So helium is a limited resource. Okay gotcha. So why not take two hydrogen atoms. Take their protons and neutrons. And just fucking start squeezing them together until you get helium?
And I don’t mean in the same way you get H2. Those are still separate from each other.
Sorry, but I’m not so skeptical, nor are most people. 10-20 may be optimistic, but the hard work of proving that a fusion reaction that produce a net positive output is even a possibility is done. More than one fusion reactor has been created. The next phase of experimentation is now with different methods of reactors to find one that might work at scale.
At the furthest, it may be 50 years before our first commercial fusion reactor, but other technological advances we make in those decades could - and likely will - bring that date closer. It may be 100 years before fusion reactors are being widely built, but I doubt that, too.
It’s one of those issues where even how it’s complicated is more complicated than the vast majority of people understand. We already know fusion can work, pushes up glasses and points pompusly at the sun, but we haven’t figured out how to actually get… well, plasma to behave. Plasma dynamics is *hard :( *
We’re not even sure it can be done at all at scale. It is entirely possible that there isn’t a way to keep plasma stable. There’s been some truly incredible advancements in plasma dynamics and plasma models in recent years which is great! and its the focus of nearly all fusion research right now. But we just don’t know.
(Well, unless you want to build a bomb. We can do that. Lots of that.)