Reply #11: Let me put this succinctly:

[originalpckelly]

You think fusion is great, right?
You'd warn people off of solar and wind because they don't produce electricity?

Then, by that logic you'd have to warn people off of fusion, because it hasn't even once in its history produced a net energy gain. Not once.

They've had fusion before, you can do that in your own house, as kids who play around with fusors know. But they can never break even, there aren't enough fusions of nuclei going on in those designs OR ANY OTHER DESIGN, for it to work.
The only successful net energy gain fusion of nuclei was produced by the various Teller-Ullam designs, and you need the energy of a fission reaction to make it work.

That's the problem, you see, with fusion.

For fusion to beat out solar and wind, it would have to produce all the electricity we've managed to actually obtain from the two sources.

And by the way, you don't have to locate the solar panels on earth, you know. :P

There are designs to put them in space, and even at high altitude.