I’ve often come back to thoughts of fusion power, and I think the excuses brought up by fusion-boosters don’t hold water. The general feeling among futurologists is that fusion power was undone by greedy and short-sighted budget cuts, that if only more money had been given to fusion research we could have had working fusion generators to solve all our energy needs. I think this viewpoints is a bit too “Sid Meier’s Civilization” for my liking. It seems to assume that any technology has a set “cost,” and if you can just spend enough resources you are guaranteed unlock and that technology and gain access to its benefits. This sidesteps the issue of if fusion power is even feasible on earth, or if it were in any way feasible with the 1960s technology in use during Fusion’s early heyday. If America had plowed all of the Apollo-program money into fusion power instead, would it really have just “worked?” Was the metallugy, magnetic control, computer control, and plasma physics advanced enough to allow for the construction of fusion plants? I have my doubts, and I’d like to compare fusion to other 1960s technologies that DID work.

The most unflattering comparison that can be made is to fusion power’s close cousin, fission power. In the 60s fission power plants sprung up and became profitable, with some of these profits being re-invested into their technology, creating better fission power plants which could make more profits, which could be invested in better technology and so on. This is called a “virtuous cycle” and it is key to a technology’s success. Fusion power by contrast never brought in revenue. There was never a point where Energy Out > Energy In. No power could ever be sold to the grid or anyone else, thus fusion research could only be continued on the back of private investments and government grants. But unlike other technologies which relied on similar philanthropy, fusion never had the kind of positive results that could be spun into future funding, it only ever had dreams. There’s a common refrain that “we spent billions on the Apollo missions, we could have spent is on X instead” where X is usually fusion power. But the Apollo wasn’t just a money hole, it had genuine successes which could be used to politically justify its continued investment from the government. The first American in space, the first American in earth orbit, the first space-walk and the first trip around the moon. There were setbacks and deaths, but there were enough successes to make the program politically viable. And even besides the government, there were profitable private ventures into space, with satellites being launched and leased for the transmission of radio and other signals worldwide. These transmissions themselves could bring in revenue which fed the virtuous cycle. Even without a cent of government investment, it is conceivable that a manned moon mission would have been possible off the back of these private enterprise successes. Where were the successes of fusion power? Where was the first power plant which created clean, if perhaps unprofitable power, thus justifying continued investment? Where was the first solenoid or tokamak which was demonstrated to be able to contain 100-million degree plasma for days or weeks or months on end, as would be necessary for a sustained fusion power plant? Every milestone in the history of fusion power was people learning about why they had failed the targets they had set previously. If goals could be set and achieved, then maybe a virtuous cycle could have been created whereby prior successes fuel future investment, but alas it never happened.

The virtuous cycle is key to any technological adaptation. If investment isn’t leading to new revenue, then investment will dry up. And I think this is forgotten by a lot of tech enthusiasts, who would rather believe in conspiracy theories to explain why their favorite technology succeeded or failed. Yes oil and coal companies were threatened by fusion power. They were also threatened by fission power, and by wind power and by solar power. Yet throughout the 20th century none of those technologies utterly failed in the way fusion did. Wind and solar in particular continue to advance at a staggering rate, and more wind and solar power is being added every year. The vast power of oil companies has not managed to kill off
Tesla or Solar Star, even though those technologies were once a far off dream just like fusion. And more to the point a conspiracy among fossil fuel companies to kill off fusion would require them to be the only entities in the world unaffected by the prisoner’s dilemma. If fusion power is a profitable venture, then the first energy company to successfully use it can kill off its rivals and corner the market. Why would greedy coal companies pass up the opportunity to drive all their competitors out of business and make billions or trillions of dollars in profit off of safe, clean energy? The usual explanation is that fusion power would be SO cheap that fossil fuel companies would be unable to make a profit, but that is just economic illiteracy. Energy isn’t expensive because coal is expensive, energy is expensive because the market will willingly pay for it at a high price. If a coal company suddenly switches to fusion power, they can and will continue to charge the same rate because that is the rate the market will pay. And if fusion is clean and cheap, the coal company will pocket the revenue as almost pure profit. They company can lower its prices to gain market share and drive rivals out of business, but companies are profit-maximizing, they won’t willingly lower prices to a point where they’re making less than what they could. Any reduction in energy price would have to be made up for in increased market share, and thus increased gross profit for the coal (now fusion) company. And if it really were that simple, then coal companies all over the world would have switched to fusion power. Trying to make a conspiracy to strangle fusion power in its crib wouldn’t work, because again of the prisoner’s dilemma. The first company to break the conspiracy and create fusion power reaps all of the profits at the others’ expenses. The only way out of the prisoner’s dilemma is for all the coal companies to be perfect altruists who would never harm someone else for personal gain, but the entire history of coal companies proves that to be a lie.

I think if fusion power were possible and profitable, then it would be a great technology for our age, helping a huge number of problems overnight from climate change to the cost of living crisis. But it also seems clear that fusion power isn’t currently possible and that throwing more money at the problem isn’t guaranteed to solve it.