"the amount of energy released through the fusion reaction exceeded the amount of energy being absorbed by the fuel" means it is at least 4 orders of magnitude

"the amount of energy released through the fusion reaction exceeded the amount of energy being absorbed by the fuel" means it is at least 4 orders of magnitude away from being useful. Since we still depends on nuclear power for decades to come, it is much cost effective to invest safer and cleaner nuclear fission reactors. The kind of fast reactor that can burn down nuclear waste so we don't need to build nuclear waste storage system, which nobody knows how to build anyway. That would give us power supply for several centuries (along with renewable energy). Too many countries wasted too much money on fusion reactors for decades, while we are still running nuclear reactors designed/built more than 30 years ago. Just wrong priority order.