[xte]

They simply can't... Less powerful in that sense means less developed. Such kind of research demand enormous resources and knowledge.

These days industrial knowledge is mostly in private hands with universities that are not anymore a "center of (public) knowledge" bu mere gym to form Ford-models workers with a different skillset respect of classic one but not much different in terms of ability to understand the big picture, being autonomous etc.

In present society there is no room for new "Einstein", "Tesla" etc.

[AboutTheWhisles]

Your post that I replied to said that no governments wanted free energy, now you are shifting the goal post to some sort of further made up hypothetical world where big governments have free energy and small governments don't.

[xte]

I reformulate: no governments that theoretically can achieve free energy want it, perhaps governments that can't dream it as a temporary solution to find a way to lock it out for their own sake. Better?

Keep in mind a thing: hitler was not blocked via military operation forces against forces nor interior civil war but due to the lack of gasoline. And that's true for essentially anything. If you can "ground" a country you can rule it to a certain extent a thing any government powerful enough want.

Did you remember prohibitionist in the USA to avoid an improbable development of alcohol powered cars because produce alcohol is easy, produce gasoline it's not?

I can cite many more examples.