I love solar, but we can't pretend it's without its own challenges.

A utility scale solar installation comparable to an average fission plant would take 15 square kilometers. Not to mention how complicated the infrastructure to actually transmit that power is.

Space is only one challenge though. You have no energy production at night, and energy generation can drop by half to almost three quarters during winter at higher latitudes.

fusion companies are essentially giant bubbles of debt owed to venture capital currently

There's a couple of loud, commercial fusion companies sucking up VC money, but all the serious projects are nationalized (China) or are projects run by public institutes with government funding (EU).