“It’s really not a big deal. Basically it makes non-radioactive helium and a very tiny amount of low level, very short half-life other waste.
Fusion would be a fantastic power source if contained and perfected. basically water as fuel, basically no waste.”
Exactly. Also no worry about containment as if the torus is breached and the plasma escapes it will die before it reaches the magnets that contain it, in a Tokamak style reactor. Main byproduct is helium. 1 gallon of water contains enough deuterium to equal the thermal reaction of 379 gallons of gas.
The only problem with fusion today, which is just the same problem they had in the 90s is getting out more than you put in. The NBI method of heating the plasma requires more energy to heat the plasma to a fusion state that can be extracted from the plasma.
Despite all of the whiz bang new fangled toys we are still not getting a net positive energy returns.
To me the problem to work out is; how do you harvest heat energy without extinguishing your plasma?
Have they figured that out?