion generators for three-quarters of a century, and we’ve made a lot of progress — enormous, groundbreaking, horizon-expanding progress. But we’re not there yet. Fusion power has been one of those things that’s been “only 20 years away” for about 50 years now.
The primary challenge is that while it’s relatively straightforward to make fusion happen — we did it all the time with thermonuclear weapons — it’s much more difficult to make the reaction slow and controlled while extracting useful energy from it.
Fission’s not just more expensive then rewewables, it’s way Way WAY more expensive. Even if you don’t count the costs of safely (if ever) securing wastes for thousands of years. Or paying for the on-land spills (too dangerous for remediations for decades). Or the health costs of the emissions (recorded and unrecorded). Or ever-skyrocking costs (and failures) of renovation. Or using loads of ever-scarcer river water, or water from oceanside earthquake zones like Fukushima.
Luckily, we have a reactor in the sky 90 million miles away. Right now, every day, It provides the Earth with hundreds of times the amount of energy humanity currently consumes. FREE ENERGY. Windmills have been in use for well-over a century, yet utilized little. Why? Because when FREE energy is everywhere, up for grabs, it’s hard to centralize material formats in nice, big, very profitable power plants … especially when you don’t count externalities (especially invisible ones, like emissions or mines hidden away in places no one who matters ever visits.).
Takes a lot of propaganda to keep people divided and discouraged while they decide out how to hold onto the bank.