ITER is a showcase  for the drawbacks of fusion energy
When you start comparing the $20B cost for ITER versus &quot;big&quot; projects like the human genome, which took $1B over a similar time scale, ITER really does seem like a boondoggle. It&#x27;s sucking up massive amounts of research dollars and attention on scientific&#x2F;engineering goals that don&#x27;t necessarily even move in the right direction!  Suppose they succeed; then what? What has been learned that can spur the next $20B? Will the next tokamok take an order of magnitude less money to produce, like the next genome did the day after the first was released?<p>Big projects always use ridiculous and deceptive hype, but &quot;unlimited energy&quot; takes that to a new level, IMHO.