I agree about the pollution caused by coal and that trading nuclear for coal is bad. But don't you think the "down-breeding" was tried and failed? It's been 50 years now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU_reactor
The CANDU is a successful attempt, the energy amplifier was never attempted, and self breeding reactors are a material engineering problem (alas not yet completely solved), not a physics problem.
Throwing a fraction of what we are spending to chase the "fusion dream" we could have achieved a great deal more for present reality.
Again that's all IMO.
edited: clarification
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor#Development_an...