Nuclear fusion Pros and cons

There is today a practical form of nuclear fusion that works and produces useful and reliable amounts of energy from fusion.

Practical fusion will always be 50+ years ago (not 50 years away)
Mankind came into possession of a practical way of generating energy from fusion over 50 years ago with the Ivy-Mike nuclear test that produced fusion energy from pure Deuterium via DD fusion. Today, there are smaller pure fusion devices designed to make clean energy (not blast effects) from pure DD fusion of Deuterium separated from sea water. One such design is called mini-Mike, which produces a small predictable controlled energy yield of 250 GJ.
Note: Deuterium separated from sea water is totally non-radioactive and fusion of this fuel produces only totally non-radioactive nuclear waste (helium).
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It is said that in uncontrolled nuclear fusion, vast amount of energy are released in an uncontrolled manner; causing destruction only—the hydrogen bomb is an example.
Thus uncontrolled nuclear fusion is not viewed as something of use for constructive purposes.
It is perceived that in controlled nuclear fusion, the vast energy of fusion reactions is released gradually so it can be used for peaceful purposes, say, for powering nuclear fusion reactors.
But is there really a difference
or is it just a (mis)perception?
Is it perhaps true that there is really only one type of fusion and depending on the technology and the amount of fuel you use, you can get precisely the amount of fusion energy desired, and that the distinction between controlled and uncontrolled fusion is just misleading. The truth is that practical forms of Inertial Confinement Nuclear Fusion can be reliably and safely scaled to either very small sizes (a NIF fusion capsule is a hollow sphere 2 mm in diameter filled with 190 milligrams of Deuterium Tritium fuel and produces, when fully ignited, an energy yield of about 2 megajoules, which is the energy produced when efficiently burning about 0.014 gallons of gasoline) or to very large sizes (military ICF devices can produce large releases of energy - on the order of 41 840 000 000 megajoules per shot).
While the smoothness and the time interval over which the release of energy from fusion may be different, the fusion reactions (Deuterium Tritium or Deuterium-Deuterium) tend to be the same and the waste products produced (helium and neutrons) also tend to be the same with all forms of nuclear fusion.
All Inertial Confinement fusion approaches use small controlled nuclear bursts or explosions to produce commercially significant amounts of energy (Gigawatts level if desired) from fusion.
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Nuclear fusion is the power to save our world.
Commercial implementations of nuclear fusion have the potential to radically alter the economy of the world and the future of humanity.
The leading smaller nuclear fusion projects hold out the potential of radically lowering the cost of energy while increasing the amount of energy available to every person living on earth. Nuclear fusion can enable an expansion of the energy used by civilization by over a billion times from 20 Terawatts today to 20 Zettawatts within a century.
Nuclear fusion also can enable practical forms of space propulsion at significant fractions of the speed of light (somewhere from 1 to 20% of lightspeed.)
Continuing to invest in developing promising small fusion propulsion designs permits earth to orbit launch with nuclear fusion spaceplanes or reusable rockets and enables safe and inexpensive access to anywhere in our solar system.
Renewable wind and solar combined with energy efficiency cannot provide the world with the amount of reliable energy needed to give everyone on the planet fair and adequate access to energy. Wind and solar energy sources are not capable of allowing mankind to ever explore much further than the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, while fusion space propulsion opens the entire solar system to routine manned exploration and makes possible visits to nearby stars in one lifetime.
Well intensioned campaigns to exert political influence to fund only renewable energy and energy efficiency approaches to providing the world with the power it needs will not support practically lifting the human condition and will just result over time in greater desperity between affluent "energy haves" who can afford expensive low energy density renewable energy and "energy have-nots" who cannot afford it. An energy policy of renewable energy and energy efficiency alone without any help from nuclear fusion and improved fission nuclear will result worldwide in billions of people by mid-century left without any access to electricity.

More information on safe and practical fusion energy power plants and how they could be built today - @

A picture of a modern two-stage hybrid DT-DD pure fusion device called "mini-Mike" intended only for efficient production of ultra-clean fusion energy