The "Now" implication of Fusion Power

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Just intercept the energy coming from the Sun and beam it back to Earth in usable form and be done with it.

IIRC, the "Microwave" power stations in Sim City 2000 where this technology - put a bunch of solar panels in geostationary orbit (where the atmosphere is not in the way, making them far more efficient) or even in a polar orbit high enough they are seldom in Earth's Shadow and then beam the resulting energy down to your city. Occasionally, the beam would miss and leave a hot trail of death by burning. Fun times. As I understand it, the concept is sound (the atmosphere and nighttime are the two biggest obstacles to solar power), but maintenance would be painful.

Once we have built a space elevator, though, a lot of these concepts will be a lot more plausible. Of course, a real space elevator is even further into the future than commercial fusion power.

BTW, I'm still a tad confused about the whole radiation angle. Is the main concern that the truck-sized casing would become radioactive, or the water in the boiler attached to it used to generate the actual energy? Or both? And how do nuclear ships and submarines deal with the problem these days (I'm assuming that if fusion has the problem, fission has it too - is that not the case?).

Thanks,

Grey Wolf