Sept. 24—The House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology’s Subcommittee on Energy held hearings on Sept. 18 on the state of affairs in the U.S. fusion program. The issue is getting some attention on Capitol Hill, not because the development of fusion energy can provide an unlimited source of energy for all humanity for generations to come, but because there is a clear understanding that the U.S. has dropped the ball, and China is in the forefront of developing a commercial fusion reactor. It is sending legislators into a tizzy-fit ostensibly about the dangers to our national security..

The four major speakers at the hearing, some involved in private fusion efforts, others at national laboratories and at the University of Wisconsin, described the difficulties that the program was facing under present conditions. While the fusion budget has increased somewhat under President Donald Trump, it is far from being enough to jump-start a once more viable program that would provide fusion energy in America, sometime in the too distant future.

Bob Mumgaard, the CEO of Commonwealth Fusion Systems, indicated that, in order to have sufficient milestone-based programs and test facilities, industry would require an input from the federal government of $10 billion, a sum that makes some legislators cringe. What the legislators interested in the matters, who are wringing their hands over China’s investing much more and making much more headway, do not understand, is that 45 years ago, their counterparts on Capitol Hill were presented the Magnetic Fusion Energy Engineering Act (“McCormack Fusion Bill”), which would, in the views of all the experts then, provide a commercial fusion reactor by the year 2000—at the cost of $20 billion over 20 years. That bill passed.

But the miserly Congress, however, couldn’t cough up the $1 billion a year to develop such an endless source of energy. We are probably now no closer, and perhaps even farther away from a commercially viable fusion source that we were in 1984.

Perhaps the key to reasons we have not made the progress we should have towards fusion was the decision by the British and Wall Street to go after the real leadership for fusion, shutting down the Fusion Energy Foundation (FEF), which had been the driving force for this legislation and its passage, and was led by the late economist and presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche. The illegal jailing of LaRouche and his associates in 1986, some of them crucially involved in the work of FEF, put an end to that campaign. Absent the FEF's leadership, the opponents of fusion, who pushed what became the anti-human depopulation agenda associated with the Global Warming hoax, were abler to kill progress by cutting off government support, in favor of a "free market" approach to energy development. 

LaRouche and the FEF also understood something which even today's supporters of fusion seem not to understand: It would add decades or more to its development if were done by any one nation. What is required is a global collaborative effort, that puts the best scientists and engineers in solving problems, and operative on several approaches to the problem. This is not some national security problem, but a question of a shared global future for all mankind. There is a willingness on the part of the scientists for such collaboration, but it is blocked by geopolitics.

Meanwhile, monetarist economic policies in the West have made the uphill climb towards fusion even steeper. Witnesses at the hearing clearly indicated that we are not producing enough engineers and scientists to do the job, and, given the anti-immigrant mood, many foreign researchers are going to other countries. Indeed, even our native cadre, heavily hit by the DOGE budget cuts, are being offered lucrative positions elsewhere, even out of the country.

Unless these parameters change, fusion, with such bright prospects for all mankind, will always be "20 years off from today."