ikanreed wrote: For example, I’m not sure anyone has ever actually experimentally verified the enthalpy needed to fuse boron and hydrogen, even in energetically wasteful ways like particle accelerators
Whoa. Experimental pB11 fusion validation is old news… in fact the most recent experiments along those lines showed that the reaction should be even easier to tap for direct conversion to electricity than was previously thought:
http://newenergyandfuel.com/http:/newenergyandfuel/com/2011/04/15/the-boron-11-hydrogen-fueled-fusion-looks-better-than-thought/
