I've always been puzzled by the hype and wishful-thinking about fusion power, especially when we already have a highly effective nuclear technology: fission. Fusion is not the game-changer its evangelists claim - at least not in any economically meaningful timeframe.
Let's ask ChatGPT...
Fusion Power: The Energy of the Future... and Always Will Be
There’s a certain romance to fusion energy. It glows in the imagination like the sun itself—clean, inexhaustible, and entirely safe, a balm for our energy sins. You can almost hear the 1950s narrator: “Power from seawater! No pollution! No waste! No risk of nuclear war!”
Meanwhile, fission—the technology we actually have—sits slumped in the corner like a grizzled engineer at a climate conference, ignored because he’s not very photogenic and smells faintly of graphite moderator.
So why the persistent love affair with fusion? Is it grounded in sound physics and sober economic modelling? Or is it just a convenient fantasy—a secular eschatology for the techno-optimist?
Let’s dissect the myth.
The Physics: Real, But Devilishly Difficult
Fusion combines light nuclei (like deuterium and tritium) into heavier ones (like helium), releasing energy in the process. The physics is sound and well understood. On paper, it has several advantages over fission:
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No long-lived radioactive waste (allegedly).
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No risk of meltdown—plasma vanishes the moment magnetic confinement fails.
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Fuel from seawater and lithium—practically inexhaustible.
In contrast, fission splits heavy atoms like uranium-235 or plutonium-239, leaving behind a toxic stew of radioactive byproducts and a geopolitical minefield.
So far, so obvious.
The Hype: A Catalogue of Half-Truths
But dig a little deeper and the arguments in favour of fusion begin to squirm.
1. Waste Disposal
Yes, fusion waste is less nasty—but not absent. High-energy neutrons from the plasma activate reactor components, which become radioactive and require shielding and disposal. True, they decay in decades rather than millennia. But it’s not the radioactive tabula rasa it's often sold as.
Fission waste, by contrast, is vile—but known. It’s been handled (mostly) safely for decades. We know how to store it; we even know how to recycle it though no one wants to pay for that.
2. Safety
Fusion can’t run away with itself—there’s no chain reaction to spiral out of control. Fission, historically, has had its accidents. But modern fission reactors are designed to fail gracefully. The technology is safe, even if the bureaucracy around it is often terminal.
3. Fuel Abundance
Fusion fuel is theoretically abundant: deuterium from water, tritium bred from lithium. But tritium is rare, radioactive, and currently made in fission reactors. Breeding it inside the fusion reactor using lithium blankets is one of those problems that fusion proponents admit exists—but always “just after the next demo reactor.”
Fission fuel is less abundant, true, but we haven’t scratched the surface of what breeder reactors or thorium cycles could do, if people really cared.
The Missing Element: Cold, Hard Economics
Here’s where the argument collapses entirely.
Fusion:
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Has never delivered power to the grid.
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Costs tens of billions per prototype (ITER: €22 billion and counting).
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Requires miraculous advances in materials science, tritium logistics, and power extraction. Let alone plasma control.
In contrast, fission:
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Works. It powers 10% of the world’s electricity.
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Has a known, albeit expensive, cost structure (but regulatory overkill is a major contributor).
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Could be dramatically improved with small modular reactors (SMRs), molten salt designs, or even fast breeders—if governments would stop getting in their own way.
There is no serious economic case for fusion yet: only PowerPoint slides, venture capital, and a lot of bravado. Even the most optimistic fusion startups won’t make serious grid contributions before the 2040s—if ever.
So Why Do We Keep Pretending?
Fusion is loved for the same reason people love space colonies or vertical farms. It is technically plausible, but currently unaccountable. It promises salvation without compromise or worrisome downsides. It is guilt-free techno-futurism: a narrative in which we don’t have to change how we live, only wait for the clever people to deliver the star-fire.
Fission, by contrast, is a reminder of what we already have and don’t like. Bureaucratic approvals. Radiation monitoring. The dull grind of maintenance.
And yet, it works.
What Would a Rational Society Do?
If we were serious:
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We’d invest in next-generation fission now to cover the coming decades.
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We’d research fusion, of course - but with eyes open to its uncertainties.
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We’d build out renewables and storage, which are now cheaper and faster than either nuclear option, albeit with their own issues.
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And we’d recognise that the future is unlikely to be a single silver bullet, but a muddled patchwork of workable solutions.
Fusion may one day arrive but don’t bet your climate strategy on it. The energy of the future has been just around the corner for seventy years. It will still be just around the corner long after Hinkley Point C finally turns on - and probably turns off again.
