| I think it's a long term great option that will have to prove itself based on a cost/performance basis in an extremely competitive market. Therefore, short term the impact is going to be minimal/negligible. There are no plants yet, no approved plans to build any, no validated designs for any, etc. The first few plants are going to be very research/prototype focused and won't produce any impressive amounts of energy relative to what is needed and what is coming online every year in other forms. Best case, we'll see some early adoption in the late 2030's early 2040s with some proof of concept reactors coming online maybe in the next five to ten years already. Several companies are claiming that they are doing that; including Helion. That would be optimistic but it could happen. But I'd be surprised if it hits more than a few percent of global supply before middle of the century. And even that would be a lot. Getting most coal, gas, and other fossil fuels offline by the 2050s would be the main challenge and a bit of a stretch goal according to some. I think fusion will be too late for to play a major role for that either way. If fusion starts working as advertised, it will likely be the second half of this century. It's main role will be to drive cost down and replace more expensive nuclear reactors. I'm actually optimistic about the 2050 timeline here mainly because I think the fossil fuel industry is heading for an investment and cost cliff much faster than they are hoping and mainly because that is driven by the pricing of and investment in renewables. They are being to optimistic how long they can remain profitable and too pessimistic about how much further renewables are going to come down in cost. Once they hit that cliff, a lot of remaining supply will be deprecated and taken offline as fast as they can replace it with something vastly cheaper. They'll be bleeding cash all the way. Also, investment is ramping up and shifting from one to the other faster than they hope. So, I take most current projections that seem overly pessimistic and conservative with a grain of salt. Either way fusion won't be that important for getting rid of fossil fuels. But if it works and is cheap enough there will be a role for it beyond the 2050 timeline. By then, we should be pretty far done tackling climate change. Mostly via renewables and maybe a bit of nuclear here and there and lots of cheap and scalable storage. There are so many proven battery chemistries and other solutions for this now that I consider that as pretty much guaranteed to happen. A mix of short term, mid term, and long term storage coming online by the tens of twh per year in a few decades. The grid will be very different than it is today with lots of private and de-centralized generation (almost exclusively renewables) and storage, micro grids, etc. |