Wow, is it possible that a small, relatively simple apparatus will replace oil as the source of all energy? (Note, I keep seeing this as "son-of-fusion", but I'm weird.)
Wanna bet there'll a completely new set of environmental problems if this turns out to be "Mr. Fusion" after all? If it becomes practical to produce a small device that's used to power all sorts of things with out having to connect to utilities or stop at a station to buy gasoline, what's likely to change? An old science fiction story I read postulated a small, polution free source of energy only to have it wreck the environment by becoming so popular that the millions of them raised the earth's temperature directly, by-passing green house gases. Just another way to screw up paradise.
Think of the economic and political implications. Hundreds of thousands unemployed in the US alone. It would be a temporary thing once the technology started creating new jobs, but would that matter to the unemployed? The Middle East taking a back seat again. Would they like that? First we pay too much attention, then we leave them to slip back into poverty.