We need to be doing both the boring stuff and developing fusion. Not least that improving energy efficiency can only go so far - thermodynamics is a harsh master - nor that transport and agriculture are, and will continue to be, major energy users.
Less money has been spent on fusion research, by all nations, ever, than was spent bailiing out the banks in 2008. Out of that investment seen significant improvements in scientific understanding plus have been able to train up tens of thousands of scientists and engineers who've then gone on to apply their expertise onto many other problems we're facing. I don't think you can say the same about the bank bailouts.
I understand that processes such as fusion may be of help for clean power generation in the future, and that there could be other spin offs.
i don't have a problem with resources going on research as such.
But it's this attitude that there will be some amazing new tech that will come along and save us all from climate disaster at the eleventh hour, that is a part of the larger problem, it can deflect us from doing what is possible and achievable now.
In agriculture for instance we could greatly reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and their products, often with fairly straightforward methodologies, and understanding of natural systems already existing that harvest energy from sunlight.
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It doesn't have to be such an enormous energy user at all, it's just ended up that way, mainly through extractive capitalism and short termism..
Completely agree about bank bailouts, I'm no cheerleader for any of that. There are many better things that that money could and should have been spent on, but that's another subject in itself.
But we also need to look at who owns the new energy generating tech who will get to control and profit from it, who loses out.??
Ideally it would be like Iceland with their geothermal heating going to nearly all households.
But given the relatively high cost of developing (and running??) fusion there is a danger thats perhaps not so likely - I don't know.
However the socio-politics of high tech and who owns benefits from it is important, to scrutinise, as well as the nature of the technology itself.
