this post was submitted on 30 Nov 2025
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In Germany, funding for research is being cut alot. The solar cut happened a long time ago and fifty thousand jobs where lost at the time. Last year, they basically cancelled almost all battery research (needed for electric cars and stuff). Now, many more important stuff is being defunded. Except for fusion. Fusion is receiving a big boost in funding. Everyone and their dog are doing fusion research now
I think, that's not despite the famous "fusion constant" (fusion being always "only" thirty years away), but because of it. Unlike solar or batteries or anything else that actually works, fusion does not threaten to disrupt the oligopolies of the power companies, or the car companies or anyone else's. It enables a wealth transfer (accumulation through dispossession) to companies involved in the research, without contributing to the crisis of overaccumulation, because no use value exists, so no value ever needs to be realized. It's like building a pyramid in the desert.
Ofc a new fully renewable insanely powerful source of energy will disrupt the oligopolicies of the power companies. It will disrupt nearly every inch of society.
If it's possible at all
Bombs are insanely powerful too and yet useless as an energy source. What matters is cost in cent per kWh. Fusion showes every sign of becoming very very expensive, even in the best case scenarios.
Laser based fusion for example literally uses gold coated diamond pellets, hundreds of which have to be shot into the reaction chamber per second to even break even energyweise in theory. At that point, no energy is produced at all and costs per kWh are still infinit. And the lenses get destroyed so fast you constantly have to exchange them.
Meanwhile both renewables and energy storage technologies continue to get cheaper and cheaper. Fusion faces barriers in engineering, fundamental physics and even in mathematics (modeling plasma is critical). Some of which might be insurmountable in principle. But in the end the one barrier that matters is the economic one. And no one even has a plan on how to tackle it expect for shoveling an insane amount of tax money into the fire indefinitely.