Brian Potter, Will We Ever Get Fusion Power? Construction Physics, June 26, 2024. This is a good one, though a bit long. Potter goes through the history and various methods. From the conclusion:
Despite decades of progress, it's still not clear, even to experts within the field, whether a practical and cost-competitive fusion reactor is possible. A strong case can be made either way.
The bull case for fusion is that for the last several decades there's been very little serious effort at fusion power, and now that serious effort is being devoted to the problem, a working power reactor appears very close. The science of plasmas and our ability to model, understand, and predict them has enormously improved, as have the supporting technologies (such as superconducting magnets) needed to make a practical reactor. [...] With so many well-funded companies entering the space, we're on the path towards a virtuous cycle of improvement: More fusion companies means it becomes worthwhile for others to build more robust fusion supply chains, and develop supporting technology like mass-produced reactor materials, cheap high-capacity magnets, working tritium breeding blankets, and so on. This allows for even more advances and better reactor performance, which in turn attracts further entrants. [...] At least one of the many fusion approaches will be found to be highly scalable and possible to build reasonably sized reactors at a low cost, and fusion will become a substantial fraction of overall energy demand.
The bear case for fusion is that, outside of unusual approaches like Helion's (which may not pan out), fusion is just another in a long line of energy technologies that boil water to drive a turbine. And the conditions needed to achieve fusion (plasma at hundreds of millions or even billions of degrees) will inevitably make fusion fundamentally more expensive than other electricity-generating technologies. Even if we could produce a power-producing reactor, fusion will never be anywhere near as cheap as simpler technology like the combined-cycle gas turbine, much less future technologies like next-generation solar panels or advanced geothermal. By the time a reactor is ready, if it ever is, no one will even want it.
Perhaps the strongest case for fusion is that fusion isn't alone in this uncertainty about its future. The next generation of low-carbon electricity generation will inevitably make use of technology that doesn't yet exist, be that even cheaper, more efficient solar panels, better batteries, improved fission reactors, or advanced geothermal. All of these technologies are somewhat speculative, and may not pan out - solar and battery prices may plateau, advanced geothermal may prove unworkable, etc. In the face of this risk, fusion is a reasonable bet to add to the mix.
There's much more at the link.
