So then you need 15km² to cover the day, another 5-10km² to cover the night, and then however much space and lithium it’s going to take to store all that energy.

And this still doesn’t solve the problem once you’re a little too far off the equator.

I love solar, but we can’t pretend it’s without its own challenges.

A utility scale solar installation comparable to an average fission plant would take 15 square kilometers. Not to mention how complicated the infrastructure to actually transmit that power is.

Space is only one challenge though. You have no energy production at night, and energy generation can drop by half to almost three quarters during winter at higher latitudes.

fusion companies are essentially giant bubbles of debt owed to venture capital currently

There’s a couple of loud, commercial fusion companies sucking up VC money, but all the serious projects are nationalized (China) or are projects run by public institutes with government funding (EU).

You’re right, but simultaneously your rhetoric is completely defeatist before we’ve even identified what can be solved. We won’t know the potential until it’s solved but you also can’t be sure of the cost.

Yes you’ve provided a list of engineering challenges that everyone is aware of. It doesn’t change the potential.

Helium, what, have you smoked waccy tobaccy today?

It was a joke, but fusion technically produces helium even if it also consumes it for cooling.

https://nomad-laboratory.de/uploads/publications/th/Fusion-Helium_supply_20131213.pdf

In the case of the HCLL reactor with lead as multiplier, various Pb isotopes are produced in the (n, 2n) reaction [26], and there is no α-particle emission. The amount of helium produced annually remains at 0.39 t.

Fission reactors need to use helium as a coolant too though if they’re high temperature (like gas reactors) and they don’t produce shit except waste.

No other energy source puts materials under the same trauma

I’m sure people said the same thing the first time we thought about turning a piston with literal explosions.

The engineering challenges are immense, but these challenges shouldn’t be an excuse we use to prop up inferior, dirtier power generation.

No risk of a meltdown, doesn’t produce nuclear waste, doesn’t need uranium as fuel. Also produces helium securing the balloons for future generations.