r/fusion • u/Sun_In_A_Bottle • 14d ago

Why fusion, over everything else?

$15.2 billion in private investment over the past 5 years!

For an industry that is projected to need 1 million workers by 2040, how is the global private workforce roughly ONLY 4,000?!

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u/Sun_In_A_Bottle 13d ago

These responses make complete sense and are where my head goes as well, less environmental damage, limitless energy, no dependence on wind, sun, or water. The case for fusion basically makes itself.

But that's exactly what I can't wrap my head around. If the opportunity is this obvious, why isn't there a flood of engineering students racing toward it? Why is the entire global fusion workforce still sitting at ~4,000 people when we're this close?

Is it the "30 years away" stigma that's kept people skeptical for decades? Pipeline issues at the university level? Compensation? I want to hear from people who seriously considered fusion and chose something else..what made you walk away? Or for those who chose it what made you specifically choose one fusion company over another?

(I work in a fusion startup but on the ops side of things so this is great to help me understand the headspace of my peers! It's also near impossible trying to find engineers in this space.)

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u/Jaded_Hold_1342 12d ago

The reason everyone wants it to work is exactly what you are saying.

The reason there isn't a flood of people going into it is because no one knows how to do it economically... And the progress made towards this goal over the past 80 years is not encouraging.

Without a major, unforeseen breakthrough, it wont work at reasonable cost. And no one knows if or when any breakthrough may come to enable it.

The current workforce is, arguably, an overallocation of resources, given that none of the existing concepts are on a trajectory to provide cost effective power.