Why Bezos and Microsoft are betting on this $10 trillion energy fix for the planet.
Burnaby, British Columbia, is similar to most North American bedroom communities. The majority of its residents commute into neighbouring Vancouver every morning and then head back to their suburban homes at night. There is one thing, though, that sets it apart: Around the corner from one of the two Costcos in town is a small start-up that's inching ever closer to solving the planet's energy problems — and tapping into a yet untouched trillion-dollar market.
It's no wonder, then, that people like Bezos and companies like Cenovus Energy have sunk more than $127 million into the company, according to Crunchbase, while billions of more dollars have been invested in about two dozen other nuclear fusion start-ups, government initiatives and big company projects, such as Lockheed Martin's compact fusion reactor.
This process also has to be done cheaply and efficiently enough so that it can be used by people around the world. Others use lasers to rapidly compress hydrogen into frozen pellets that are 1000 times denser than ordinary matter and can achieve a momentary pulse of fusion. It will take more time after that to build full-scale plants that can be used to power entire cities. If this were football, Mowry said he'd be on the 25-yard line.
Even when its components are created — it is currently in the R&D phase and likely won't start building components for another two-and-a-half years, said Greenwald — it will still need to create a pilot plant to see if it works. Then it needs to commercialize it, he said.
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