Reply To: Iconography

[Glenn Millam]

Focus fusion, as everyone reading this is likely aware, will change the fundamentals of providing energy. Because of its cellular nature, focus fusion will provide, not only cheap energy, but local energy.

From what I have read, the current idea is to sell licenses for the technology once it is finished. This may be a good idea, but it raises a few problems. First, licensing usually is synonymous with litigation. Those who don’t want to license will try to develop their own, ripping off the people who spent their lives making it happen in the first place. In order to protect the license, you must litigate, which means that money that would have otherwise be spent on R&D and in helping those who can’t afford the technology to get it will be spent on defending patents. Second, will licensing allow the owners of the technology proper control over its use? Here is an example.

Let’s say I own a glass factory. Glass is energy-intensive; in fact, the modern use of fossil fuels can be traced to the use of coal in glass factories in England a few centuries ago, before the steam engine. I now pay the local power utility lots of money every month to fire my furnaces. Then comes focus fusion. Now, will I simply change my operation so that I get my energy from the local utility at a new, mildly cheaper rate? Or do I build my own fusion power plant and get of the grid, and buy a few pounds of decaborane a year instead?

I work in printing. Back in the ’80’s, full-color “commercial” printing was a labor-intensive, highly expensive process that was much an art form as it was a science. Artists created art boards and mechanicals, with FPOs and lots of notes showing what and where screen builds should be dropped in by craftsmen called film strippers. Images were color-separated from transparencies and prints using special cameras ran by special camera operators. Preparing artwork for press was so expensive and hard that most printing companies did not do the process in house, but relied on special service bureaus called “color houses” to do the work for them. This made publishing color materials too expensive for all but the richest of clients, usually large businesses.

Then came desktop publishing, and specifically, Postscript from Adobe. Using Postscript, PC’s could be used to generate artwork with the color built into them. The artwork could then be sent electronically to the printer. The printer, not having to have expensive cameras and teams of highly-trained strippers on staff, could generate the color separations directly to printing plates (or in the case of digital printing, send it directly to the press), and, not only save a truckload of cash, but print the job faster, with less error. All the printer needed was a few technicians that could repair digital artwork, and run the machines, and buy upgrades and service contracts to keep up with new technology and keep the machines running smoothly.

The losers were the big color houses that, in effect, controlled the industry. The winners were everyone else. By using technology to do an end-run around the color houses, more people can now afford to publish their works, and even small businesses can have quality printing.

Back to the glass factory. I, as the owner, see the profit potential of making my own energy. What I need is for someone who knows what they are doing to build me a power plant, train some of my employees to run it, and sell me a service contract for its maintenance and spare parts.

If I can:

1) By change of regulation, be allowed to make my own power,
2) By change in tax law, be allowed to take some of the cost of the power plant of my tax bill,
3) By amortization, show how over a 3-5 year span how much I will save vs. paying the power company,

I can justify moving off the grid and start generating my own, clean energy, and undercut my competition, thus increasing my market share and profits.

So what does the company selling focus fusion get from this? What should it offer?

It should offer a turnkey solution for building and installing a fusion power plant, offer the choice of having the plant ran by the plants owner through the employ of certified technicians or “By Our Highly Trained Technicians,” and offer a service plan (possibly a mandatory one, backed by government regulation, for safety issues) to do maintenance and provide upgrades.

Now, back to licensing. Lets say that, instead of selling the technology in a more local manner, it is sold via licenses to existing power companies. I live in a nice two-story home in a rural area, set on about two acres of land. But half of my property I can’t use. Why? Because the power utility, LG&E (now part of E-ON) has a major power artery running through it, and the one-time lease/easement does not allow me to make any improvements on half of my land. That big power line is a major asset of that company; it is part of their total value as a company. Focus fusion, with its more granular nature, would make that power line, and all like it, obsolete. In fact, much of what a modern power company has as assets would be suddenly useless to them, if they deploy focus fusion properly. Would LG&E be willing to do a rapid rollout of focus fusion plants, and take the hit of massive restructuring and asset obsolescence? No, they won’t. They would deploy just enough to satisfy the license (and they would negotiate that license very well) so as to cause minimum disruption to their balance sheet. Instead of moving quickly to bring down the cost to the consumer and to cease using fossil fuels, they will deploy only when and where they can make a buck with it. The only way to force them into a real rollout would be through regulation, and as everyone knows, energy companies have great lobbyists.

The key thing to recognize is this: focus fusion will revolutionize not only how power is created, but where, and by whom. Licensing give the tech to those least likely to deploy it.