I disagree on the private sector aspect of this, but I agree on the democracy part. Although, I don’t really view America as true democracy at this moment in history, but that’s besides the point here.
Fusion technology is at a point in its life cycle where it needs to be a public sector project. There is no path to profitability in the near-term, that would justify private sector involvement, except as a means to extract profit from the very expensive research process of even making this technology feasible.
Not that I’m against the private sector within the nuclear power industry. I’m very excited to see what they can do with SMR technology. I’m just extremely skeptical of most private-public partnerships, especially in cases like this.
I would greatly prefer public sector development. I’m just being fatalistic about how our oligarchy conducts itself.