Editor’s Note: What if we applied the power of artificial intelligence – a neural network – to the crypto markets?
It was that very question that led to the initial launch of the Perceptron in 2022. It was during of a ruthless crypto winter. Bitcoin was in the middle of a 70% nosedive. The overall crypto market was bleeding out.
But despite the downturn, the Perceptron helped deliver nearly a dozen winners. Anyone invested in crypto at the time knows how extraordinary that is. During a time when just about no one was escaping the turmoil, the Perceptron was helping deliver steady wins.
And now, it’s back and even better than before. Tomorrow night at 8 p.m. ET, Jeff is going live with the relaunch of his Perceptron.
So, if you want to learn more about how the Perceptron can help you make huge gains in crypto – no matter which direction Bitcoin is swinging – you can go here to sign up to catch his event tomorrow.
This is a big week for the clean energy industry.
It’s Climate Week in New York City, packed with more events and conferences than any one person could possibly attend.
I happen to be here – in attendance.
There’s a lot of excitement in the air, it’s palpable. And the tone is pragmatic.
We no longer hear the grandstanding about solar and wind – from the factions who believe these expensive and intermittent technologies will solve our clean energy needs for baseload power.
The switch has flipped.
And would you believe it…
The answer was in front of us the whole time.
Nuclear power.
The problem wasn’t that the world didn’t know about it… or didn’t realize it was the answer.
The problem was that it was too politically “controversial” to say it out loud.
Those days are over. Many who fiercely opposed carbon emission-free nuclear power are now strong supporters.
And yesterday brought a welcome headline in the Financial Times:
Specifically, 14 of the world’s largest banks – like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Citi, Barclays, and BNP Paribas – have now pledged to support the financing of nuclear power.
The goal is to triple the world’s nuclear energy production capacity by 2050.
This is a big deal. Financing has been one of the top two problems to solve regarding nuclear energy projects, the other, of course, being regulatory roadblocks.
The politics around nuclear energy have been so controversial that banks would often decline to invest, for fear of generating negative press.
How times have changed…
Not only are banks and other forms of institutional capital looking to increase investment in this sector, but many politicians are willing to do the same.
Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania, went to so far as to write a letter of support to the PJM Board of Managers.
Shapiro asked that the Three Mile Island project skip the regulatory queue… in the hope that the nuclear reactor could be brought on as soon as possible. (We explored the latest development between Microsoft and Constellation Energy (CEG) regarding Three Mile Island in yesterday’s Bleeding Edge – Microsoft’s Power Grab.)
The PJM is a regional transmission organization that coordinates the movement of wholesale electricity across 13 states plus Washington D.C. It serves an area that encompasses more than 65 million people and 770 GWh of annual energy production.
It’s one of the most powerful and influential organizations in the sector and can help fast-track a nuclear power project like Three Mile Island.
However, not everything during Climate Week is tangible, pragmatic, and in support of accelerating the transition to limitless, grid-scale clean energy.
There is still plenty of virtue signaling going on.
For example, there was the Fusion Fashion Tech Summit, which proposed “Uniting Visionaries, Empowering Humanity, Transforming Economies, and Accelerating Circularity”…
It’s supposedly the event “where fashion becomes more humane.”
What a nonsensical word salad. Somehow our fashion choices will achieve the above.
The only kind of fusion I’m interested in is the kind that will actually transform economies through the production of cheap, limitless clean energy production. Solving that challenge is the only goal that really matters in the industry.
So it’s no surprise that I was attending a “real” fusion conference on scaling nuclear fusion energy.
Somewhat incredibly, there were only about 100 executives in attendance. But it was the who’s who of the entire industry. CEOs and executives from the most promising nuclear fusion companies were all present.
I say “incredibly” because the companies represented at the conference hold the key – the solution – to clean energy.
While I loved the intimacy of the event, there should have been thousands wanting to soak in the latest developments in the industry.
In my mind, the breakthroughs happening right now in nuclear fusion are just as important as what’s happening with artificial intelligence (AI) right now.
These are easily the two most transformative technologies that will radically change and improve global economies and lift those remaining in poverty out of despair.
No other single factor is more responsible for a country’s economic growth than the widespread availability of cheap energy.
And now, through nuclear fusion, we can make that energy cheap, clean, decentralized, and widespread around the globe.
In the discussions and panels, I had a few of my own key takeaways from the brightest in the industry that I’d like to emphasize for the knowledge and benefit of my readers:
As I wrote to my readers in December 2023 in Outer Limits, during my time away from Brownstone…
The most advanced research and development in nuclear fusion has been happening in the U.S., and it is happening at private companies. The heavy involvement of the U.S. government is not required to make it “real.”
As of this summer, the level of investment increased to $6.2 billion with just $271 million coming from government grants. That means that only 4.4% of total investment in nuclear fusion is coming from the U.S. government.
In short, the private sector is thriving in nuclear fusion.
What’s different about this year compared to 2022 is the breadth of investment.
In 2022, the large jump in investment was heavily skewed by the massive $1.8 billion raise by Commonwealth Fusion Systems (a spin-out of MIT), and the $500 million raise by Helion Energy.
This year has been quite different. We’ve seen a much larger number of funding rounds across a wide range of companies in the nuclear fusion industry. This is a great indication of a major trend and a sector on the rise. I expect a lot more of that in 2024. – Jeff Brown, Outer Limits – What an Exciting Year for Nuclear Fusion, And Next Year, Even Better
There is tremendous excitement in the industry right now. It’s such a fantastic environment. We all know that we’re so close to net energy production on a commercially viable fusion reactor (as opposed to a science project like the National Ignition Facility’s net energy production achievement).
It’s a healthy competitive environment right now, and there is still widespread collaboration in the industry. Nuclear fusion is a fantastic industry in that way.
Everyone knows the awareness needs to increase, and the industry needs to band together to gain funding, both public and private. It’s an absolute necessity to commercialize this incredible technology.
The industry has thrived despite the lack of support from the U.S. government. It is forging ahead, and industry and company milestones have become concrete and tangible. And now is the time for a major shift in policy.
For example, yesterday I mentioned the $1.52 billion loan guarantee made by the U.S. Department of Energy to restart the nuclear fission reactors at Palisades in Michigan. That’s just a single project.
And yet the entire cumulative public funding provided in the U.S. for the nuclear fusion industry is just $426 million.
Even Solyndra – a questionable solar panel manufacturer in California – received $535 million in loans in 2009 to support the clean energy agenda.
Who knows where the money went? It was a complete scandal and fraud wrought with corruption and political favoritism. Solyndra went bankrupt in 2011. Taxpayers lost every dollar.
To think… that a single company like Solyndra could receive – in a single year – more financial support from the U.S. government than the entire nuclear fusion industry has ever received… is mindboggling to me.
Whether it’s:
The industry is so close. According to one executive, we’re within 30 months of potentially commercializing net energy output from a fusion reactor. Incredible. And exactly what I’ve been predicting for more than five years.
And there is a long list of other exciting players emerging quickly…
This field is bursting at the seams with progress.
The time is now. The government must step up to help accelerate the commercialization of this incredible technology. The investments required for commercialization will be in the billions… but a fraction of the cost of what it will take to get to artificial general intelligence (AGI).
It’s no longer theoretical, it’s real, and it’s the solution to our need for industry-scale, baseload clean energy production.
The Bleeding Edge is the only free newsletter that delivers daily insights and information from the high-tech world as well as topics and trends relevant to investments.
The Bleeding Edge is the only free newsletter that delivers daily insights and information from the high-tech world as well as topics and trends relevant to investments.
