You seem to be comparing construction costs of an experimental project to the LCOE (basically, utility rates) for a massively scaled and mature industry. Let's

You seem to be comparing construction costs of an experimental project to the LCOE (basically, utility rates) for a massively scaled and mature industry. Let's ignore the R&D costs it took us to get solar to its current state. According to https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=36813 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=36813, the construction costs in 2016 for utility-scale solar plants were ~$2.5k per kilowatt, or ~$2.5M per megawatt. > How many MW of solar panels can you buy for that $50M? About 20MW. Definitely not 1000GW, which is what you would get by dividing $50, today's approx. solar power MWh LCOE, into $50M. From the tone of your reply it seems like you were assuming the latter. Ignoring large jumps in the price of land, and ignoring potential taxes for their environmental impact (deserts and plains have ecosystems, too), solar and wind will likely be cheaper than fusion far into the future, even by optimistic fusion predictions. But it's still debatable whether it'll be so expensive that we shouldn't even bother making the investment. The LCOE of natural gas is 3x that of solar power today, and yet we're still building natural gas plants like crazy. (FWIW, the LCOE for new fission plants as expensive as Vogtle Units 3 & 4, the former coming online next year, is comparable to natural gas. https://www.lazard.com/media/450784/lazards-levelized-cost-of-energy-version-120-vfinal.pdf https://www.lazard.com/media/450784/lazards-levelized-cost-o... In China the LCOE seems to be closer to that of contemporary solar LCOEs. https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/6/2086/pdf https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/6/2086/pdf Which explains why China has many more reactors under construction.)