You seem intent to couch your armchair predictions as ineluctable. Sticking with the steam engine comparison it was 320 years ago that we had the first proper

You seem intent to couch your armchair predictions as ineluctable. Sticking with the steam engine comparison it was 320 years ago that we had the first proper steam engine (arguably some variety existed ~2 millennia ago, but that'd just support my argument even more). It took 70 years, though, before we had a decent one (Watt's). And that was before anyone had worked out how to bore accurate holes in cast iron -- so even that was version was a bit clunky. In contrast it's less than a hundred that we've even just known about neutrons, and the complexity delta between boiling water and fusion reactors suggests that we (you) should not assume that if we haven't solved all the problems around them yet, then we never can or will. Statements like this: > Steam engines clearly produced power at a huge economic benefit. invite questions as to why we hadn't been doing this for thousands of years. Everything is clear in hindsight. > And all of that is wasted funding, that should go into battery, solar, wind, electrical transmission, and other storage means, which are beating coal (thankfully) and will hopefully beat natural gas soon. How society expends its resources isn't a consensus arrangement - sometimes very frustrating, other times it works out well. Fusion research has a huge positive benefit if / when we get it to work. It's also probably going to be very important for the initial extra-solar expeditions. Doubtless there'll be other, currently unknown, benefits that come out of fusion-related research.