>>14183481>muh defense spendingYou could build 60 $10 billion plants with that, but that's just the down payment, not including maintenance and other issues. Plus, to reach that, you'd have to cut the cost of ITER in half - certainly not an easy proposition. It also doesn't take into account the 30-40 years it would take to install the plant.
Fusion is a joke.
>>14183492>muh government projectAll major fusion projects are either international efforts or running on massive government contracts. Fusion's effectively a money pit that so far hasn't delivered.
>"constant improvement"If you're referring to renewables, this is laughable. No renewable system can scale up to provide the cheap, abundant power of fossil fuels at the same rate. You can't run modern civilization on renewables for a galaxy of factors. Storage capacity, intermittance, regional availability, transmission. The idea of a green, renewable future with modern levels of technology and abundance is laughable.
>We've had fuel shortages before - they'll think of somethingThe prayer of the progress-worshipper. We're running out of fuel. We can't magic more into existence, and we won't be able to afford to extract many of the deposits that are left, much in the same way it's not economically viable to pull gold from seawater. Also, you'll notice that major economic crises occur whenever a region achieves peak oil - 70s in the US, 2005 globally with standard crude. That is not a coincidence.
>"doomsayer!"That's a matter of perspective. I don't think we need to leap to the stars to have a validating existence. I think it's a good thing this will all wind down. Humanity can do amazing things without conforming to a 20th century gizmo-powered vision of the future.
