These are all valid points, and I'm not saying we shouldn't do research on fusion. It certainly has promise. However, I don't think it has a serious chance of pulling a deus ex machina move and saving us from climate change in our lifetimes. A solid energy source a century from now? Sure. Fission on the other hand has a good chance of uprooting the fossil fuel industry, and combined with other renewables is our best chance of getting carbon emissions to a place where civilization might not go into a bronze age-style collapse from climate change.
As an industry insider: everyone knows this. Fusion isn't the technology that saves mankind in this century, but it is the technology that mankind needs to have working by the next century if we want to stay on our current industrial track. The march of progress might halt if we run out of ever-increasing access to free energy.
