As much as I hope this succeeds and as glad as I that HN is betting on such "moonshots", I remain skeptical about the practicality of nuclear fusion as a commer

As much as I hope this succeeds and as glad as I that HN is betting on such "moonshots", I remain skeptical about the practicality of nuclear fusion as a commercially viable power source. Fusion works particularly well for stars because of gravity. We're trying to use magnets to contain superheated plasma. The Sun generates less energy on a kg-for-kg basis that compost [1]. And it has gravity to contain the byproducts (other than energy). But the real problem is neutrons. To start a fusion reaction with a small amount of matter we use heavy isotopes of hydrogen (specifically deuterium = 1 neutron, tritium = radioactive isotope with 2 neutrons). The fusing material releases neutrons that damage the containing reactor. This is using the most "promising" deuterium-tritium reaction. Alternatives are suggesting using He3. Unfortunately that's super-rare, which kinda defeats the point of "free" energy. I remain skeptical but hoping to be proven wrong. [1]: http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/04/17/3478276.htm http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/04/17/3478276.ht...