Nearly three decades ago I went on a tour of PPPL. The scientist leading the tour said that they were telling congress that they expected to build a working power station by the year 2000. I also once visited a national lab where there was a mothballed fusion test facility where over 350 million dollars had been spent before the plug was pulled. The combination of immense costs and the lack of ability to say for sure when practical results will be achieved, even within multiple decades, makes fusion power a tough sell.
Fusion has been tough because it has been a never-ending series of problems and clever solutions. None of the big designs have been breakthrough to the brass ring. By limiting the projects, we limit the number of people thinking about fusion. We are limiting ourselves; it is no wonder fusion power is still decades away.
Ditto that. I talked to some of the Princton guys back then, and they were cock sure their Tokamac thing would work.