[EA-3167]

The only fusion pathway being seriously studied for energy in the short (read: next century) term is D-T fusion, it doesn't need to be stated.

Deuterium and Tritium are the fuels, they have to be. There are lots of other pathways, but they all require even higher temperatures/pressure than D-T, and we can't really sustain even D-T for any useful length of time.

[ben_w]

Fortunately, T is a byproduct of DD fusion.

Unfortunately, as we don't have any commercially viable fusion reactors yet, we can't even guess if we can afford to make T in the future.

[pfdietz]

This is not true. Helion's very clever scheme appears to offer a near term route to using DD and D3He fusion. Helion could also burn DT, but they don't want to due to its practical drawbacks.

If you didn't know this you need to pay much more attention to them. IMO, they are the least dubious of all the fusion efforts at reaching a practical reactor, and that includes the DT efforts.

Helion is also going to produce prodigious amounts of excess tritium if their scheme works, which is good news for others trying the DT path (although how they compete against a workable advanced fuel reactor is not clear.)