I've Heard This Song Before

In fact, I've heard this song so long ago it's a real oldie.  According to an article quoted on Watts Up With That, nuclear fusion reactors could become an economically viable means of generating electricity within a few decades.

Talk about an oldie, I heard that when I was in high school, and I'm approaching retirement. 

Researchers at Durham University and Culham Centre for Fusion Energy in Oxfordshire, have re-examined the economics of fusion, taking account of recent advances in superconductor technology for the first time. Their analysis of building, running and decommissioning a fusion power station shows the financial feasibility of fusion energy in comparison to traditional fission nuclear power.

That's a pretty interesting paper considering what they're studying still doesn't exist, and has been "a few years away" since at least the early 1970s, when I first read about them.

Professor Damian Hampshire, of the Centre for Material Physics at Durham University, who led the study, said: “Obviously we have had to make assumptions, but what we can say is that our predictions suggest that fusion won’t be vastly more expensive than fission.”

"Had to make assumptions?"  Sorry, old man.  It's a nice study, but I'll consider it meaningless until it's studying something that actually exists.

But they did put up a cool graphic; I'll give them credit for that!