I think a major bottleneck for fusion research from the lay public (including myself) is lack of interest.
Fission reactors work really well and have been around for 50+ years. If we are going to go nuclear instead of renewable, we need to address the elephant in the room.
The elephant in the room is: why not just fission?
And somehow harnessing the power of the literal sun will have a better safety rate? It's all speculation at this point because fusion doesn't exist yet... but it does seem like a huge undertaking to get superior safety over fission.
It’s not speculation because so much is known about the physics and elements involved. With fusion you want lighter particles which tend to be less radioactive, rather than heavy uranium etc particles for fission.
”Regulatory bodies have vast experience in the realm of safety and security for fission. We are working with them to ensure that all applicable knowledge is transferred to fusion."
Let me put the question another way: suppose we get fusion that's equally as safe as fission like IAEA is saying here. Why would we switch to it if we were unwilling to switch to fission?
You’re making false equivalences, and ignoring all of the fundamental differences between the technologies. The materials involved are different, the chain reactions are different, the kinds of radiation and half lives are different, the way you build the cores are different (and are still being worked on for fusion).
The entire reason why people are working on fusion IS the fact that it’s much much safer due to all of the key differences. That doesn’t mean there aren’t lessons from fission to transfer, just as lessons from ICE cars have gone to EVs.
Fission reactors work really well and have been around for 50+ years. If we are going to go nuclear instead of renewable, we need to address the elephant in the room.
The elephant in the room is: why not just fission?