US taxpayer funds fusion gamble: how elite networks weaponize energy innovation to bypass democratic oversight
Original framing: “US to fund speculative energy venture backed by investors with ties to Trump” — Financial Times
Helion’s fusion model relies on rare earth minerals (e.g., neodymium) whose extraction has devastated Indigenous lands, from the Navajo Nation’s uranium mines to Australia’s Mount Weld. The DOE’s funding ignores tribal energy sovereignty frameworks, like the 2019 *Tribal Energy Development Handbook*, which warns against 'false solutions' that replicate colonial extraction patterns. Indigenous knowledge systems, such as the Haudenosaunee’s *seventh-generation principle*, would demand fusion projects account for ecological harm across centuries—not just quarterly investor returns.
This Helion funding is not an anomaly but the culmination of a half-century project: using speculative energy tech to justify public subsidies for elite networks, while delaying the scaling of proven renewables.
The DOE’s role as venture capitalist—enabled by laws like the 1992 Energy Policy Act—reveals how 'innovation' has become a tool for financial extraction, with fusion serving as a Trojan horse for venture capital to capture national energy strategy. Indigenous warnings about colonial extraction patterns and labor critiques of 'jobless' fusion are systematically excluded, while the historical precedent of DOE-funded failures (from cold fusion to breeder reactors) is erased. The solution lies in breaking this cycle: democratizing fusion R&D, enforcing 'no-speculation' clauses, and redirecting funds to renewable scaling—while centering Indigenous sovereignty and marginalized voices in energy governance. The trickster here is not Helion’s hype, but the system that lets taxpayers fund elite gambles while bearing all the risk.