It's not clear that it would; the cost of renewable power has crashed so dramatically over the past ~15 years that it is now difficult for anything else to compete. Even if one were to acquire a fusion reactor completely for free - if benevolent aliens saw fit to drop one off as a welcome-to-the-neighborhood gift, perhaps - the turbines and generators necessary to make use of its output would cost enough that investors would make a better profit just building more wind or solar instead.
Fusion reactors, could they be built, might well change a lot of things in the polar regions, and perhaps on the Moon; but the era in which fusion power could have radically changed life in the habitable regions of Earth seems to be on its way out.
Sometime in the next twenty years. Economically viable fusion power is always 20 years away and has been for the last 50.
Frankly I’m thrilled to see them wasting a bunch of time and money on it.
>Sometime in the next twenty years. Economically viable fusion power is always 20 years away and has been for the last 50
Maybe you're right. But what if they do make progress? That would change a lot of things, wouldn't it?
It's not clear that it would; the cost of renewable power has crashed so dramatically over the past ~15 years that it is now difficult for anything else to compete. Even if one were to acquire a fusion reactor completely for free - if benevolent aliens saw fit to drop one off as a welcome-to-the-neighborhood gift, perhaps - the turbines and generators necessary to make use of its output would cost enough that investors would make a better profit just building more wind or solar instead.
Fusion reactors, could they be built, might well change a lot of things in the polar regions, and perhaps on the Moon; but the era in which fusion power could have radically changed life in the habitable regions of Earth seems to be on its way out.