I am fond of tinkerers as the real source of innovations. We have become too arrogant in thinking that innovation must come from stellar institutions of higher learning, or big corporations, or large government research labs all with large R&D budgets.
The facts don't seem to support this biased view. Take for instance the transistor. True it came out of Bell Labs, but it was actually an underfunded off budget "skunk works" project that was championed by the inventors - tinkerers. Same for the personal computer - Jobs and Wosniak tinkering in their garage, or Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillin, or Thomas Edison's Menlo park laboratory, or a myriad other examples throughout history. All championed by rather eccentric individuals that were out of the mainstream thinking of their time and were often ridiculed by their peers.
Some buttoned-up types will look at Coulter and his disheveled appearance and his "laboratory" and see a junk-works run by a kook. I see inklings of creative genius.
The point is that real, paradigm shifting creativity and innovation is as unmanageable as it is unpredictable. I think it would be worthwhile to see what he has or doesn't have in terms of fusion energy. Considering the risk/reward ratio, someone with the scientific background and an open, unbiased mind might just find the most significant discovery/invention since the wheel, but then again, the odds say not. I'd say it's worth a look and a few hours of time to see.
The problem is going to be his "open source" philosophy. Sounds nice, but that philosophy violates the simple rule: "That which is everybody's is nobody's!"
Anyone know a good physicist with an open mind that would be up for a little road trip?