The real obstacles to controlled nuclear fusion

While the technical difficulties involved in developing controlled> nuclear fusion are indeed quite considerable -- thousands of micro-lasers aimed at a focal point, extreme dangers of massive explosions, calculating the arrangement so more energy is always produced than is consumed -- these pale beside the other, more formidable obstacles. These are economic and political.

1. Economic: fundamental new technologies don't make money for the
inventors. The money invested is quite literally down the drain, because new technologies are, effectively, just ideas, and cannot be controlled with patent protection. Ideas cannot be patented, only quite specific designs. So, with a fundamentally new technology such as controlled nuclear fusion, copycat inventors could simply slightly modify the design to achieve the same effect. Capitalism fails in developing new technologies. That's why the products of Ford, GM, Yahoo, Microsoft, Google, IBM never get better, and often get worse. They don't care about technical progress, just money.

2. Political. Free energy, unlimited energy, would very much upset the apple cart. It would rock the boat, quite a bit. The rich people in the boat don't like that. The powerful people in the boat don't like that. They might end up getting thrown out of the boat. True progress is never popular with those in positions of power.