FOR six decades, research into fusion power has been ruled by giant national and international projects that have failed to turn a penny of revenue, let alone profit (see article). Not, you might think, promising territory for entrepreneurs. But if you did think that, you would be wrong. The past few years have seen the appearance of a sprinkling of firms that claim to know how, given an appropriately open cheque book, to overcome the problems that the bureaucracy and group-think of the established endeavours cannot.
Some of these startup ventures have raised only enough money to keep garage-scale efforts ticking over. Others have attracted considerable sums. Steven Cowley, the boss of Britain’s Atomic Energy Authority, reckons there is more than $450m of private investment in various schemes around the world, and in May ARPA-E, an American government agency, put $30m more into the pot. None of the startups, in truth, is likely ever to construct a commercial-scale reactor. But their journeys may unravel bits of thorny...Continue reading
Source: Science and technology http://ift.tt/1LOJWtT
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