The Stockholder

<p>A more immediate threat than climate change the mid-21st-century energy dilemma inspires reclusive trillionaire Lyman Dysart ��� called The Stockholder by his privately owned company employees ��� to finance research and development of the ultimate energy solution: controlled nuclear fusion power generation.</p><p>Plasma constituents of the patented Omega Pinch process are deuterium which is plentiful and the ultra-scarce fusible helium isotope found mainly on the moon. The isotope necessitates expensive strip-mining on the lunar surface.</p><p>Panic ensues in the minds and wallets of the OPEC/conventional energy cartel led by Vonex Chairman Belkin Reichert who brandishes behind-the-scenes political influence to suborn fusion's advent by promoting solar energy and eventually nationalization of the newborn industry.</p><p>The battle of wills climaxes when Dysart attempts to defeat nationalization by holding hostage his lunar mining venture and its crucial product.</p><p>His nuclear fusion propaganda campaign captures the public imagination by describing the innovative system as: a plasma containment shell surrounded by huge cables monstrous electromagnets and sophisticated ancillary equipment at its heart a dervish of semi-vacuum burning so furiously that it emulates temperatures reigning at the center of the sun yet gives forth no light but presumes to light the world in a beneficent utopian glow.</p><p><strong>About the Author: </strong>A retired aerospace engineer at Lockheed William Walling enjoyed a second career as a technical writer in Silicon Valley. He also published many works of science and historical fiction and at age 94 was putting the finishing touches on <em>The Stockholder</em> when he passed away in January 2021. This final book is being published posthumously.</p>