None of this makes nuclear, and fusion in particular, necessary in order to avoid a "looming energy crisis"? That's what we're talking about. If we wanted to have better emission tracking and/or carbon capture for natural gas we could probably do it, I'd guess, and it's still not clear natural gas generation is required at all in the face of improving renewables and storage.
Small modular nuclear on the other hand could be economically feasible in places that don't have the money to pay extra for renewables but still want to drop their GHG emissions.
Nuclear might be nice to have, might be better for various reasons, might be lots of things. But is it absolutely required "to solve the looming energy crisis of the 21st century while still maintaining the same standard of living for everyone"? That's my question.
If you want more renewables then you need a more flexible grid. All that crappy coal baseload clogging the grid needs to disappear and make space for renewables. Gas plants are cheap to build but expensive to operate. They will be mostly used when there is a temporary shortfall of renewables. They are also necessary for power to gas if you actually want to reach 100% renewables.
Obviously old coal powerplants are the worst, but there's more evidence every year that the allegedly "clean" natural gas is nowhere as clean as advertised once you account for fugitive methane emissions that in practice are largely untracked. And flooding the market with cheap fossil fuel like methane as a "transition fuel" – another marketing gimmick – will only delay the transition to renewables for obvious economic reasons.
I'm not optimistic about big shots like fusion, but small modular nuclear reactors for example could be operating relatively soon if only we had the desire to go in that direction.