Energy is today’s hot topic. With concerns over the rising prices of oil – and the lack of feasibility of many of the other alternatives on the table – consumers want a cheap energy solution that will last the generations ahead of us. One company is on the cusp of doing just that, and could turn its small group of investors into billionaires…

I’ve discussed before how transformative commercially competitive nuclear fusion would be. Clean and inexpensive fusion would completely disrupt the foundation of the global economy: energy. We don’t, in fact, know that it can be done. It looks like it, but there are many unknowns, and the timeline is even more obscure. The impact would be so profound, however, that we have to keep track of developments.

Until now, the challenge has been the production of a sustainable fusion reaction that yields more energy than is initially required to keep the reaction “burning.” Since most of the methods for generating a fusion reaction require extremely high, sun-like temperatures, it has proven no easy task.

Most of the recent attention and funding in the fusion area are garnered by ITER, a large multinational research reactor being built in France. Several European governments have been throwing billions of Euros at this nuclear fusion research megaproject. Despite this, some of the most promising research is actually taking place here in the U.S., albeit on a much smaller scale and with much less attention.

The most promising method of producing energy through fusion may belong to a U.S. firm called EMC2. EMC2 was founded in 1984 by the late physicist Dr. Robert W. Bussard, well known for his work on nuclear rocket propulsion and power. While Dr. Bussard was very interested in nuclear fusion as a means to power spacecraft, it is his ground-based nuclear designs that are currently being developed by the company he founded.

Apart from private funding, EMC2 has received funds from the U.S. Navy over the years. After test runs of early prototypes showed promise, the U.S. Navy again funded the EMC2 to develop the next-generation prototype. The Navy is very interested in EMC2’s fusion reactor as a possible means of powering submarines and surface vessels.

The Department of Energy’s current director, Steven Chu, has also expressed interest in EMC2s technology, commenting in 2007 that he “wants more information.” I can only hope that the information he has received since then has been convincing, as EMC2 got $2 million in funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

The actual fusion power plant, which Bussard called a polywell, produces no long-lasting nuclear waste. “Polywell”, by the way, is a combination of the terms “polyhedron” and “potential well,” which clues us in on the geometry and function of the device.

The current EMC2 fusion project leader, Dr. Richard Nebel, estimates that electrical production from commercial polywell fusion reactors would cost about 2–5 cents per kilowatt hour. This is cheaper than any current source of electricity, including coal and fission nuclear power. We’ve been in contact with Dr. Nebel, by the way, but he has told us that he is not free to discuss the details of the project at this time.

EMC2 is currently constructing the latest demonstration version of the polywell, designated WB-8, in order to validate the results received from a previous prototype, WB-6. EMC2 expects to know if this is a truly workable technology within two years. If this is the case, the second phase of its research track is to produce a full-scale example reactor.

If EMC2 is successful in its work, there’s little question that the company’s private backers will be sitting on one of the biggest investment windfalls in history. And it also opens the doors for a public offering of shares in the future. We’ll keep you posted on what’s to come.

For transformational profits,
Patrick Cox

October 30, 2009

Patrick Cox

Patrick Cox has lived deep inside the world of transformative technologies for over 25 years. In the 1980s, he worked in computer software development and manufacturing. By the mid-1990s, he worked as a consultant for Netscape — the company that handled 90% of all Internet browsing traffic at the time. InfoWorld and USA Today have featured Patrick's research numerous times. He's also appeared on Crossfire and Nightline. Patrick has been quoted by The Wall Street Journal and Reason magazine. His expertise brought him to Agora Financial, where he now heads Breakthrough Technology Alert, the only place you'll find the truly transformational technologies that offer exponential gains.

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