Well, stars have an advantage we don’t have on earth: an immense gravitational field to hold things together while fusion occurs. It’s an open question whether there’s a way to get to “break-even” (more energy out than in) without using gravity to compress things. There aren’t any powerplant-sized stars in the universe to show us how it’s done.
Sigh. Gravity is also a creation - one that can be measured and guessed at - but nobody from Einstein on down knows what causes it.
There are no accidents.