Billions of dollars into research will look pale in comparison to the cost to construct an actual power plant, let alone the many power plants that will be required to fully replace all CO2 producing fuel sources.
Where is this money going to come from? There are only so many sanctimonious billionaires interested in investing in a business model based solely on making everyone not feel bad about leaving their Christmas lights on overnight.
There will be design problems and costs, engineers and constructors learning how to build these things to practical scale. Those costs will be underestimated and more money will be needed. There will be startup problems, there will be black swan events that cause catastrophic damage and require lots of downtime and money to get the thing running again. There will be long periods of shut down to fix unforeseen problems that limit energy production during normal operation. There will be maintenance costs and un-thought-of operating costs. And there will be the outrageous salaries required to pull people with the technical know-how and interest in this technology away from the conventional power industry that already pays them exceptionally well.
The intelligent and capable investors (i.e., large power corporations) will not jump on this technology until
1) their existing assets degrade in operability to the point that they even need to consider adding capacity
2) the future demand and revenue for power generation increases above a point where debottlenecking or otherwise retrofitting existing capacities will meet that demand
3) the cost to build, operate, and maintain one of these things is comparable or superior to other power generation technologies
4) the technology is proven and reliable and technical experts are available for operating and maintaining the plant reliably
This will not be done in the "the near future" as described in the article. If you think the effort required to show that something works is the greatest milestone, then you simply do not understand the magnitude of the level of effort it takes to keep it working correctly.
And I am so sick of the term "Scientists".