Same old story

I happened to catch a programme featuring Prof. Brian Cox yesterday: Can we make a star on Earth? Prof. Cox was pretending that generating power from fossil fuels is causing dangerous warming of the planet (which is isn't). As none of the alternatives; wind, solar, biomass, etc.; can bridge the gap, he asked what about nuclear fusion? Which was the Next Big Thing in the 1970s but things went very quiet on that front decades ago. He visited a laser-fusion experiment with a target of a result in 2-3 years (i.e. in 2011 – so what happened to it?) He also visited a team hoping to create fusion using plasma. But results are not expected for decades. Pretty much the same story as in the 1970s.