No, Fusion Will Not Cause an Energy Revolution

Nuclear fusion is the holy grail of power electric power production. But will the first fusion reactor with a higher energy output than input cause solve all our energy problems?

I have loved futuristic technology ever since I was a kid. My dad had this large collection of illustrated science magazines. Back in the 1980s I would lie on the floor or in the couch reading these magazines. They would cover all sorts of things but fusion power was one of the things that fascinated me the most. Along with AI it was one of those technologies which promised to completely revolutionize our world.

What is useful about being exposed to all these kinds of technologies from an early age, is that it allows you to reflect later as you get older on the misconceptions you had. There are a couple of things I have come to learn, which I think a lot of young technology enthusiasts today have not yet picked up.

Proving a concept and getting a prototype working is actually a very small part of the job. Compare designing and creating a new Tesla car with the enormous task of actually mass producing that car. We tend to ignore the boring part of mass production and scaling up. The challenge of being able to produce…