I was just the slightest bit cautiously optimistic about compact fusion when lockmart announced the project some years ago, but it's clearly fizzled and is pretty clearly not likely to be compact enough for aircraft any time soon (our lifetimes). I almost wonder if the whole thing wasn't some sort of smoke-screen for a black project. It was frankly bizarre for a company like LM to publicly announce a far-out, pie-in-the-sky effort like this without having significant R&D progress already in the bag. I wouldn't have bought it for a second coming from some start-up.
Also *remotely* possible I suppose that there is some sort of suppression of the technology occurring. Instantly available, practical fusion in a relatively small form factor (ie smaller than a big nuke plant) would turn the establishment on it's ear...
The Right would suffer from the complete and sudden collapse of most of the current energy economy.
The Left would suffer from the near-instantaneous irrelevance of their climate agenda, which is probably be inextricably linked with their social agendas. Not only would practical fusion eliminate most human carbon output, but it could cheaply power carbon-capture to vacuum up any leftovers from industry, cows, etc.
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