Why Elon Musk Isn't Enthusiastic About This Energy Technology Backed By Bill Gates And Jeff Bezos

Elon Musk has often spoken about his interest in sustainable energy and its development. Recently, in a Twitter exchange, he discussed the relative merits of the different energy sources.

What Happened: Fusion is an expensive energy source due to the difficulty involved in obtaining and transporting source fuel and maintaining the reactor, the Tesla, Inc. TSLA CEO said.

He was replying to a comment by one of his followers who suggested that nuclear fusion has the potential for providing limitless clean energy.

Musk went on to say, the Sun, however, is a thermonuclear reactor that doesn’t require refueling or servicing.

The billionaire has a point here. Mankind has yet to effectively tap into fusion as an energy service, given fusion reactors consume far more energy than they produce, Futurism reported.

See also: Elon Musk Predicts Civilization Will Be Powered By This Energy Source In The Future

His fellow billionaires, however, have in the past reposed their faith in fusion technology. Amazon, Inc. AMZN founder Jeff Bezos has invested in Canada’s General Fusion, which was planning a large-scale nuclear fusion demonstration plant in Oxfordshire in the U.K., the BBC reported in June 2021.

Earlier this year, MIT said it has made an agreement with Bill Gates-backed Commonwealth Fusion Systems for collaborating on fusion energy research and education activities.

Musk Bats For Solar, Wind Energy: The primary solution to a sustainable energy future is solar and wind energy, with batteries to store the energy, Musk said.

These will have to be interconnected with conventional high-voltage lines, he said. More importantly, no unknown technology is needed to tap into these energy sources, and store and distribute the energy derived from these sources, he added.

“Hydro+geothermal+fission will also be non-trivial contributors,” Musk said.

Photo: Created with an image from TED Conference on flickr