Reasons to Get Involved with Fusion

Reasons to fund fusion research

• It’s tax deductible
• You will make the world a better place
• You will make history
• You will relieve the energy crisis
• Your taxpayer dollars are already funding fusion - just not very efficiently
• Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country
• It’s the logical approach to problem solving
• Be the venture capitalist you want to see in the world!
• Skeptics:  Explore alternatives in fusion
• Cynics:  Give us a long enough rope to hang ourselves.
• But What If It Doesn’t Work?
• Find your own reason

It’s Tax Deductible

In the midst of the holiday revelry, take the time to make a year-end contribution to the Focus Fusion Society (“FFS”).

The FFS is now a tax-exempt charity under section 501 (c) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code. The effective date of the exemption is October 31, 2005, so any contributions that you made to FFS since that date are tax-deductible under section 170 of the Code.  The IRS notified FFS of the status in a Dec 2 letter that FFS received Dec. 14.

Your support of the Focus Fusion Society brings us closer to the development of Proton-Boron fusion - an environmentally safe, clean, low cost, unlimited energy source for everyone!

You will make the world a better place;

Have you read the “Why Fusion” section?  If so, you know how much the world needs Fusion.  By supporting Focus Fusion, you are taking action on the quest for fusion.  Your contribution lends force to the systematic effort to attack the fusion problem.  Either Focus Fusion will work right away and you will have helped save the world immediately, or it won’t quite work, but we will have added to the body of knowledge about fusion and be that much closer to solving the puzzle. 

Either way, you will have helped to “plant the banner of humanity a few furlongs further into chaos,” and that makes the world a better place. 

You Will Make History

We are raising money for fusion research from all the traditional channels, and will eventually get the work done one way or another.  If we succeed, we will have made history. 

If you’re one of the people who supported us, you will have made history as well.  You will be able to look your kids/friends/anybody in the eye and say:

I personally played my part in humanity’s quest for fusion. I directly contributed to this excellent endeavor!  I, personally, made fusion happen.

You may not have been one of the scientists sweating away in the lab, but you made their work possible.  You will have made fusion possible. You will have made history. We thank you, your country thanks you, and we’re documenting this so the future generations will know who to thank.

Yes, in the event that we prove the concept - that we demonstrate net energy from our plasma focus device, we will acknowledge the contribution of our members, donors and volunteers to fusion history. At the very least, we will put your names up on a commemorative website of the contributors. In the event that a museum or memorial is made to commemorate the invention, your contribution will be noted in a book or artwork that will be housed there. [Please note, you can also remain anonymous and uncredited if you prefer. Just let us know if that is your preference.] 

You will relieve the energy crisis

If this project is successful, energy costs will drop by more than a factor of ten and the grip of oil and gas on world economics and politics will be broken. We will give to our descendants a cleaner and safer world, a world where there are no material barriers to providing everyone with decent food, clothing and housing. We will live in fusion world. 

Just in terms of how you and your family would benefit, consider that the average US family spends $600 a month for energy, including the energy costs of the goods and services they buy. With focus fusion those costs could drop to $60 a month or less.

Your taxpayer dollars are already funding fusion - just not very efficiently

The government is, as usual, spending your hard-earned money in the most inefficient manner possible.  Consider funding our project as a pre-emptive strike against this government waste that will ultimately save you a ton of money in taxes. 

Despite criticism of conventional fusion research, the US government has earmarked up to $150,000,000 a year for it, concentrated in the ITER program.  At the same time our government has substantially reduced funds for research into alternative fusion approaches.

As a taxpayer, you are paying for this research. This $150,000,000 a year is coming from your wallet. Note that with the conventional approach, a breakthrough is not expected for ~50 years.  If there were no alternatives and this were the only road to fusion, it is money well spent.  In fact, they need to spend a lot more to get the research moving quicker. 

There are, however, alternatives, one of the most compelling of which is focus fusion. Better yet, the focus fusion concept is very cheap and easy to test. It can take as little as two years and $2 million to prove it one way or another.

In addition to funding focus fusion, if you feel that your tax dollars would be better spent by diversifying (e.g., by spreading the funding across both conventional and alternative fusion research), let your representatives in Washington know!  Participate in our lobbying forums to discuss ways of going about this. 

Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country

Why sit around and wait for government to solve our big energy problems, anyway?  Wouldn’t it feel better to take action and get things done ourselves?  Why just be a passive beneficiary of someone else’s efforts?  Sure, they might eventually get something done in half a century, but why wait for them?  As Abraham Lincoln said: “The job of the government is to do for the people what they cannot do for themselves.” 

There is nothing stopping ordinary people from coming together to develop a fusion reactor.  Not in an internet age.  At least there’s nothing to stop them from trying.

With Focus Fusion research, the first and most crucial step can be taken by 100,000 people chipping in $20 each, or 50,000 people chipping in $40. With this seed money, we have enough for proof-of-concept.  What’s the concept?  That for a thousandth of the cost of a conventional fusion reactor (the type of reactor our government favors), we can have clean, safe, cheap, decentralized, abundant fusion energy for everyone. Let’s solve the fusion puzzle in just a few years.

The logical approach to problem solving

In problem solving, the most efficient approach is to start with the simplest, quickest and cheapest solutions first.  If the simple cheap solution is wrong, you haven’t wasted much time, and if it’s right, you’ve solved the problem quickly, and saved a lot of time and effort (not to mention present and future tax dollars).  This applies to fusion research, as noted in this criticism of fusion research from Bruno Coppi of MIT. 

The Focus Fusion Society is confident in its concept of a practical device that will produce net-energy using fusion (click here for a description of the focus fusion reactor). It has taken years of research, theory and simulation to get here (click here for our history). At this point we need to prove the concept to the world (click here for our research plan). For that, we need an estimated two years and two million dollars ($2,000,000).

While the conventional fusion research community suggests that net energy from fusion is a vague 50 years and billions of dollars away, we think proof-of-concept is two years and two million dollars away. To give you some perspective, that’s the salary of two “friends” for one episode of the “Friends” sitcom. For half an hour with Ross and Phoebe, there’s a good chance we can demonstrate that fusion works.

Be the venture capitalist you want to see in the world!

Who says that venture capital has to come from one rich dude? Together, we are very rich. Your $40 can leverage an amazing transformation in the world. We don’t need one “great man” to get this done and take all the credit.  We can approach fusion like a barn raising! Make it a wide-spread, systematic effort to have fusion now. Apply the “Long Tail” phenomenon to scientific research.  Make the process of obtaining fusion as broad-based, democratic and empowering as the energy itself. If enough people chip in, we’ll have the capital we need to run the experiments to prove that focus fusion works.

Skeptics:  Explore alternatives in fusion

Focus Fusion proposes a testable hypothesis and seeks funding to complete its proof-of-concept research.  Until that empirical research is done, we can’t guarantee anything. We need two million dollars for proof-of-concept research to test the hypothesis.  These tests will demonstrate, one way or another, whether focus fusion works or not.  The cost is modest. 

Systematic skeptics out there who fund us will speed up this process and we can arrive at an objective reality within a few years.  In contrast, cynics posing as skeptics may sit and fizz with derision, but it won’t lead to any clarity on the topic. 

From Skeptic.com we see that the skeptic should be inclined to test the hypothesis:

Some people believe that skepticism is the rejection of new ideas, or worse, they confuse “skeptic” with “cynic” and think that skeptics are a bunch of grumpy curmudgeons unwilling to accept any claim that challenges the status quo. This is wrong. Skepticism is a provisional approach to claims. It is the application of reason to any and all ideas - no sacred cows allowed. In other words, skepticism is a method, not a position.

For more on Focus Fusion and skepticism Click here »

Cynics:  Give us a long enough rope to hang ourselves.

For those of you who think we are delusional and/or otherwise doomed to failure - put your money where your opinion is.  The sooner we run the tests, the sooner we’ll know if it works.  If you fund us, you can’t lose!  Either we’ll fail, and you’ll be RIGHT!  Or we’ll succeed, and your pessimism will have been leveraged to help discover fusion.  It’s win/win.

But What If It Doesn’t Work?

No risk, no glory.  Proof-of-concept research is a risk, but based on previous research, we feel the odds are in our favor. We are going forward into the unknown, attempting to get net energy from fusion. This is something that has never been done before.

“Proof-of-concept” means that with the $2,000,000, we will be able to prove whether what we are proposing can or can’t be done. We are confident that it CAN be done. In the unlikely event that we don’t succeed in achieving net energy, the knowledge gained from the research will still be valuable as it will add to the body of our understanding of fusion and stimulate other fusion pursuits.

Thomas Edison, the man who tried a thousand filaments before finding the right one for his light bulb, is quoted as saying:

Results? Why, man, I have gotten lots of results! If I find 10,000 ways something won’t work, I haven’t failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is often a step forward….

To us, the research is worth it either way, but of course, we hope for the best. 

The upside is - you could help discover fusion!  And save the world!  The downside is, you might be out a few bucks.  Decide how much you can risk, and donate what feels comfortable.  Don’t fear that your friends will mock you for being a fool for fusion.  It’s more likely they’ll admire your character and your pioneering spirit.

Yes, the road to innovation is littered with the broken hearts of thousands of inventors and scientists who explored and attempted things and encountered surprises and reversals and are not remembered.  Science still builds on their work, and to us, they’re still heroes.  Without this seething mass of people compelled to try things and discover things, we’d be nowhere. 

And finally, on the topic of uncertainty and decision making, here’s what Teddy Roosevelt has to say » 

Find your own reason

As for me, I knew about fusion for a while, but didn’t actually DO anything until my cousin Omead died in our war in Iraq.  He was willing to risk his life - in fact he gave his life - to do something about our current global conflicts.  The least I can do is to do everything I can to help explore and discover fusion and make this world a better place.  Then maybe other people won’t lose their cousins in the spectacular failure of human imagination that is war.  A little bit of time, a little bit of money, the risk of failure.  These are a small price to pay against a far larger possibility.

Fusion.  Now.  This time it’s personal.