Thanks, tyme, for proving my point with references. Yes, there are problems with the current approaches. Yes, the field has bogged down in incrementalism. Yes, there are engineering challenges and politics. Yet, fusion is not only possible, it works. There are no fundamental reasons why it cannot be done on Earth. Just because the field has fixated on a particular subset of pathways that are currently uneconomical does not it mean engineering cannot be done to improve the tech and methods to circument the particular problem areas or make them cost-effective. That's the whole point of the need for doing the research.
During WW2, the Germans essentially convinced themselves that they could not produce the A-bomb, because Heisenberg calculated that under certain assumptions the critical mass would be the size of a very large beachball. "Obviously then", not enough could be purified in meaningful time. In addition, Hitler spent the bulk of research money on the V-2 project instead of the A-bomb. Finally, because of scarcity of funds and political rivalry, there were actually several separate groups working on the same A-bomb project without collaboration.
Except, Heisenberg's calculation was right only within the constraints of the assumptions he made, so the general conclusion was ultimately incorrect. The Manhattan Project calculated the critical mass to be the size of a golf ball, and they were right under their own assumptions, arriving at the respectively different conclusion. Also, many times the funds were invested in a large, unified project where enrichment was done on gigantic industrial scale. Oppenheimer got the bomb and Heisenberg did not.
For all the bile boondog has for the plasma physics community (probably a failed gradstudent), he essentially recongizes the above albeit tacitly and circuitously. Why is it that those workers concentrate on incrementalism? Because of stupidity, incompetence, greed, or dishonesty? If they really wanted to make money, they would not be in science, and considering how much intellectual effort and training and work is involved in getting where they are, they certainly are no fools. In fact the only ones left in that field are the believers, because with the meagerness of funding, it certainly is not a good career move.
The reality is that the underlying problem is the structure and amount of funding, i.e. ultimately fedgov policy. They bellyache every time the gas goes up and throw a bit of money that way to shut up critics, and then it is business as usual. The field has been left for many years on barely subsistence level, and that is why most workers leave it after they complete the PhD. There is a simple analogy - if you are starving, you tend to conserve your strength, you don't take risks, you don't run around, you severely limit what you do, you mostly drag your feet and go for small, easy prey, because going after the big prey will likely kill you. You must show some progress each year, to get the next leg of funding. That means you cannot pursue high-risk high-reward ideas, because it would take so much time to first good results that you will be forced out of funding by then, by incrementalists. And that is assuming the little morsel you got this year can actually cover the entry cost of the big risk even if you went crazy and did decide to go for it.
That's the reality. It ultimately stems from the fact that gov policy on research is strongly influenced if not completely dictated by beancounters, essentially accountants and lawyers, who have a very weak idea of the technical challenges and the resulting imperatives for efficient policy-making. The other half of the issue is that elected officials want to do things that make them good NOW, not in 10 years. Therefore, only a few eccentrics are truly interested in long-term policies, which might reach fruition long after the expiration of their mandate. Add to that environmentalists with a knee-jerk reaction to nuclear power of any sort, even if it is not fission, as well as "social progressives" who would say the money would be better spent on their pet social project handouts, and finally sensation-hungry media who think that everything in nature must move at the speed of their 24-hour news cycle, or it is a "quagmire".
