I'm skeptical if commercial fusion power generation will ever be economic. We get tricked by existence of stars but stars actually produce a really low amount o

I'm skeptical if commercial fusion power generation will ever be economic. We get tricked by existence of stars but stars actually produce a really low amount of energy per unit mass: 0.2mW/kg [1]. It just so happens that stars are really massive (~333,000 times the mass of Earth). Stars can thus solve the neutron problem with gravity. Even if you solve magnetic confinement of a superheated turbulent fluid in a fusion reactor (and that's a big "if"), you still lose energy and destroy your container through the loss of neutrons. I'm skeptical of any energy "breakthrough" now, be that with fusion, batteries and superconductors. With LK-99 I refused to care until it was reproduced (particularly given the factor that at least one of the paper's authors had previously had to restract papers). So many "breakthroughs" are just about building reputation for the individuals and seeking grants and funding for their research. That's all. Solar, in particular, is our future. And while we're worrying about far-future tech like fusion, we're ignoring the very real problems of today. Like it or not, we have and will continue to have a dependence on fossil fuels for some time to come. So much so that the US hasn't built a significant refinery in 30-40 years. I get the naive opposition to this but a new refinery produces WAY less pollution than the old refineries we have. This is set to change with a new refinery in Oklahmoa that will be 100% powered by renewable energy and produce 95% less greenhouse gas (per unit of fuel) than existing refineries [2]. [1]: https://lifeng.lamost.org/courses/astrotoday/CHAISSON/AT316/HTML/AT31605.HTM https://lifeng.lamost.org/courses/astrotoday/CHAISSON/AT316/... [2]: https://journalrecord.com/2023/05/25/planned-cushing-refinery-to-have-multibillion-dollar-impact/ https://journalrecord.com/2023/05/25/planned-cushing-refiner...