[throwawayaway12]

>The immense engineering challenge here is to heat plasma to ridiculous temperatures, and keep it confined in a very small volume at great temperature and pressure to mimic conditions that give rise to nuclear fusion in the center of stars.

This is not exactly true. Inertial confinement fusion has conditions that are similar to stars. The engineering challenge for magnetically confined fusion to keep the low density plasma confined for long time durations for fusion.

For anyone interested in further reading, look up the Lawson Criterion.