Wrong. America has repeatedly shown that when crunch time comes, we WILL find a way to get the job done, no matter what the obstacles. If push comes to shove and we're asked to do with less oil so that we can wage war properly, we'll do it. We'll install solar, we'll consume less, we'll carpool, we'll give more business to corporations that are doing the best job of avoiding using petroleum products, we'll drill the heck out of any oil-head within 1000 miles of our shores, we'll find workable substitutes, we'll share home remedies with friends and strangers alike...
In short, we'll do what it takes to stick it up their @$$e$, until we win and we take over whatever resources we want as a reward for our sacrifices.
The only reason it takes "years" is due to the obstructionist regulations and constant delaying lawsuits engendered by the anti-nuke "green" nutcases.
"What I don't understand is why no serious effort has been undertaken to develop the technology to control the nuclear fusion reaction for use in power generation."
Hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent on fusion research, with no useful results to speak of. It turns out to be REALLY HARD to do fusion on a scale smaller than a star. We will have practical, cheap solar cells and hydrogen power before workable fusion reactors are realized. Two pieces of desert southwest 100 x 100 miles will supply the ENTIRE energy requirement of the US (gas, oil, coal, AND electric).
You are quite right in that it would take years to build the reactors, even if we could put off the RICOnuts with charges of sedition (because so many are communists) or better yet, treason (being largely sponsored by the tax-exempt foundations of oil company wealth). Still, we had better get going with them as it is the only means to prevent us from being caught short without a supply of energy. The little monsters said nukes were too risky. Little did they recognize that using the US military to assure a supply of oil was even more fraught with both danger and global environmental impact (wars are rather destructive to nature).
What I don't understand is why no serious effort has been undertaken to develop the technology to control the nuclear fusion reaction for use in power generation.
This is not correct. Fusion reactors are simply devillishly difficult to do. An enormous amount of money has been spent (especially at Livermore), much of which did more for weapons development than anything else, since the energy production angle was being such a bear.
Nope, fission reactors are proven, reliable, and safe. Fuel reprocessing of the high level waste is performed by every advanced nation with nuclear power... except ours. The environmentalists at the Ford Foundation told Carter that reprocessing was too big a risk of weapons proliferation. He wrote an unconstitutional EO banning the process. What ensued was a waste storage crisis with which the RICOnuts shut down new plant construction.
Guess who made money? Exxon, BP, Shell, Texaco, Mobil, all the oil companies with big operations in the Middle East. Guess who is financing the environmental movemint?
Government is too corruptible to be trusted with managing the environment. There is an alternative.
Because it will take a government investment of $1 trillion and the oil interests won't let that happen.
BUMP
Sorry, but wrong. The reason it takes "years" to build new nuclear plants is regulatory, not physical. Remove the huge and ridiculous state-imposed barriers, and reactors can be built far more quickly.
"What I don't understand is why no serious effort has been undertaken to develop the technology to control the nuclear fusion reaction for use in power generation."
There has been HUGE investment in fusion research. It turns out to be REALLY DIFFICULT to initiate and control a fusion reaction outside the gravity field of a star.