The breakthrough will not be in Fusion Energy, but a different form of Fission Energy, Thorium-fueled Molten Salt reactors. Relatively inexpensive, and far more reliable than Uranium-fueled Light Water reactors, the Thorium reactors are much more flexible in installation, being scalable both upward and downward, that is, they may be built in a much more varied configuration than Uranium reactors, and with no chance of runaway overheating catastrophes, like Chernobyl or Fukushima Daiichi. In fact, such a runaway disaster is not possible with a Molten Salt jacket rather than Light Water jacket.
Up to now, technical problems with the fittings and suitable heat-exchange mediums have made wide-scale adoption difficult, but the principles are all known to a sophisticated atomic energy engineering community.
And - Thorium-fueled Molten Salt reactors can utilize “spent” uranium fuel rods as “seed” to initiate the reaction necessary for energy generation. Without producing plutonium as a side reaction, which is “burned” in the reaction in a Thorium-fueled atomic pile.
I think the Chinese are a lot further ahead of us in that technology. It seems t me there is a lot less pollution generated by fusion reactors.
“Fusion power is the power generated by nuclear fusion reactions. In this kind of reaction, two light atomic nuclei fuse together to form a heavier nucleus and in doing so, release a large amount of energy. The major difference between fission and fusion reactors is that there is no possibility of a catastrophic accident in a fusion reactor resulting in major release of radioactivity to the environment.”