So helium is a limited resource. Okay gotcha. So why not take two hydrogen atoms. Take their protons and neutrons. And just fucking start squeezing them together until you get helium?
And I don’t mean in the same way you get H2. Those are still separate from each other.
It’s one of those issues where even how it’s complicated is more complicated than the vast majority of people understand. We already know fusion can work, pushes up glasses and points pompusly at the sun, but we haven’t figured out how to actually get… well, plasma to behave. Plasma dynamics is *hard :( *
We’re not even sure it can be done at all at scale. It is entirely possible that there isn’t a way to keep plasma stable. There’s been some truly incredible advancements in plasma dynamics and plasma models in recent years which is great! and its the focus of nearly all fusion research right now. But we just don’t know.
(Well, unless you want to build a bomb. We can do that. Lots of that.)