I don't think it would work to patent a groundbreaking technology. Think of the oil standard and the importance of oil for the whole economy (not only US but for the whole world). Just as Obama cannot pull all troops out of Iraq even if he wanted to one cannot simply patent a free energy technology and sell it.
The only way it would work in my opinion is gathering precise and detailed information on the technology and put it with a General Public License on as many sharing channels (web, ftp, email-lists, usenet, torrent, one-click-hosters,. ..) as possible. But be sure to make it precise enough that people can actually replicate this and it works.
To make profit the inventor can then start selling working units. Because many people would rather buy then build it themselves and the inventor has the most experience he'd be selling plenty of units.