Back in 2011 there was a Popular Science blurb on General Fusion and Jeff Bezos' investment in them. I looked through papers and news reports about them and was reminded of the comment in the movie "National Treasure" by Jon Voight discussing this potentially mythical treasure, "... another clue, and then another clue after that, its nothing but clues!" So much of the 'upstart' fusion research is just that, pure research trying to learn enough so that you can begin to answer questions like "Exactly how would we get energy out of this in useful way?" The numbers are small, $10M here, $15M there, $3-4M over there. But there is so much risk stacked on top of risk that the only funds available are literally funds that the owner expects about as much return as they would get by making a bonfire out of them, with the exception the bonfire would keep them warm for one night.

I was hoping Google's R<C effort would help with this but was disappointed in how that fund was managed with regard to new science. Perhaps its going to require Elon Musk to get involved :-)

[1] http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-05/jeff-bezos-inv...