It just a best estimate, there’s no way to be sure at this stage. Plenty of smart people think it will and plenty think that it won’t. I think there are so many

It just a best estimate, there’s no way to be sure at this stage. Plenty of smart people think it will and plenty think that it won’t. I think there are so many different promising alternative approaches that hope to solve this problem, that on balance I’m not prepared to bet against every single one of them not panning out. It’s just a guess though. I agree renewables might make it mostly moot, but there’s still the issue of base load. Storage might solve it, but if fusion can be made safe and cheap enough it could still have a niche. Then there’s Mars and the belt. There’s no guarantee we’ll colonise it permanently, but if we do fusion could be really useful as it’s far enough out that solar is significantly less efficient. Also fusion reactors could be handy power plants for spacecraft. Cheap reusable heavy lift systems may make all of this feasible. Finally, the future is a long, long time. If we don’t wipe ourselves out, eventually we will every technology that is viable will be achieved (not possible, viable).