I can't help but compare the investment timing & structure of fusion research vs recent renewable development. Fusion has had many years and billions of dollars of investment and it still hasn't been cracked.
I hope fusion succeeds wildly. But, grid-scale storage has just recently started being a focus, and I note that it, like renewable investments, can be made on a much smaller, much more distributed scale. Payback starts when a grid-battery economically succeeds in a niche, and small successes will shift more capital and R&D into that area, and there are already some small scale successes in the grid battery market.
If either area is at all physically possible, I think just because of the structure of investment/discovery/payback cycle, that grid-batteries will be available quicker. The "search function" for grid battery tech will execute much faster. Recent "small" fusion investments may change that, but I strongly suspect those small fusion projects, even if they succeed at their near term objectives, will still have many fundamental long term problems to solve, and so would be longer iteration time technologies.
Regardless of how we individually assess the chances of success, civilization really needs research in both areas and more because our current civilization runs on processes that aren't sustainable long term.
I hope fusion succeeds wildly. But, grid-scale storage has just recently started being a focus, and I note that it, like renewable investments, can be made on a much smaller, much more distributed scale. Payback starts when a grid-battery economically succeeds in a niche, and small successes will shift more capital and R&D into that area, and there are already some small scale successes in the grid battery market.
If either area is at all physically possible, I think just because of the structure of investment/discovery/payback cycle, that grid-batteries will be available quicker. The "search function" for grid battery tech will execute much faster. Recent "small" fusion investments may change that, but I strongly suspect those small fusion projects, even if they succeed at their near term objectives, will still have many fundamental long term problems to solve, and so would be longer iteration time technologies.
Regardless of how we individually assess the chances of success, civilization really needs research in both areas and more because our current civilization runs on processes that aren't sustainable long term.