nuclear power produces long-lived radioactive waste, which needs to be stored securely. Nuclear fuels, such as the element uranium (which needs to be mined), are finite, so the technology is not considered renewable. Renewable sources of energy, such as solar and wind power suffer from “intermittency”, meaning they do not consistently produce energy at all hours of the day.
fusion technologies have yet to produce sustained net energy output (more energy than is put in to run the reactor), let alone produce energy at the scale required to meet the growing demands of AI. Fusion will require many more technological developments before it can fulfil its promise of delivering power to the grid.
The best way I have heard it described is that Fusion is going to happen next year but probably not in the next 12 months.
We think Fusion must be coming soon because we understand all of the fundamental principles around how it works, so what we need to do is put those principles into practice. For some reason though that doesn’t quite work what we end up with is a machine that makes a lot of noise but doesn’t really achieve anything