Reminds me of Bussard's Polywell, their website doesn't seem to have been updated since 2014 though [1]. Bussard also wanted to do proton-boron fusion due to the same advantages mentioned.

Edit: Apparently there has been progress, with a slideshow called "ready for commercialisation" presented this August by Jaeyoung Park [2][3].

[1] http://www.emc2fusion.org/

[2] http://www.talk-polywell.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=6072&st...

[3] https://arpa-e.energy.gov/sites/default/files/5_PARK.pdf