More invested in nuclear fusion in last 12 months than past decade

Fission is around $10/watt with a mostly-plannable capacity factor of 60-80%. Fission is a cakewalk compared to fusion.

Solar is around $0.5/watt with a capacity factor of around 25% and falling rapidly.

The operating and capital costs of a gas plant are around the same with a plannable capacity factor in the high 90s.

So by spending $6 on solar, and $2 on a gas plant. You have $7/watt left over to figure out how to turn free electricity into hydrogen or methane at 50% efficiency and store it for a year.

We already have electrolyzers that work for $0.5 to $1.5 watt at around 50% efficiency.

Hydrogen storage is hard, but that left over $5 per 4kWh/yr should take care of it. If it doesn't, sabatier rractors are getting cheaper too.

The only thing we have to do for people to start using them is stop the coal and gas subsidies.

This is also just one of many options. Salt cavern CAES is similarly viable

> This means that the imminent concern in the capacity of sustainability (exacerbation of climate change) is largely addressed, save for the carbon capture / cooling aspect we will want.

This seems to show that you have a climate-only lens to look at the problem, even though the point that fusion would greatly disrupt CO2 emissions is 100% correct. The imminent concern is not just exacerbation of climate change.

1) This lens is incomplete because even if we completely stopped emitting CO2 right now we would still go to a destabilisation of the physical world around us due to all the other planetary boundaries being crossed https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/planetary-bound.... For example food supply would be disrupted by the artificialization of soils and disruption of the Phosphorus Cycle, many if not most food chains on which we depend will collapse due to the fact that we are killing or consuming most animal species, among which vital insects (the 6th mass extinction has started and is much faster than previous mass extinctions), water supply will be disrupted more and more etc.

2) It's also incomplete because it doesn't account for the other end of the problem : the depletion of ressources. Fusion means we can extract more and more resources, deeper and deeper, creating an even more unbalanced system if it's not done in a way were resources can regenerate themselves at the same rate we extract them.

With what we have done every time we got additional energy so far, it is likely that getting fusion will increase pressure on planetary boundaries that are not CO2 emissions : you fix a problem by worsening the others.

> it makes no sense to assume the same level of depletion. It's a function of demand.

Good point. It's a function of demand, therefore it makes sense to assume the same level of depletion will increase, since more and more people will get access to middle-class (or more) lifestyle, which is the main driver of demand for resources (as opposed to population growth, which is less of a driver if it's population growth in countries without a middle class).

> This also doesn't take into account technological innovation.

As I said this could be a factor that helps with depleting less resources but so far we have observed the impact technology has been to dramatically increase ressource use and waste overall, not reduce them.

> The rich are too few in number and they're primarily rich by virtue of everyone else's consumption. Notwithstanding that their own practices can be very damaging, it doesn't meet that scale.

We are talking about middle classes here, which are massive and meant to become even more massive. It is also true that the richer you are the more you emit but that's a side phenomenon to understand why the amount of middle-class matters.

> There's no evidence that a zero-carbon world with improved energy efficiency would necessarily lead to environmental destruction.

Then you haven't read or studied resources like https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/planetary-bound... to begin with a simple/mainstream one for example, you haven't looked at the impact of mining and the orders of magnitude of resources we would need for a world where societies keep having the same behaviour as today, with just the "carbon-free" component added.

Anyway this is a bet: there is no proof it would work either, and if it does not the population will completely collapse. Which way do you want to try? An organised de-growth (in terms of GDP, not total wealth if we account for the destruction of nature) were we know we can make it at the expense of less comfort and consumerism, or try to keep growing and just become net zero carbon, with the hope that we can make it, to the risk of collapsing and making the earth uninhabitable?

One more resource you can look at in case you didn't know about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth#:~:text=T...

Being obsessed with carbon creates blindspots with respect to all the other planetary limits, our oceans are being emptied of life because of what we have done so far with abundant energy. The earth system is being destabilised in many other ways than just climate change. We need a global systemic solution, not to fix the problems one by one separately, because by doing that you will often make other problems worse by fixing one.

I'm not saying we don't need more abundant energy, I'm saying we need to change our philosophy, the way we organise ourselves and what we do with it first.

You described no other imminent problem.

to your 1), food supply is a moot point as population will stagnate. The West often overproduces as it stands and is poised to reduce food waste.

to your 2), we're nowhere near depletion of resources, and there's no reason to believe the average person's purchasing power will not only greatly increase to allow for inordinate amount of consumption, but that it would outpace technological innovation which minimizes and recycles materials.

> With what we have done every time we got additional energy so far, it is likely that getting fusion will increase pressure on planetary boundaries that are not CO2 emissions : you fix a problem by worsening the others.

Fusion, to the extent you're portraying it, is a long ways off, and additional energy has not done much for the average person in the last several decades. It's irrational to project outsized negative impact.

> since more and more people will get access to middle-class (or more) lifestyle

Before population stagnation, yes. That's among the driving forces leading to stagnation. But after which, no. "More and more people" necessarily ends at "all of them".

> so far we have observed the impact technology has been to dramatically increase ressource use and waste overall, not reduce them.

Technology to reduce is in it's infancy. Necessity is the mother of invention. These externalities were never much of concern to the oligarchic, financial and political classes - that is changing.

> Then you haven't read or studied resources

You're looking too short-term.

> or try to keep growing

Nowhere do I advocate for this. False dilemma.

We know we can make it by limiting population growth.