Is COVID the Pearl Harbor moment of our lifetime? In my opinion, probably. As worldwide GDP continues to grow, the energy needed to maintain the developing industries and lives of those people will also increase. In my previous newsletter, I discussed the potential for solar energy to furnish all the electrical energy the world needs. Solar will undoubtedly be augmented with nuclear, wind, and geothermal energy. But that is only electrical energy. Electrical energy is just 40% of all energy consumed.

If you grew up and attended college before the 1900s or 2000s, you probably have not heard of “dark energy” or “dark matter”. The computer, tablet, or smart phone you are reading this letter on is ordinary matter. The chair you sit in, the food you eat, the car you drive, and the things you buy are all examples of “ordinary matter”. The lights we read by, the jet fuel that powers the planes we fly, and the sounds we hear are all examples of “ordinary energy”.

Our bodies are made up of cells – blood, bone, skin, and organ tissue. All are the cells in our body. All of those cells make up around 10 percent of the cells in our bodies. 90% of the cells we are not aware of – unless we get sick. Bacteria cells far outnumber the human cells in our bodies.1

Dark matter and dark energy are analogous to the bacteria in our bodies. We are unaware of them in our day to day lives. But science is identifying that dark energy makes up about 68% of the universe and dark matter another 27%. That means ordinary energy and ordinary matter make up just five percent of the universe. We are only aware of a limited amount of the total picture.

How do we know dark energy and dark matter exist? In space there are no atoms. But astronomers have noted that light still bends in space. The physicists hypothesize there are “Weakly Interacting Massive Particles” – WIMPs – that exist, and they exert a gravitational pull on light waves.2

Light travels in a straight line unless there is something to bend it. Our eyeglasses are either concave or convex to correct for far-sightedness or near-sightedness. The curvature is used to bend and focus the light rays. Light in space travels in a straight line unless there is something that bends it.

Unlike economics, physics is a science with only one correct answer. I remember that in 1964, Peter Higgs hypothesized there had to be a specific particle he called the “boson” particle. Nicknamed the “god particle” the Higgs Boson particle was just a hypothesis for 48 years. It was only July 4, 2012, that the particle was actually found. For nearly half a century it was no more than a theory, but it explained particle physics and had it been proven not to exist, all the work done in physics for the last 50 years would have been suspect, if not invalid.

The hypothesized WIMPs fall into the same category. They are the theoretical explanation of what has been observed in the chemistry of space, with the rotation of galaxies and with the expansion of the universe since the Big Bang.

Will physicists and other scientists go beyond their current work and actually identify WIMPs? And beyond that, could they learn how to manipulate them to our advantage? Will science show us how to tap into the dark energy, which could be less expensive and easier to tap than solar or wind or geo or petroleum?

Half the scientists who have ever lived are alive today. We continue to make a multitude of discoveries every year. How soon will we be able to tap into dark energy? Who knows? It could be disruptive even of solar and wind.

If and when that happens, will it not present investment opportunities? I believe it well could.

1. Randall, L. (2017). Dark matter and the dinosaurs: The astounding interconnectedness of the universe. Vintage Books.

2. The Economist Newspaper. (2014, April 12). Casting light on dark matter. The Economist. Retrieved December 15, 2021, from https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2014/04/12/casting-light-on-dark-matter