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Agree. There have been no breakthroughs. The projects getting funding are just different enough to be not immediately disprovable and continue to spectacularly overpromise without solving any of the real problems. Chamber embrittlement? Nuclear waste? (activation of the apparatus by the 12 MeV fusion netrons is a lot worse than the 100 keV fission neutron.)

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> have been no breakthroughs

Magnet miniaturisation and CADs like the stellarator [1] refute this.

With respect to waste and embrittlement, those are simpler consumables and waste products than fossil fuels and atmospheric emissions.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellarator

Yes. We're currently living through a golden age of stellarator design powered by new algorithms and optimization techniques.

And what about Helion Energy tech? Pulsed collision of plasmoids (FRC), with direct energy conversion. Deuterium helium3 aneutronic fusion, no neutrons.

They've received $500M (lead by Sam Altman) to demo net electricity by 2024.

Some of the efforts you hear about actually are immediately disprovable.

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