The fusion itself is (afaik) essentially a solved problem. The trick is extracting net energy from it, since you use a lot in generating the plasma, massive magnetic fields to keep it contained, etc.
But if you just cared about the byproducts, I think that's a much easier problem.
Comments
Well, there is an expensive plant in France that will be manufacturing helium from raw materials ;-)
http://www.iter.org/
Nuclear fusion has always been 10 years away. Lets hope that they will succeed this time.
The fusion itself is (afaik) essentially a solved problem. The trick is extracting net energy from it, since you use a lot in generating the plasma, massive magnetic fields to keep it contained, etc.
But if you just cared about the byproducts, I think that's a much easier problem.
Probably still 10 years though :)