I've been watching the promise of fusion power progress through my life and its been endlessly frustrating. Those involved continue to make unfounded claims and

I've been watching the promise of fusion power progress through my life and its been endlessly frustrating. Those involved continue to make unfounded claims and promises when the fact is that we simply don't know exactly how to make it work, or if it will work at all. Successes in one piece of the puzzle, like 2022's success in fusing deuterium and tritium, are paraded around with claims that we just "solved" fusion. In reality the success was a proof of concept that contained fusion is possible, and that it was done while requiring more energy input then was created. We're 14 years and $20 billion dollars into a project that was mean to take 10 years and $6bn. What have we learned? Plenty of small things certainly, but apparently they also believe to have learned all the unknowns and can now promise that it will only take 15 more years and another $40bn. I don't buy it, and no one else should either. They don't know how long it will take or what it will cost. 15 years isn't how long the construction process for a now fully understood reactor will take, its a bunch of fluff time hoping its enough to figure out what they still don't know. When do we say enough is enough and throw in the towel? Unlimited free, clean energy sounds great and all but it also sounds like snake oil. We would be much better off reducing our need for energy rather than continuing to chase a magic solution that we still don't understand how to build.