You are quite right in that it would take years to build the reactors, even if we could put off the RICOnuts with charges of sedition (because so many are communists) or better yet, treason (being largely sponsored by the tax-exempt foundations of oil company wealth). Still, we had better get going with them as it is the only means to prevent us from being caught short without a supply of energy. The little monsters said nukes were too risky. Little did they recognize that using the US military to assure a supply of oil was even more fraught with both danger and global environmental impact (wars are rather destructive to nature).
What I don't understand is why no serious effort has been undertaken to develop the technology to control the nuclear fusion reaction for use in power generation.
This is not correct. Fusion reactors are simply devillishly difficult to do. An enormous amount of money has been spent (especially at Livermore), much of which did more for weapons development than anything else, since the energy production angle was being such a bear.
Nope, fission reactors are proven, reliable, and safe. Fuel reprocessing of the high level waste is performed by every advanced nation with nuclear power... except ours. The environmentalists at the Ford Foundation told Carter that reprocessing was too big a risk of weapons proliferation. He wrote an unconstitutional EO banning the process. What ensued was a waste storage crisis with which the RICOnuts shut down new plant construction.
Guess who made money? Exxon, BP, Shell, Texaco, Mobil, all the oil companies with big operations in the Middle East. Guess who is financing the environmental movemint?
Government is too corruptible to be trusted with managing the environment. There is an alternative.
Thanks for the link. Got it bookmarked.