Solarpunk

I'm personally very excited about how it does seem to be finally making progress if slowly, but realistically, I'm less convinced that it'll be the solution to all our energy needs than many are. The physics of the process itself is very efficient, sure, but the kinds of machines needed to harness it are literally among the most expensive and complicated things built by humans, and they don't even produce net energy yet. Granted, the cost of such things should be reduced once they are industrial machinery and not exotic scientific instruments loaded with experiments, but I'd bet that the reactors themselves will still be incredibly expensive and complex (and therefore have expensive maintenance). This doesn't say good things about the actual cost of the resulting energy, even if the fuel is quite abundant. We could get abundant energy with a similarly high if not quite as much fuel efficiency with advanced fission reactors and fuel breeding, but the cost of those kinds of plants has been relatively prohibitive, and the costs of renewables has been falling. I could certainly see it possible for fusion to reach net energy, only to get used only on specialized roles or for base load power because solar panels end up being cheaper. In a sense this has already happened. It is theoretically possible, if not practically desirable, to use fusion energy in a power plant already, by detonating fusion explosives in a gigantic underground chamber full of water to heat it up, and harnessing the steam. Such ideas were considered during the cold war, but never developed, at least in part because it was calculated that they wouldn't be cost competitive compared to other power options.