Despite tepid support and funding peril, fusion energy researchers make progress

&gt; “The challenge with fusion is finding a technical path that makes it economically attractive and that’s something we can do soon,“<p>This is the most important line in the entire article. As strong a proponent for fusion energy as I am, knowing a bit of energy economics makes me doubt that fusion will be a viable investment in the next 20 years.<p>The problem is that fossil fuels are abundant and cheap, the negative externalities caused by burning them for energy aren&#x27;t included in their pricing. Until oil becomes absurdly expensive (I think $400 per barrel would do it) we wont see serious interest in fusion research again. Unfortunately, because of the lead time, it may be too late by then.

There are some big challenges that still need to be met, such as how to breed tritium in the blanket, how to make the reactor realistically serviceable, materials resistant to sputtering, etc. Nearer-term are solutions to problems of how the diverter effects plasma flow, but even that is a long way out.

There&#x27;s now at least a dozen feasible and diverse fusion projects out there. So planners who assume there <i>won&#x27;t</i> be fusion soon are obliged to explain why they must <i>all</i> fail.