A more apt comparison might be that going all “renewable” will require vast changes in the infrastructure of society and too many ordinary people will be forgotten or swept aside in the struggle to make that change happen. Fusion will make that change both easier and more egalitarian. Fusion will help renewables.

The key here being that to many people “renewable” has become a religion… to the point where they try to fit things into that category that aren’t actually renewable and will respond emotionally to anything they regard as a threat to their concept of what is renewable. And I’ve learned by experience that all too many regard any fusion funding at all as a threat to renewables.

It takes some time to explain to them the irony… that this is what the energy oligarchs [em]want[/em] them to think.

As for forms of fusion, I know the Society promotes the general concept of fusion power, but neutronic fusion using tritium is what 99%+ of the population who are even aware of fusion think fusion power is… and those words set a steep bar to get past with the green crowd. To them neutrons are what weakens the structure of a fission plant and make it radioactive and tritium is what leaks into the environment from the maze of water pipes buried under that fission plant… and as far as fission plants go they are right.

Neutronic fusion is very different in those regards but in an EV setting do you have the time to explain just how neutronic fusion is different? So I’d save the “why even neutronic fusion is better” routine for a forum where you can have that time to get past their preconceptions… and go straight for aneutronic.