Comments by "SmallSpoonBrigade" (@SmallSpoonBrigade) on "Is The World's Largest Fusion Project Dead?" video.

That right there is a major part of the problem, at this time it takes these projects decades to go from the planning stages to something that might function. That time will drop a bit in the future as more efficient paths are discovered and less research is needed ahead of time, so, if we did decide to stop funding this project, it probably wouldn't mean that we'd get something online any sooner. With improvements in magnets, the next one will likely be a lot smaller and cheaper to operate, and will probably still benefit from this project.
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@jewymchoser Precisely, this is just one project and the first project for this sort of thing is never the peak efficiency. As long as the thing does function to produce a viable output, the next ones will be able to improve on that. Now, if they finish building the thing and something completely unexpected happens that makes it not work, that would be a major problem. New designs with better magnets were always going to happen, it's just that we can't collectively wait for that to happen as we'd never actually build the thing.
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@richdobbs6595 Do some more research. There have already been successful test reactions that resulted in a net gain in the reactor core. There is still a ton of work that needs to go into the efficient delivery of the necessary energy to the core, but the basic road map is pretty solid at this point. This project will deliver relevant discoveries to get us there. Fusion won't be the whole solution, but it will be a part of it.
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