[lmm]

And then you end up spending far more on powerlines than it would cost to get working fusion.

[sandl]

Not really - ITER alone is expected to be in excess of $20 billion, that would buy you about 20 modern HVDC Transmission lines, each with a length of 1000 km and able to transmit 40 GW of power in total. That's a lot of power. :-)

http://electrical-engineering-portal.com/analysing-the-costs...