If one of these fusion reactor projects results in a competitively priced power plant, ok, we can reduce fossil fuel energy production towards zero in a few decades. That's pretty good for the environment but nothing really "new" is possible.
If one of these fusion reactor projects results in a 10x reduction in the cost of electricity... then we have something new. Things that people didn't imagine being possible before become possible.
Things like desalination instead of taking water from rivers or aquifers because it's cheaper. Tearing down dams because the power isn't needed. "Farms" in skyscrapers packed with artificial light where food can be produced without pesticides or herbicides because it's a controlled environment. Using landfills like mines, extracting tiny amounts of useful materials so ordinary mining becomes much less needed.
You can also think of plenty of things cheap plentiful energy could make happen that are destructive too... it is difficult to project and I assume will go in both directions.
The question is how cheap can it get, can the energy production scale up vs cost, and how much does maintenance cost.
This is a good video about fission energy production economics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbeJIwF1pVY
If one of these fusion reactor projects results in a competitively priced power plant, ok, we can reduce fossil fuel energy production towards zero in a few decades. That's pretty good for the environment but nothing really "new" is possible.
If one of these fusion reactor projects results in a 10x reduction in the cost of electricity... then we have something new. Things that people didn't imagine being possible before become possible.
Things like desalination instead of taking water from rivers or aquifers because it's cheaper. Tearing down dams because the power isn't needed. "Farms" in skyscrapers packed with artificial light where food can be produced without pesticides or herbicides because it's a controlled environment. Using landfills like mines, extracting tiny amounts of useful materials so ordinary mining becomes much less needed.
You can also think of plenty of things cheap plentiful energy could make happen that are destructive too... it is difficult to project and I assume will go in both directions.