> Why spend all of the money to create and sustain a fusion reaction in a gravitationally subcritical environment when there is a giant perpetual fusion engine running on gravitational criticality alone a scant 93 million miles away?
Because Fusion and Gen IV Fission the kind of tech that would also dramatically improve standards of living.
Renewables + storage essentially keeps the present day standards of living without CO2 emissions. Big deal. That proposition won't convince the very high IQ people you need to drop from Wall St. and FAAMG.
People work to improve their standards of living, thinking that it would be possible to mount a global effort to sacrifice ourselves for the benefit of people who'd be alive 200 years from now is a proposition which is solely realistic in the minds of naive and monodimensional people like the Greta Thumberg, Extinction rebellion etc.