WHAT'S FUELLING THE COMMERCIAL FUSION HYPE?
Yes, controlled fusion for commercial applications has been a promise at least half of my life.
Last year I visited a lecture of a Duch professor who’s team attributed to one of the numerous challenges ITER encounters. He said: “ITER will never produce more energy than it consumes, maybe a commercial next generation tokamak does this within the coming 25 years”.
But within that time humanity will probably suffer from exhaustion of our fossil energy sources. If nothing happens that will stop the economic motor and it will lead to chaos. Solar and wind will never be enough to replace the fossil fuels. The plan of making nuclear fusion our next energy source is a deadly plan for humanity and is the mistake of many nuclear scientists that underestimated the complexity.
What they instead should have been done is developing the thorium reactor. I’m sure it would have been in operation by now. There is enough thorium for at least 500 years if all the energy in the world consumed for every process needing energy! Natural thorium does not require enrichment. All thorium can be used for energy generation. We missed a chance to survive. Let’s hope LENR will bring us the escape.