I don’t know why you feel so strongly that this is a partisan political issue, with Democrats being the visionary leaders and Republicans being opposed to cheaper energy or scientific research.
It was the George W. Bush administration that reinvigorated the US Nuclear industry (After the Democrat environmentalists put a decades long halt to new reactor construction or design approval).
As the Washington Post reported:(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/24/AR2006052402072.html ):
“Bush has been an ardent advocate of nuclear power since taking office, and he was introduced Wednesday as the industry’s most supportive president since Dwight D. Eisenhower.” “The Energy Policy Act of 2005, championed by Bush, provides a generous package of subsidies to build new reactors, including loan guarantees, federal risk insurance and tax credits. “ It also renewed work on new advanced reactor designs and sought to remove roadblocks to new design approval.
Bussard’s work continued to be funded by the Navy, and now the company that he co-founded (EMC2) is able to garner private financing, as reported in the Wikipedia link in your referenced article:
“2015 On January 22, EMC2 presented this work at Microsoft Research.[95] EMC2 is now planning a three-year, $30 million commercial research program to prove the Polywell can work as a nuclear fusion power generator.”
The reason its a partison issue is that currently the big money in federal research labs is going to things like batteries. And they’re going to succeed. Electric cars will begin displacing internal combustion engines in real volume starting in only about 5 years. Worldwide volume production of electric cars are miniscule currently but they have been doubling annually for the last 3 years. That kind of percentage growth can’t be expected to continue but still the numbers rise will be impressive.
These successes will accrue to the democrats because the heart of electric car country now is the very democrat silicon valley. As the electric car succeeds so also will wealth and power flow back from the center of the country where the oil patch is to the coasts.
“2015 On January 22, EMC2 presented this work at Microsoft Research.[95] EMC2 is now planning a three-year, $30 million commercial research program to prove the Polywell can work as a nuclear fusion power generator.”
....................
cool. didn’t know that.