This article concludes with "The research was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy.", does this impacts the availability of the research to other researchers? Even with the University of Washington in my backyard, I hope the advancements in such an important field are shared as widely as possible.

On the fusion topic, energy.gov reports 63 active US Fusion Program Participants, and over 100 total (including gov't, private companies, international with US pressence)[1]. But last year the Boston Globe reported that MIT was shutting down, "The shutdown will leave only two fusion experiments in the United States, one at Princeton University and the other at General Atomics, a company in San Diego", due to a cutoff of federal funding.[2]

Anyone have any insight on the actual current state of fusion energy R&D in the U.S.?

[1] http://science.energy.gov/fes/research/fusion-institutions

[2] http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/05/19/fusion-energy-re...