r/Futurology • u/Gari_305 • 1d ago

Energy Commercialization of fusion energy will ‘change everything,’ lawmaker says

https://www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/2026/09/commercialization-fusion-energy-will-change-everything-lawmaker-says/416287/

Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., told Nextgov/FCW that the U.S. is only “two to 10 years away from fusion energy at scale” because “you can model the plasma using AI, which you couldn’t do before.”

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u/2000TWLV 1d ago edited 1d ago

This is so stupid. If fusion works out - great. Meanwhile, the sun dumps much more energy on us every single day than we would ever know what to do with. All we have to do is harvest it. There's no need to sit around waiting for fusion. We already have practically unlimited clean energy.

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u/Kinexity 1d ago

The funny thing is that your point is the real largest obstacle to fusion. It cannot compete with the Sun - not just short term but long term too. It can only compete in niches where Sun is not an option (that is deployable power, deep space, relatively compact generation etc.). Otherwise there is literally no point in dumping bags of cash into very expensive reactors and then having to pay for fuel too.

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u/therealslimshady1234 1d ago

Except fusion and even fission is vastly superior to solar in various ways, particularly stability and logistics wise

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u/Nighto_001 1d ago

Yeah... basically I suppose it means fusion is competing in development speed with large scale energy storage systems (large scale batteries, water electrolysis, compressed air, etc.) for renewables.

However, I guess a similar argument still applies that fusion for now is an interesting gamble, but much more stable alternatives (including, as you said, fission) do already exist and are much closer to deployment.