> Fission's challenges are in public sentiment, exuberant costs, and dealing with extremely toxic metals.
I'd argue that a lot of the public sentiment problems with nuclear were PR'd into existence by the insanely powerful and wealthy fossil fuel industry to which fission is a very real existential threat. If we're talking about exuberant costs, fusion beats fusion hands down and has yet to deliver a single net watt of power. The waste disposal is more of a political problem than a technical one.
Overall, the problems with fusion are hard technical problems, and the problems with fission are self-imposed political ones pushed by the fossil fuel extraction industry that fission could very realistically replace.
I'd argue that a lot of the public sentiment problems with nuclear were PR'd into existence by the insanely powerful and wealthy fossil fuel industry to which fission is a very real existential threat. If we're talking about exuberant costs, fusion beats fusion hands down and has yet to deliver a single net watt of power. The waste disposal is more of a political problem than a technical one.
Overall, the problems with fusion are hard technical problems, and the problems with fission are self-imposed political ones pushed by the fossil fuel extraction industry that fission could very realistically replace.