Nuclear engineering PhD working on theoretical plasma physics focused on fusion research, here to clarify some things.

Fusion is a still a long way off. There are a lot of concepts that are getting close but all the major research is still 20 to 30 years or more from reactor grade devices. Most of this research is being done by Universities and national labs around the world as well as a few companies. The main problems are the magnetic limitations. Current magnets require absolutely massive devices to get energy producing fusion plasmas, which means they cost a lot and take a long time to build.

Most private companies working in 'fusion' like Lockheed are no nearer, despite what they say. Lockheed specifically is making the claim of a small sized device that involves numerous technologies that don't currently exist, designed by three scientists who have very little experience in plasma physics. They are basing there design on an experiment that neglects the most important difficulties of their final design. There solution is to just throw lots of money at it and hope someone can figure out the things that most scientists say is impossible. Maybe they will and things will be great. Likely they will fail and spin it off into a new neutral beam injector manufacturing facility which will make actual money.

Don't get me wrong, having private companies spending money on the field is a great thing. Even if they fail on their device they likely will do something that benefits the community as a whole. I just hate the press it gets because it gets way over hyped and when it fails it hurts public opinion of fussion which also hurts government funding for real research.

With all that being said, fission is absolutely where we should be looking near term. It's cheap reliable and safe. Combine that with some now much cheaper solar and wind and we can easily get off fossil fuels.