The Trouble with Fusion (1983) [pdf]
There has never been any serious expectation of getting usable power from fusion. All the reactor designs worked on in mainstream research would destroy themselves in a short time by high-energy neutron flux.<p>Fusion research is, instead, a jobs program for high-neutron flux physicists, to provide a pool to draw on for weapons work.<p>There are interesting commercial projects for designs that do not suffer from high neutron flux, such as those pursuing pB reactions. I read of another where neutrons are emitted in a place some distance from where the expensive machine parts are.<p>You can tell if a fusion process is serious by whether they have an answer to the neutron problem. Tokamak doesn&#x27;t.