Doesn't fusion pose the ability to overcome our energy needs without threatening the environment? Also, if one nation were to gain exclusive access to fusion, wouldn't they have an extreme advantage?
Should we be doing a Manhattan project to get fusion powerplants?
>Should we be doing a Manhattan project to get fusion powerplants?
All the evidence I see is that politicians are primarily concerned with enriching themselves and the people who financially support them. The moment America's position as a global leader comes is when this will happen, as long as the scientific community calls for it as they did with the atomic bomb. Right now, it appears the right incentives are not in place for politicians to put this forward, even if it is the right thing to do for the welfare of humanity and the long-term success of the US as a global leader--the politicians who could make this happen probably believe they will be dead by the time it would matter to them.
Yes it probably exempts us, in theory, from greenhouse gas related global warming. That said, energy generation isn't the only problem — energy transport is important too, and fossil fuels are still king (hard to have a tokamak in your car).
Even then we only have a few more doublings before we start reaching thermodynamic limits of our planet's ability to radiate heat into space.
Should we be doing a Manhattan project to get fusion powerplants?