Reply To: What are you doing to promote Focus Fusion…

[Tulse]

I agree there will be some lag time between Phases I and II, but I think the emphasis on “peer-review”, at least in the traditional sense, is misplaced. As far as I know, a great many technological innovations didn’t have a peer-review as traditionally defined (i.e., a formal paper submitted to a scientific journal, with the journal editor appointing reviewers to examine the paper, and potentially several cycles of revision and re-submission). Intel doesn’t typically “peer-review” its new chip designs, and auto makers don’t “peer-review” new engine technologies (at least as far as I know). And pharmaceutical manufacturers wouldn’t bother with publishing peer-reviewed studies if that were not a requirement for licensing their products for sale.

As I see it, LPP’s research is ultimately more in the model of this kind of technology development than pure scientific research — the end goal is to produce a practical energy source very quickly after showing over-unity, certainly far more quickly than any research tokamak or other Big Fusion technology can. It’s really much more on the model of “garage inventor” than “huge bloated multi-year physics experiment”. And inventions get adopted when someone is convinced of their utility enough to purchase/license them. One way to do such convincing is indeed through peer-reviewed publications, but frankly, given the funding that often goes to clearly crackpot energy ideas, such rigorous formal proof is certainly not necessary for initial success.

As always, this is just my two cents, and someone with more experience in science-heavy technology startups might be able to shed more light on how this kind of thing works in practice. I would strongly suggest that the FFS or LPP seek out such folks (perhaps from the biotech and/or biofuels arenas, since those are both very hot currently, and involve similar issues of investing in unconventional technology).