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by bruce511 720 days ago
I agree with everything you say about rooftop solar. If you have a suitably unshaved roof, and you are in a reasonably sunny climate, the current economic math works. And as energy costs go up, and capital costs come down it works better all the time.

That said, we still need a grid to distribute electricity to places that consume more energy than roof space. Think apartment blocks, factories etc. And yes, a huge chunk of that load can still be supplied by grid-scale solar and wind etc.

Even with large-scale storage (another fruitful place to spent investment money) there's going to need to be peak-generation.

However you look at it, I don't think fusion will be the answer. Since fusion was first proposed and the landscape of requirements have shifted. By the time it's practical, it'll be solving a problem we dont have.

The science may lead to a working reactor. But no one will build it at scale because it simply won't solve the problem well have then.