Fusion powered electricity is not practical

I've been meaning to post this for some weeks, after seeing Sabine Hossenfelder do another fusion sceptic video.  She does seem to flip flop a bit on this topic, to be honest.

She noted a few small companies that had moved the goalposts considerably, and then decided to scale down the aim of their research to mere componentry for others to use.

But most importantly, she pointed to this recent Nature Energy paper which argues fusion power is just very unlikely to be an economically viable way to make electricity:

While nuclear fusion power is often hailed as a future source of abundant, clean energy, current dominant fusion designs, magnetic and laser inertial, are unlikely to become competitive due to their expected low experience rates. Accordingly, policymakers should not rely on, or fund, fusion power as a core pillar of future clean energy systems unless designs with different characteristics are developed. ...

We find that the two dominant nuclear FPP designs, magnetic and laser inertial, are inherently large in unit size, extremely complex in design, and require moderate to high customization. Existing technologies with similar characteristics have historically had experience rates (ERs) of 2–8%. We also find that cost estimates for first-of-a-kind FPP vary widely from US$1,400 to $43,000 per kW. Using the interquartile range of these cost estimates and projecting the future cost using our empirically grounded ER of 5%, our results indicate that fusion power is likely to remain uncompetitive relative to other low-carbon electricity supply technologies (see Fig. 1). This casts considerable doubt on the future role of fusion power in a net-zero energy system and whether current investment levels from both the public and private sectors are justified. ...

 We conducted semi-structured interviews with 28 nuclear fusion experts from the public and private sectors, covering both magnetic and laser inertial fusion approaches. Interviewees were guided through a structured survey to assess three technology-inherent characteristics of future FPPs: unit size, design complexity, and the need for customization. Drawing on existing academic evidence, these characteristics were matched to experience rates observed historically in technologies with similar characteristics. Since ERs of existing technologies are derived from empirical cost data, this approach is well-suited to estimating future cost reductions for FPPs, an early-stage technology with no historical data. During the interviews, cost estimates for future first-of-a-kind FPPs were also elicited to supplement those from the literature and to estimate the cost reduction trajectories for fusion power technologies. 

 Here's two of my fusion skeptic posts (there are more) in which I kept on making the same point about how achieving fusion is one thing, but making it in a way that is economically viable as a source of clean energy is another.

I don't really understand why investors, be they government or private, don't intuitively get that....