It is odd that you mention this, unless your name is Karl and were at lunch last Wednesday :-), because it came up as something that companies with big cash hoards might actually be thinking about. Consider the notion that at some point a feasible fusion power plant design becomes "known". Then its a question of money to build one or two or 10. And a company like Google or Apple, with a large cash hoard could jump in, build some plants, power their infrastructure on their own plants and sell excess power to the grid, we even gave a name to the company "Google Power and Packet" :-).
The conversation came up because I was trying to fathom why a company would sit on billions of dollars when they could make more billions with it. This idea, that the future will have sudden insights that will take tremendous capital to exploit to create unassailable leadership positions, is not one I had considered. Fusion power, space opportunities, Etc, might be areas where things suddenly create an entirely new need.
The conversation came up because I was trying to fathom why a company would sit on billions of dollars when they could make more billions with it. This idea, that the future will have sudden insights that will take tremendous capital to exploit to create unassailable leadership positions, is not one I had considered. Fusion power, space opportunities, Etc, might be areas where things suddenly create an entirely new need.