It seems that for the last couple decades fusion is always 30 years away and by this point we’ve well passed the initial 30 and seemingly little progress has been made.
Is it just that it’s so difficult to make efficient?
Has the technology improved substantially and we just don’t hear about it often?
In: Physics
“In 1976, the US Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA) published a detailed fusion program plan [4] suggesting that, if a sequence of advanced test facilities were constructed in a timely fashion, fusion electricity could be on the grid in a Demonstration Power Plant by the year 2000. This plan was codified by Congress in the Magnetic Fusion Energy Engineering Act of 1980, signed by President Carter on October 7, 1980. The Act was signed just as the US “energy crisis” was coming to an end, as proclaimed by President Reagan upon taking office in January 1981. The provisions of the Act were never implemented. Furthermore, fusion and other energy R&D programs experienced major funding reductions during the 1980s and 1990s.”
[Historical Perspective on the United States Fusion Program](https://fire.pppl.gov/Dean_US_fusion_TOFE_2004.pdf)
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