Here is another ambitious inventor, eagerly persuing a big improvement over our way of generating power.

http://www.thestar.com/sciencetech/article/300042

This could be very cool. Physics needs work. And right now, the biggest thing Physics could be working on is the ability to generate more power. Gas prices, electric bills, rockets, etc, all depend on the ability to create power when where you need it and with easy.

This civilization is on a turning point, it is at a point where it must rethink it's basic laws. It must get much better with with what it has. This phase is not new, it must be done and redone again and again at different points. Each time it gains a better understanding and a new level of ability. All that we understand now is good for the civilization we have now and not one that is better.

In the many discoveries are milestones, where great leaps are made possible. Right now we are playing around with things at a nano level. This is the level of molecules. While we play around with atomic, basic errors in atomic theory bar us from doing much with the level. The next level will be atomic when these errors are cleaned up and a better subatomic understanding is achieved. This will also mark the first true atomic level utilization of power. Not just a bomb or hot water heater.

This atomic level I am referring to is about 75 to 150 years away. It will also mark the point where inter planetary system travel will be possible. Aside from the short range ballistic probes we now have. And a very limited interstellar era will begin.