I've become convinced that fusion power will never be commercially viable in the foreseeable future. Considering: Electrical energy from coal is, right now, ba

I've become convinced that fusion power will never be commercially viable in the foreseeable future. Considering: Electrical energy from coal is, right now, barely competitive with renewables (which are still continuously improving!). Thus, any fusion plant would basically need to provide thermal energy for less than the fuel cost in a coal plant + the cost of some burners. That includes: - Vacuum chamber - Cryocooling - Huge superconducting magnet assemblies - Maintenance of all above in a very hostile environment (=> thanks to high neutron flux and thus potentially neutron-activated materials near the fusion chamber) Right now, the only halfway credible pathway to a viable design is ITERs successor plant; everything else is pure vaporware/research project by design, which is obvious from the scale alone. Nuclear fusion is IMO in the same spot as a steam-jet powered carriage (heating water, expelling it backwards out of a nozzle) would have been in 1500AD: - Technically possible? Sure. - Academically interesting? Kind of. - Economically viable? Hell no (and no amount of progress has changed that since!). I'm very open to having my mind changed, but not optimistic :( But photovoltaics/wind/battery storage looks all super promising, so i guess there is that...