&gt; A lot of money has been going into fusion for many, many years now.<p>Maybe the ~$29 billion [1] spent by the US on fusion total since 1953 to date seems like a lot from a personal perspective, but consider the modern cost of $3.5 billion for building 1 Giga Watt of generation capacity [2] for a coal power plant, the claim that fusion is unreasonably expensive and impracticable doesn&#x27;t hold water. Compare fusion research to other broad spectrum research projects that benefit broad swaths of mankind, you see a remarkably different attitude and perception. This one cancer research foundation in the UK raised 460 million pounds in 2012&#x2F;13 [3], more than twice the total international spending on ITER in 2014 [4]. There is clearly a double standard when it comes to comparing the results of fusion R&amp;D with other long term efforts that still fail to offer satisfactory solutions after decades of concerted effort.<p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;focusfusion.org&#x2F;index.php&#x2F;site&#x2F;reframe&#x2F;wasteful&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;focusfusion.org&#x2F;index.php&#x2F;site&#x2F;reframe&#x2F;wasteful&#x2F;</a>
[2] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;schlissel-technical.com&#x2F;docs&#x2F;reports_35.pdf" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;schlissel-technical.com&#x2F;docs&#x2F;reports_35.pdf</a>
[3] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cancerresearchuk.org&#x2F;prod_consump&#x2F;groups&#x2F;cr_common&#x2F;@abt&#x2F;@gen&#x2F;documents&#x2F;image&#x2F;cr_111520.pdf" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cancerresearchuk.org&#x2F;prod_consump&#x2F;groups&#x2F;cr_commo...</a>
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