MY LIFE: 2b

The big news of the day is that, according to President Donald Trump, Israel and Iran have agreed to a ceasefire.

Of course, he has made similar statements in the past, on 2April2026 and 8June2026.  We'll know in a day or two if this latest development will last, leading to an opening of the Strait of Hormuz and success in peace talks.

However, yesterday:

When Welker mentioned what local (California) officials have said about the process, Trump said, “They’re crooked. Just like you’re crooked. Your press is crooked and Meet the Press is crooked.” 

Then, President Trump stormed out of an interview with NBC's Kristen Welker yesterday, after being challenged on false claims about California's ongoing elections and the 6January2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, something he has done in the past, like the CBS 60 Minutes interview with Lesley Stahl in 2020, and several more instances in the past.  Presidents Biden, Obama, both Bushs' and Clinton never did so in anger.

To bring you up to date, I began my first episode of the three 27-year periods of my life, my educational phase, a week ago.  Part 1b came a couple of days later, and the first chapter of my second 27-year period, representing my "work" years, on Thursday.  Thus, today, Part 2b.

In the second half of the 1970s I became an associate professor of engineering, taught courses in computer programming, environmental engineering and technology & society.

• Technology and society was especially interesting for me, as I created it, and students could use the course to satisfy one of their interdisciplinary requirements.  
• Typically, the class had a lecture size of a 100, about equally split among engineering, science, the social sciences and humanities majors, with three breakout sessions of 33 students each to complete projects related to the community and environment.  
• This provided me an opportunity to have students with different backgrounds and interests to work together on a topic of technological importance for the future of humanity.
• 
  One semester, in particular, was immensely rewarding.
• I was able to obtain National Science Foundation funding for the class to produce a book on renewable energy.  That yellow one.
• Some leaders formed a team to educate the state legislature, which provided additional funds for them to visit school programs on all the major islands.
• The State Department of Education  used the book for their high school energy course.
• In addition to Fortran IV Programming I expanded into computer graphics.

I spent two summer months in the second half of the 1970s at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) on laser fusion.

• In 1974 my apartment was adjacent to a vineyard of Wente Brothers.
• A competing winery in Livermore was Concannon.  They developed the Petite Sirah wine which I think now is the #1 red wine in the world.

• 
  Petite Sirah grown in Paso Robles is as good as grapes get for the finest red wine.  Read about my recent journey to this site.
• There was another special reason why I wanted to visit Paso Robles.

• 
  During my four years at Stanford, I drove through this town at least 20 times and never stopped once.  But then, they had very few wineries.  That was 64 years ago.

• 
  Today?  More than 200 of them, and some produce the finest red wines, even better than French Bordeaux and Napa Cabernet Sauvignon.
• What did I do at LLNR?  Not much.  My building of tunable lasers got me this summer job, and, well, it was summer.
• 
  I did, however, decide in 1979 that the laser to accomplish commercial fusion was not yet invented, and who knew when that would happen.  

• 
  Nearly 47 years later, this remains unknown.  
• However, Lawrence Livermore attained fusion ignition in 2022.
• 
  ITER in France using magnetic confinement is not expected to reach that milestone until 2039.
• Billionaires are now beginning to invest in this development.
• Watch this video on How Close Ae We to Fusion Energy?

In 1979, during the heat of the Second Energy Crisis, I was asked to work for U.S. Senator Spark Matsunaga in DC.

• I got a leave of absence from the University of Hawaii.
• Drafted the original legislation for ocean energy and hydrogen, and worked closely with the House to pass the first wind energy bill.
• All this legislative experience and personal links to governmental officers made a huge difference in my job to come when I returned to academia.

• 
  During this three-year assignment, there was an opportunity to experience life in the East.
• Took Amtrak to New York City several times, and on one trip had a fabulous Cellar in the Sky dinner, located in the middle of Windows of the World, at the top floor (107th) of the North Tower of the World Trade Center, which collapsed on 9/11/2001.
• Spring flowers, Fall foliage, museums, concerts on the Mall.... 

After three years with the U.S. Senate, I returned to the University of Hawaii as a full professor of engineering in 1982.

• Over the next few years, new Dean of Engineering Paul Yuen and I determined that there was a flaw in the transition of academic research to the marketplace.
• We thus created the Pacific International Center for High Technology Research (PICHTR) with the strong support of Senators Daniel Inouye and Spark Matsunaga, Governor George Ariyoshi and University of Hawaii President Fujio Matsuda.

• 
  This new technology transfer organization, hopefully serving as the bridge between academia and industry, created several showcase projects, all valued at $25 million and more.
• Built an open cycle ocean thermal energy conversion at the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii on the west side of the Big Island, and succeeded in gaining net positive energy and producing freshwater.  Watch Luis Vega provide a TedX talk on this subject.
• 
  On the island Maui, a biofuels facility to convert biomass (sugar cane waste bagasse) into biomethanol to serve as a transportation fuel to replace gasoline.

• PICHTR, forty years today remains as a successful organization headquartered in Honolulu.

The Pacific International Center for High Technology Research, however, was a secondary effort, for my primary job was director of the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute at the University of Hawaii from the mid-1980s to 1999 when I retired.

• I took over directorship a decade after I helped create it following the first energy crisis in 1973.  Ran it for 15 years.  I recruited current director Rick Rocheleau, who went on to direct HNEI, now in his 27th year.
• 
  While director, the Institute became the Department of Energy's national Hydrogen Research Center with the Florida Solar Energy Center, Department of Interior's national Marine Minerals Center with the University Mississippi and National Foundation's Marine Bioproducts Engineering Center with the University California at Berkeley.  

• 
  Combining my personal research with bills I drafted while working in the U.S. Senate which became national priorities in hydrogen and ocean energy, and the accomplishments of HNEI, we began to work with organizations around the world to develop the Blue Revolution.  Here are two talks and articles I wrote for The Huffington Post worthy of your follow-up: 

• 
  A 2012 talk I gave at the Seasteading Institute Conference in San Francisco.
• A TedX presentation I provided in 2022 titled, The Time for the Blue Revolution is Now.
• Huffington Post articles.
• The Dawn of the Blue Revolution.
• The Ultimate Ocean Ranch.
• The Blue Revolution.
• The Blue Revolution is the Optimal Solution for Japan.

• 
  What is the status of the Blue Revolution?  
• This $150 million project is too large for governments and companies.
• We await the interest of a visionary billionaire.
• You can become famous if you lead such an individual to that article.

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WHAT IS THE STATE OF FUSION TODAY?

Wednesday is sci-tech day for this blog site.  But before getting into that, first, a comment about viewership.  

• Google runs my blog.
• This is why, in my transition to being replaced by Artificial Intelligence, I turn to Google AI.

• I have two daily sites with the same posting.
• The original one began 17 years ago and ran out of links to the internet:  This blog site initially focused on renewable energy and the environment. But that was SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Planet Earth. My next book, SS for Humanity, opened the subject area to everything else, including SETI, the afterlife, travel and cuisine. However, I still provide, now and then, SIMPLE SOLUTIONS.
• Thus, a few years ago I in parallel started another blog site with the same posting of the day:  New SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for PLANET EARTH AND HUMANITY: This blog site derives from the original version of Planet Earth & Humanity, but will be more WE than ME. The coverage will remain similar, but perhaps these postings will seem to come from a parallel universe, or maybe even Purgatory. But truth and reality will prevail, with dashes of whimsy and levity to help make your day.
• 
  Since the beginning, the combined sites have averaged a little more than 500 viewers/day, and have reached 211 countries.  More than the number in the United Nations because domains like Antarctica have their own address.

• 
  This blog site began with a focus on science and technology, reflecting my book on SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Planet Earth.
• A year later, I published SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Humanity, which covered topics new to me, like religion, education and the like.
• Feedback was such that people who read this blog more liked my travel postings than the scientific ones.

• 
  I thus expanded the site to write about what was on my mind when I went to the computer each morning.
• When we began our monumental Orient trip in November of 2025, a journey that took two months, like in the past, viewership went up to 5,000/day.
• Yesterday, it shot passed 16,000.  I guess Elvis is popular.
• Read about The Resurrection Elvis in the original format.
• Or the new one.

About President Donald Trump's State of the Union talk last night.

• Missed it?  Here is the entire speech, breaking the record with longest State of the Union Address in history.  How long?  1 hour and 47 minutes, exceeding his own record set last year.
• How good or bad was this effort?  Depends on who remarks.
• I thought it was boring, but okay. Brought in emotional glories.  Yes, I watched the whole thing.
• From Google AI:

President 

Donald Trump

 delivered his first official State of the Union address of his second term on Tuesday, February 24, 2026. Lasting approximately one hour and 48 minutes, it set a new record as the longest State of the Union address in modern history. 

Key Highlights and Themes

• The Economy: Trump declared the U.S. economy to be in a "golden age" and a "turnaround for the ages," claiming inflation is "plummeting". He touted his 2025 tax cuts and argued that his tariff policies would eventually replace the federal income tax.
• Immigration: He defended a hardline immigration agenda, citing the "strongest and most secure border" in history, while sparring with Democrats over enforcement tactics.
• Domestic Proposals: Trump called for a permanent ban on institutional investors buying single-family homes to address housing costs and proposed a plan for the tech industry to provide its own power for AI data centers to lower community utility bills.
• Foreign Policy: He touched briefly on Iran, vowing to prevent it from obtaining nuclear weapons, and praised a "new partnership" with Venezuela following recent military interventions there. 
• Notable Moments
• Honoring Heroes: The address featured several emotional tributes, including awarding Purple Hearts to National Guardsmen and recognizing the gold medal-winning U.S. men’s Olympic hockey team.
• Partisan Tension: The atmosphere was highly combative. Approximately 73 Democrats boycotted the event, and those in attendance often sat in silence. Rep. Al Green (D-TX) was escorted out early for protesting.
• Supreme Court: Trump addressed the court directly, calling a recent ruling that struck down his emergency tariffs "unfortunate" and "totally wrong"
• Reactions
• Viewership Polls: A CNN/SSRS poll found that 64% of speech-watchers had a positive reaction, though this audience leaned 13 points more Republican than the general public.

• Democratic Response: Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger delivered the Democratic rebuttal, accusing the president of lying and "scapegoating" rather than solving the "affordability crisis".

I then asked Google AI, what did the FOX streaming news channel say about the address:

• In summary, Fox News coverage framed the 2026 State of the Union as a resoundingly successful and high-energy speech that solidified Republican enthusiasm while contrasting sharply with the opposition.
• Praise for a "Home Run" Speech: Conservative commentators and hosts, including those on Fox Business, labeled the address a "home run" and a "colossus" of an "amazingly patriotic speech".
• There was more.

Interesting, but I asked Google AI what MS Now said about Trump's speech.  No matter how I asked, my query was ignored.  So I went to a state of Washington NBC local station in Yakima:

MS NOW: Rachel Maddow Blasts Trump’s ‘Wound Up & Weird’ SOTU Speech

Here is a You Tube video of the above.  An NBC article fact-checking of his speech.  Haven't seen a Nielsen poll on the address last night, but with an increasing population, these State of the Union talks are losing the public's interest.

My professional career covered all the renewable energies, plus nuclear fusion.  I spent two assignments at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on laser fusion, and ran the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute at the University of Hawaii, where I had researchers focus on cold fusion.  My PhD dissertation involved building a tunable laser for a bioreactor.

First, some science for fusion vs fission:

• Fission occurs with the splitting of heavy elements like uranium and plutonium to produce energy, a good example is the Atomic Bomb, as was used twice on Japan near the end of World War II.  Watch the 2023 Oppenheimer, rated 93/91 by Rotten Tomatoes. All nuclear power plants today use this process.

• 
  Fusion is the merging of hydrogen molecules to produce helium and energy, as the Hydrogen Bomb.
• The most powerful A-Bomb was Fat Man over Nagasaki at 21 kilotons.
• The most powerful H-Bomb was the Russian Tsar Bomba, exploded in 1962, at 50,000 kilotons.
• In all stars, like our Sun, four hydrogen protons are combined to form helium and immense power.  
• The typical core temperature range is between 10-15 million Kelvin.
• Zero Kelvin equals -273.15 Celsius.
• 
  On Earth, researchers, such as for ITER in France, heat hydrogen isotopes, deuterium and tritium, to over 100 million K, creating a plasma state where atomic nuclei overcome repulsion to fuse and release energy using magnetic confinement, or something like a Tokamak reactor, which is donut shaped.  
• Net-positive energy is  expected in 2035, but this is widely optimistic.
• Could cost $65 billion to do that.

• 
  A competing fusion concept, inertial confinement, is used at the Lawerence Livermore National Laboratory, employing intense laser beams to inertially confine droplets of these two isotopes.
• Energy breakeven (net-positive energy) was attained on 5December2022 using 192 lasers, producing an energy output of 3.15 MJ.
• Cost to attain that goal was $3.5 billion.
• I worked at the Lawrence Livermore Lab twice on this project in the 1970s.  I left the field because I thought the laser for commercialization was not close to being developed.  Note, this was HALF a Century ago.
• A neodymium-doped phosphate glass laser system was used at LLNR.
• It is speculated that the eventual commercial laser will likely rely on diode-pumped solid-state, krypton fluoride gas, short-pulse petawatt-scale or an advanced Nd-glass system.
• In other words, they still don't know.
• 
  Which fusion process is more promising?
• ITER might reach net-positive from 2035-2039 at a cost of $65 billion.
• A commercial laser fusion plant is projected to cost $5 billion.
• Maybe I'm prejudiced, but laser fusion seems more promising than ITER fusion.

Something more has happened in this field.  From Google AI:

The global industry is rapidly accelerating the development of nuclear fusion, shifting from purely scientific research to commercial engineering, with over 

$9.7 billion in private investment attracted as of July 2025. Companies are now building pilot plants, developing high-temperature superconducting magnets, and applying artificial intelligence to achieve net-energy fusion and deliver power to the grid by the 2030.

Several leading startups have announced specific dates for grid-ready power: 

• Helion Energy: Plans to bring a 50 MW fusion plant online by 2028 through a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with Microsoft.
• Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS): Aims to turn on its SPARC demonstration device in 2027 and a commercial 400 MW plant (ARC) in Virginia by the early 2030s.

• 
  TAE Technologies: Recently announced a plan to merge with Donald Trump's social media company to accelerate development.
• General Fusion: Developing a magnetized target fusion plant in the UK, aiming for commercial operation by the early 2030s

How are these firms being funded?

• Sam Altman: Invested over 
  

  $\$1$
   billion in Helion Energy, which has a contract with Microsoft to provide power by 2028.

• 
  Bill Gates: Backs Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), which is building the SPARC net-energy fusion plant in Massachusetts, and Type One Energy, which is working on stellarator technology.

• 
  Jeff Bezos: Through Bezos Expeditions, he has invested in General Fusion, a Canadian company building a commercial fusion power plant.

• 
  Peter Thiel: Invested in Helion Energy through Mithril Capital Management.
• Other Investors: Mark Zuckerberg, Marc Benioff, and Dustin Moskovitz are investors in CFS.
• These moguls seem to more like magnetic confinement.  I asked Google AI:  Is there any hope for cold fusion to some day attain reality.

• 

Whether cold fusion (now often called Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions, or LENR) will ever become a reality is a subject of intense debate, sitting on the boundary between fringe science and a possible "hidden" breakthrough. While the scientific community generally regarded the 1989 claims as a failure, a small, dedicated group of researchers and some private funding have kept the field alive.

 

One final 2026 Winter Olympic note, this from The Loop, Stanford Alumni Association and STANFORD magazine.

On the final day of the 2026 Winter Olympics, Eileen Gu and Zoe Atkin, both ’26 (mostly means they both began as freshmen in 2022, but they had major leaves of absence, so 2027 would be a more accurate year for graduation), took gold and bronze, respectively, in the women’s freeski halfpipe. The medal was Gu’s third of these Games and sixth overall, making her the most decorated freeskier in Olympic history.

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