Inspired Earth

Episode 46: Part 1 Amazon $40 Trillion Fusion Energy Threatens Petrodollar, China-Russia-India Reactors

• Inspired Earth • Season 1 • Episode 46

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What happens when the promise of near-zero-marginal-cost electricity crashes into a system built on pricing power? We dive into the messy reality of fusion’s big moment—where genuine breakthroughs, Amazon-adjacent initiatives, and investor hype collide—and ask who actually benefits if “mini suns” start lighting our grid.

We start with the stark contrast shaping the future: models that aim to drive energy prices down versus models designed to preserve profit. Along the way, we unpack General Fusion’s LM26 milestone and its simultaneous layoffs, the so-called “Amazon Helios” framing, and the swirl of newsletters and gated “early investor” pitches that turn serious science into a speculative carnival. The technical promise is real: clean, abundant energy that could slash utility bills, desalinate water at scale, power vertical farms, decarbonize heavy industry, and rewire the geopolitics of the petrodollar. The financial and political interests are just as real, and they’ll decide whether households feel relief or read more glossy press releases while paying the same old bill.

We also connect the dots to data centers, AI growth, and nuclear-backed offtakes that could make the cloud cleaner—or concentrate cheap electrons behind corporate fences. Policy steps matter now: clear siting, public co-investment, safety oversight, and pricing that shares savings with the public instead of locking in scarcity premiums. Fusion’s path will have setbacks, but it doesn’t need to be a casino. With transparent milestones and guardrails that prioritize lower, cleaner, steadier power for everyone, we can turn genuine progress into broad prosperity instead of another hype cycle.

If this conversation resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend who cares about energy and fairness, and leave a quick review so more people can find it. Your support helps keep the focus on what matters: real breakthroughs, honest tradeoffs, and power that serves the public.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/technology/tech-news/amazon-founder-jeff-bezos-backed-canadian-energy-company-lays-off-employees-read-what-the-ceo-said/articleshow/120919626.cms

https://stansberryresearch.com/stock-market-trends/what-is-the-amazon-helios-project

https://inl.gov/news-release/idaho-national-laboratory-accelerates-nuclear-energy-projects-with-amazon-web-services-cloud-and-ai-technologies/

https://www.chosun.com/english/industry-en/2025/12/03/I4MICKYEYJDDRBBE4SUQLSYWEE/

https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/china-has-it-russia-building-it-india-working-on-it-the-small-nuclear-reactor-race-9354989

https://interestingengineering.com/energy/amazon-nuclear-energy-smr-facility


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SPEAKER_01:

And it would be very interesting to compare that in America versus again, let's say China, of how the companies are in relation to the state, because both China and America are giving these companies money to do this stuff. It's just the difference is in China, they're trying to drop the price to where it's inexpensive. But in America, we want to raise the price so that we make more money, which ultimately what becomes more efficient, a super high-priced power plant or a low-priced power plant. And again, this affects all aspects of society. So by dropping the price on this one thing, you'll be dropping the price on everything. It has like a cascading effect of improving everybody's lives. And imagine not having to worry about having to pay your power. Like some people are paying a whole lease or a car payment or another mortgage on power every single month, just in utilities. And that could be eliminated to where people would actually have money to spend on themselves. But then these energy cabals would not have this money and they wouldn't have the power over it. Also remember that the petrodollar is part of the American dominance, which I've talked about before. So fusion is also undermining the petrodollar. So this ultimately will probably transition when we go into uh whatever cryptocurrency Trump or the other people behind him uh will do. Which wasn't it Palantir that was talking about stablecoin. Hello, welcome back to Inspired Earth. I had a little bit of extra time, so I'm gonna try to knock out an episode here. Uh it's gonna be about Amazon and the nuclear energy projects that they are starting right now. Uh we're gonna start off with Times of India. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos backed Canadian energy company lays off employees. So we're gonna be uh comparing different Amazon projects with different nuclear technologies and locations and just kind of talking about what they're doing in general. Uh Amazon founder Jeff Bezos backed energy company General Fusion has fired 25% of its workforce. The fusion power-up started startup is facing financial difficulties. General Fusion CEO Greg Twinny wrote an open letter to the employees in which he revealed that the company is experiencing a shortage of cash and is actively seeking additional funding to continue its operations. This was May Sun May 6th, 2025. For those unaware, General Fusion is a 23-year-old Canadian commercial fusion energy company. According to Pitchbook, it has secured four$440 million in funding, including a$22.66 million round completed in July. Notable investors such as Jeff Bezos, Temasec, BDC Capital have backed its efforts. According to reports, General Fusion is exploring strategic options with invest investors, government entities, and potential buyers to secure the necessary capital. And we're going to read the open letter here. On April 29th, we achieved transformative milestone at our Vancouver BC headquarters in Canada. We successfully compressed a large-scale magnetized plasma with lithium using our world's first LM26 fusion demonstration machine. Integrated full system and diagnostics operated safely as designed, and an early review of data indicates we saw ion temperatures and densities increase our lithium liner successfully trapped the magnetic field. This was an incredible success for our first shot. What does this mean? From a technology perspective, we're one step closer to bringing zero carbon fusion to the electricity grid using our unique homegrown Canadian technology that the global industry leaders recognize as one of the most practical for commercialization. We are also the only one with the machine already built to get there. Truly, there has never been a more promising time to be or invest in in general fusion. Okay, so a lot of this a lot of this is gonna sound like advertisements and like kind of scammy. So like take that with you, like what you will. But I'll talk about that at the very end and in some other episodes. Uh, we're just gonna stick with Amazon on this one, and we'll talk about other ones on other ones and more specifically. But I will mention a few other countries at the very end. Um so general fusion has been around the block. We've proven a lot with a lean budget. We're not a shiny new startup with a drawing and a dream. We are experienced fusioneers with a clear view of the path to success and the machine to prove it. We've built a global network of partners and early adopters focused on fusion technology, magnetized target fusion, that is durable, cost-effective, fuel sustainable, and practical. We are ready to execute our plan, but are caught in an economic and geopolitical environment that is forcing us to wait. That is an i an insane sentence. That's exactly what I've been saying for a long time. That we have this technology, it's just sitting around. It's very strange, this like situation that apparently the West and humanity seems to be in for now. Keeping a fusion company funded in today's world requires more than just meaningful capital. It takes ambition, steadfast patience, a bold national vision aligned with the opportunity and constant refreshing of the investor base as timelines stretch beyond typical fund horizons. Our mission has historically been supported financially by a mix of strong private investors and Canadian federal government. We have been competing against aggressive nationally funded fusion programs around the world. We have risen to global leadership by charting a distinct course founded on entrepreneurship and commercial focus, while others follow government-led or academic pathways. However, today's funding landscape is more challenging than ever as an investor, as investors and governments navigate a rapidly shifting uncertain political and market climate. This rapidly shifting environment has directly and immediately impacted our funding. Therefore, as a result of unexpected and urgent financing constraints, we are taking action now to protect our future with our game-changing technology and IP, including reducing both the size of our team and LM26 operations. While we navigate this difficult environment, we're doing what resilient teams do and what have done before refocus, protect what matters, and keep building. While this is challenging, this is a challenging time for general fusion, it is also an attractive opportunity for those with the financial means to transform the world. Which is who? Like, not anybody who wants to transform the world. Everything is in place. The technology, science, LM26, and the know-how and passion. All we need now is the cap capital to finish the job. We are opening our doors and actively seeking strategic options with investors, buyers, governments, and others who share our vision. Reach out now and become part of the future of energy. Wow. It's crazy that they just said that out loud. Like, we have everything we like to change the world, we just need you guys to give us some money. That's absolutely insane that we have this technology just sitting there, ready, perfectly it's commercialized at this point, and they still won't even use it. So this is like another investor stock market thing. So like take this with a giant grain of salt. This is uh May 9th, 2025, an updated October 17th, 2025, and it is a massive article uh from Stansbury Research. I like they're trying to get you to put money into it when they need like regular people to fund it. That is such garbage, in my opinion. I mean I'm we'll see. You'll see what I'm talking about. You may have first read about it years ago in a science fiction book, and now it's rapidly moving towards science fact. The Amazon Helios Project is a groundbreaking new initiative in energy. Amazon's founder, Jeff Bezos, has quietly supported it for years. Its name was coined to refer to the push to achieve nuclear fusion power on Earth, an achievement likened to creating a mini sun right on the earth. Investors around the world, including tech visionaries like Bezos, sorry, I was zooming it in for anybody reading, are paying close attention. Fusion is a potential game changer for global energy, the economy, and our everyday lives. And while the tone around Helios is optimistic, after all, fusion promises limitless clean energy. There's also measured awareness that big opportunities can come with volatility and uncertainty. Today we're exploring what Amazon Helios really means, why it's called the most exciting human discovery since fire, and what it could mean for you as an investor. Oh man, it just turns this whole thing into a joke, into a scam, into like a pyramid scheme. They're just like funneling in all this money and doing nothing with it. It's so frustrating. We have all this technology just sitting there waiting. And frankly, I mean that's why, like, when I get to the end over here of like all these other people who are focusing on this technology, it I just think that they're gonna have more success. I mean, I hope that we can have this stuff in the West, but it seems like we're so reliant on using fossil fuels and the petrodollar as a tool to exploit and oppress and leverage other people that were not willing to let go of it, uh, unless we can use fusion or nuclear in in a similar way, which I think they are trying to do eventually. I mean, I think that's what a lot of these things are all like pointing to is like, oh, we're about to change. So, like, listen to this. Five key takeaways Limitless clean energy. Helios is all about nuclear fusion, a way to produce energy by fusing atoms like the sun. Learn more about what nuclear fusion is here and how it works. If successful, it promises virtually limitless zero emission power without the long-lived radioactive waste of today's nuclear plants. In practical terms, that could one day mean ultra cheap electricity for our homes and businesses. 2. Massive economic impact. The potential market for fusion energy is staggering, about$40 trillion globally, according to Bloomberg. To put that in perspective, that's roughly 10 times larger than the market for AI, electric vehicles or robotics, and quantum computing combined. In other words, Helios isn't simply another tech trend. It could dwarf an other current developments and breakthroughs in economic significance if it works as hoped. Number three, transforming society and industries. Fusion power promises much more than lower electricity bills. Abundant energy means you could desalinate seawater cheaply, ending water shortages, and power advanced agriculture like vertical farms or synthetic fertilizer production to improve food supply. Nearly every industry, from manufacturing to transportation, could be revolutionized by an influx of affordable clean energy. Think of Helios as a foundation of countless other innovations, much like how the invention of electricity paved the way for the modern world. 4. Timing. Why now? Which is a very interesting question. Fusion has been a scientific quest for decades, but only recently have breakthroughs made it seem within reach. In late 2022, US scientists achieved ignition, a fusion reaction that produces more energy than it consumed, a historic first. Since then, progress has accelerated. Massive investments are pouring in. With Bezos and other billionaires backing it, and the US government, along with more than 30 countries, launched a fusion initiative in 2023. And just last month, scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Labor Laboratory, National Ignition Facility, NIF, more than doubled the yield of its previous record-setting fusion experiment. And I think this was updated in October. What once was joked is always 30 years away is now slated for this decade. In fact, one fusion startup has a deal to supply to has a deal to supply power to Microsoft by 2028. And we just read in the previous episode that Microsoft is taking part in the uh AI killbots for the military and stuff. So like the robot speedbot speedboat drones or whatever, we need like a like a shorter name for that. I don't even know what to call it. Those things are gonna be sent the information is gonna be sent to a data center that's gonna be running off of nuclear stuff with Microsoft. So that's something to keep in mind as well. And a lot of the pollution that comes off of these data centers go out locally, so we're still ending up paying the price environmentally for these robot bombs on the other side of the world. We still get polluted over here because of it. In short, Helios matters now because fusion is finally moving from the lab to the real world. And last month, the Department of Energy published an update on President Trump's nuclear milestones, including things like restarting existing nuclear plants, issuing 900 million in funding for small modular reactors, and even signing a deal to build nuclear power plants in Poland. Finally, President Trump recently signed multiple executive orders on nuclear power, ushering in the most aggressive push for nuclear energy in decades. Very interesting. And then this is talking about investing. Very quaint, very coincidental, very interesting. And they're talking about Trump in such a positive light here. Oh, he's creating so many opportunities for us. Opportunity for early investors. Like any breakthrough technology, those who recognize its potential early it's sorry, those who recognize its potential early on stand to benefit the most. Amazon Helios could change society forever and make early investors rich. Indeed, if fusion becomes the dominant energy source, companies leading the charge might see exponential growth. Right now, we're about to cross what Barons calls an impending tipping point. And Wall Street legend Whitney Tilson has found a little known company that may have the best chance of turning fusion into a reality. I don't trust any of this stuff. I I don't have any I don't know what company is best. I don't know. It seems like whoever has a good heart and is like a benevolent person is probably gonna get like screwed over by Trump or what or the administration and the investors, and whoever's the most wily, conniving, malevolent, evil, like living monster is probably gonna be the one that gets the the contract for it. That seems like how it goes right now. Whoever is like connected in the Addams family to fusion, that's gonna be who gets the contract. Somebody over there. CNBC calls it a leader in the nascent space. Unfortunately, this company is off limits to most individual investors, only accredited investors can take a stake in it. But Tilson's found a backdoor into the company that can only be accessed by$30, blah blah blah blah blah. It's an advertisement right here. Do you see what I'm talking about? They like literally sneak in these little like snake oil sales tricks in the middle of this stuff. Like, can we not can we just talk about the science and leave out these gimmicks? It's so predatory. And it's this is the vultures are circling this uh industry before it even gets off the ground. It's crazy. Of course, it's important to stay aware of volatility. Transformative industries can have booms and busts. As an investor, one should approach this investment much as one would during the early days of past revolutions like the internet or biotech. So, how exactly does Amazon Helios project fit into the grand sweep of technological revolutions? And why is it drawing comparisons of some of the biggest breakthroughs in human history? Because it has the potential to dwart them all. That's what it says. We'll see, right? The big picture, a revolution in context. Amazon's Helios project is being hailed as the next great revolution in a long line of world-changing technologies. To appreciate its significance, it helps to recall how past breakthroughs transformed society and created wealth for investors who got in early. Think back to what we've seen over the past century, widespread electrification, the automobile, computers, the internet. Each of these was a radical innovation that upended life as we knew it. In the early days, they were often met with skepticism or seen as luxuries. For example, in the 1990s, many doubted the internet's commercial potential. Few imagined companies like Amazon would grow to dominate global e-commerce. Yet those revolutions each minted a generation of new industry leaders and investors. Nuclear Fusion Energy, the heart of Helio's project, is often compared with those epochal advances. Some experts even say mastering fusion could be as pivotal for humanity as discovering fire was for our prehistoric ancestors. That may sound like Hyperbole, but consider this. Fire gave us uh humans heat and light. Fusion promises energy on a vastly greater scale, effective effectively unlimited and clean. It's the power source of the sun and stars, as one scientist simplistically put it. Look at the sun, it is the source of all life. What we are trying to do is make the sun on Earth. In other words, Helios aims to recreate the engine of creation itself to power our civilization. Placing Helios in historical context, we might liken it to the moment when humanity learned to harness electricity. Before widespread electric power, life was completely different. Once it arrived, it enabled everything from light bulbs to computers. Fusion could have a comparable big picture impact. If successful, it could it would inaugurate a new age where energy is abundant and cheap, leading to leaps in productivity and quality of life that are hard to imagine today, much like someone in 1925 would struggle to imagine our high-tech life now. Of course, with any big revolution, especially one in its early stages, there's a note of caution. The broader market volatility of breakthrough technologies is real. For example, early automobiles saw dozens of car makers rise and fall before the industry matured. The dot-com boom of the 1990s created immense wealth, but it also saw a crash before the true internet giants emerged. Speaking of crash, I don't know if you guys saw Peter Thiel as well as a bunch of other people all dropping NVIDIA and Tesla stocks. Uh and we're looking like we could have an AI crash that's bigger than the Great Depression, is what the uh the economists are saying right now. So uh we'll probably talk about that another time. But interesting talking about a crash, and then we're about to talk about AI right now, also with the crash, and we're going through an AI revolution right now, which also has seen plenty of market industry volatility. That's funny, it's exactly what I was saying. Similarly, while Helios could change the world, the path will likely have ups and downs, scientific hurdles, funding challenges, and competition from other energy sources. In short, Amazon Helios represents a big picture opportunity on par with history's greatest technological leaps. It sits at the intersection of two powerful narratives: the age holds human quest for harnessing nature's power, from fire to fission, and now fusion, combined with the modern tale of rapid innovation driven by big tech investments and AI enhanced research. That is such an optimistic view, or not even optimistic, that's like a nigh naive view of it. Like I would say the two most powerful powerful narratives are the need for quest for harnessing nature's power and the quest for big tech to scam people. Like the snake oil salesman. Don't ever trust big tech. That's for sure. As we move on, we'll delve into each of the five points of important ideas behind Helios in detail. Key idea number one infinite clean energy at our fingertips. The first and most fundamental idea of the Amazon Helios project is the promise of clean energy through nuclear fusion. Today's nuclear power plants produce energy with fission. The act of splitting heavy atoms like uranium to release energy. Fusion is the opposite. It involves fusing two light atoms like hydrogen into a heavier one, with which releases a tremendous amount of energy. This is exactly how the sun produces power. Hydrogen atoms slam together under intense heat and pressure to form helium, releasing light and heat. Scientists have been trying to replicate this process on Earth for decades because it has huge advantages. Fusion fuel, often isotopes of hydrogen such as deuterium and tritium, is extremely abundant. Deuterium can be extracted from seawater, meaning a gallon of seawater could contain as much fusion energy potential as 300 gallons of gasoline. That's insane. And unlike fission, fusion produces no long-lived radioactive waste. Its byproducts are relatively short-lived and the reaction can't run out of control, so there's no risk of a runaway meltdown. As one report succinctly put it, fusion would produce far more power than fission with far more far fewer radioactive byproducts. Because the fuel is so abundant and the energy is so high, fusion power is essentially limitless. One often hears phrases like next generation energy or infinite energy in reference to fusion. While it's not literally infinite, the practical supply is so vast it might as well be. And it's clean in the sense of being carbon-free with no greenhouse gases and low radioactive waste. If Helios succeeded, succeeds, the world could shift away from burning fossil fuels and even conventional nuclear power plants. To a source of energy that doesn't pollute the air or contribute to climate change. This matters tremendously now. Many of us witnessed a rising extremes in weather or high gas prices and heating. Fusion offers hope for relief on both fronts, a way to combat climate change by providing clean power and at the same time meet our growing energy needs without driving up costs. For the average American, one exciting implication of fusion is the prospect of much lower utility bills in the future, which means people like the company is gonna lose money. Of how are we gonna take money away from people? They can't just have electricity. The price always has to go up to keep paying back the investors. It's like a Ponzi scheme. Until you like take out the profit motive. I just don't think electricity should it's a it's a form of nature. We don't I don't think that we should have to pay for it. I think that we shouldn't have to pay for water or air or sunlight or electricity. Especially like if it's this abundant, like they're saying we should it should just be from our tax dollars. That's really how it should be. And we can make it extremely inexpensive. Today, electricity costs are tied to fuel prices, like natural gas, and can spike due to market or geopolitical events. With fusion, once a plant is built, the fuel, like hydrogen from water, is so cheap and plentiful that the main cost is the plant's maintenance. I mean, you probably would be paying on maintenance, but once again, that could be covered in taxes really cheaply. Some experts believe that mature fusion power could make electricity dramatically cheaper, perhaps so cheap it's nearly an afterthought. Helios is a vision of energy abundance. Lighting, heating, cooling, and electric vehicles all run on affordable clean energy generated by miniature suns on the Earth. It's hard to overstate how profoundly abundant energy could change the world. If you imagine any activity that's limited by energy cost, fusion would remove that limit. For example, think of desalinization. Turning seawater into fresh water, it's technically feasible but now feasible now, but very energy intensive and thus expensive. With cheap fusion power, large-scale desalinization could provide plentiful fresh water to arid regions, potentially solving water scarcity, or consider or consider other industrial processes like recycling metals or manufacturing fertilizer for farming. These require huge energy inputs, which is why they can be costly and cause pollution when done with fossil fuels. Fusion could allow us to do more of these activities cleanly without worrying about fuel supply or emissions. In a fusion-powered future, economic growth might be less constrained by energy shortages or environmental concerns. This is why some have called fusion energy the holy grail of science. It essentially unlocks a future where energy, the lifeblood of modern civilization, is no longer a limiting factor. With fusion, humanity would have energy at its fingertips akin to harnessing the power of the sun. It's an inspiring prospect, one that scientists have pursued for generations. Thanks to recent advances, that prospect is closer than ever to becoming a reality. And the significance of Helios goes beyond cheap power. It extends to economic and societal transformations. Key idea number two: a$40 trillion revolution, bigger than idea than the AI. Investors and economists tried to put numbers on what a successful fusion revolution would mean, and the figures are staggering. According to Bloomberg Intelligence, if nuclear fusion is mastered, it could eventually spawn a 40 trillion global market for energy and related technologies. That far exceeds the expected markets for AI, quantum, EVs, and robotics combined. In short, fusion would be a magnitude more economically powerful. Why? Because its energy is a foundation for everything else. If you create a new AI software, you still need electricity to run it. If you build millions of electronic vehicles, electric vehicles, they need power to charge. Fusion addresses the base layer of industry, energy production, which is a colossal market to disrupt, which is another key thing. They're disrupting the oil market. They're putting out all these other people. Today's global energy market, oil, gas, coal, electricity, is already some$15 trillion. Fusion could not only take a large share of that, but also expand it by enabling new industries. A$40 trillion opportunity means the potential for enormous wealth creation. We can draw an analogy to earlier tech revolutions. For instance, the internet era created several trillion dollars, like companies like Amazon, Apple, and Google, countless smaller ones. Just super quick, it's saying that we could have potential for massive wealth creation. I think again that more than justifies putting the initial maintenance costs onto the taxpayer and trying to get it as low as possible, uh rather than make it expensive to produce profit if you go as cheap as possible to make everything cost as less as possible, then the prices would go down. And then the like returns on all these other uh technologies and companies are talking about would be even higher. So just saying but fusion could spawn its own set of industry giants, companies that build fusion reactors, companies that supply specialized materials like advanced superconductors or lasers for the reactors, and companies that leverage the cheap energy in innovative ways. Early investors and the Wright companies could see exponential growth. If you've invested in personal computing in the 1980s or the internet in 1990s, you might have seen massive returns once those technologies reshaped the world. Fusion stands at a similar juncture today. A few firms are developing breakthrough reactors, and if one of them cracks the code commercially, the value creation would be immense, which they already have cracked the code. This is like such a paradoxical thing of like, oh, we we're almost there, we just need more money. And then over here we just read they are there, but now they need more money.

SPEAKER_00:

I'll shut it down, I'll shut it down, yeah. I'll shut it down.