TriAlpha achieves another huge round of investment in "stealth" mode – What's up with that?!

[Brian H]

Rezwan wrote:

No, it’s your ‘hidden assumption’ that FF needs a white knight, ……

Once unity is demonstrated and the basic design looks plausible, any number of firms will NECESSARILY be eager to move the ball down the field as fast as possible.

It’s your assumption LPP doesn’t need a knight. There’s a gap between now and “once unity is demonstrated.”

That would be where we need to insert the knight. Know any?
Well, the approximate timeline we’ve been hearing about is around New Year’s for “scientific break even”. Is a w.k. needed before then? I’m unaware of any suggestion that’s true. Keep in mind that this would be an all-time scientific first. NO fusion project or research has come even reasonably close to it.

There is is space between “scientific break even” and power input/output break even, of course. There the emphasis shifts from what is happening in the plasmoid to how the alpha beam and X-rays are harvested. While not trivial, it’s a much lesser hill to climb, and I’d be quite astonished if there weren’t plenty of actors eager to get in on helping make it happen.

BTW, a “white knight” is classically considered to be “a company that makes a friendly takeover offer to a target company that is being faced with a hostile takeover from a separate party.” Not exactly something LPP should be looking for.

[Rezwan]

Brian H wrote:
Well, the approximate timeline we’ve been hearing about is around New Year’s for “scientific break even”. Is a w.h. needed before then? I’m unaware of any suggestion that’s true.

You’re unaware of any delays and slowdowns? Interesting perception you have.

True, that’s the timeline, but the timeline comes with disclaimers – it’s a best case approximation. Haven’t you also been hearing about switch delays? And other assorted bits of friction and slow downs? And calls for patience? How many switch delays do you have to hear about before you think – hey maybe these guys are under-resourced and this’ll take more time?

Yes, it is possible that the current refurbishment of switches will fix the problem and the guys can keep to the timeline. We’ll know that in a couple of weeks.

But it’s also possible that yet more refurbishment is required, or that that will be fine, but then after that other issues will come up – stretching out the experiment phase. What happens if funding runs out before the bugs are worked out and they’ve gone through all the paces of the experiment? Game over? Project abandoned? Another mothballed fusion project? Mind the gap!

I would start lining up the white knights – people with resources and patience who feel this project would move more effectively if it was better resourced. People with a deep level of commitment. And lots of them.

[Rezwan]

Brian H wrote:
Well, the approximate timeline we’ve been hearing about is around New Year’s for “scientific break even”. Is a w.h. needed before then? I’m unaware of any suggestion that’s true.

Is this the timeline you’re referring to?

It’s got disclaimers in it. And suggestions of delays. The earlier timeline has dates on it, but is accompanied by the text, “If we can continue at the rate of progress of the spring, we should reach our goal by year-end.” If. Should. The rate in Spring was faster because the machine didn’t need to be as fine tuned. For the advanced stuff, the switch problems are a serious drag.

Perhaps we need to make the disclaimers stronger to get people to pay attention to resource issues.

I’m just not very good at talking about money or delays. Some people are great at this, and can walk into a meeting with Vulcan and get their boys 90 million dollars on dubious theoretical grounds. And the ITER guys are great at walking in and getting 400 million, or is it billions now – on dubious theoretical grounds while happily pushing back the deadline.

And here we are apologizing for not pulling off advanced fuel fusion on a shoestring budget within a strict time frame.

We need to shift gears here.

[Brian H]

“You’re unaware of any delays and slowdowns? Interesting perception you have.” Not what I said. I said I was unaware of the need for a “white knight” before NY/spring.

As I noted in that same posting (an added edit, maybe you haven’t seen it) the “white knight” terminology is inappropriate. It means, “A company that makes a friendly takeover offer to a target company that is being faced with a hostile takeover from a separate party.”

[Aeronaut]

Brian, sorry, I’d forgotten the secuities interpretation of the word white knight. 😛

Remember how to troubleshoot a dead CRT-type TV set? (Fix the HV power supply to make any remaining problem(s) more detectable). If energy unity is proven in 2012 or even later in 2011, we’d darn sure better have at least one ace in the hole.

And I’m sticking to my guns about not looking to the big boys for help. Since we have no way to predict the future, we have nothing to lose by growing our own resources. Or do we?

[Patientman]

Interesting discussion. It is sad that we rely on historically poor business practices to continue thinking about tomorrow. An angel would be better than a “White Knight” and who can predict which will show up. Consider the box from a different view point then think about some of the most recent successes in business. Then, change the rules according to what fits the current social rhythm and how the technology fits in.

There are a lot of considerations on the table, the best one is patience. Give it time and prepare not to give it away.

[Rezwan]

Hilarious. I didn’t know “white knight” was business jargon. I thought it was a metaphor. And “angel” as well, I see.

From a metaphoric perspective, “white knight” is better – it’s down to earth, some person with skills and pure intentions. “Angel” on the other hand, connotes that we need a miracle and gets into the realm of the supernatural.

Odd business terms.

[Rezwan]

In any case, whatever the jargon, “by the ballot or the bullet, by the bible or the gun,” this endeavor needs more than patience. It needs steady, committed cash flow. Less overselling. More underselling and over-funding. A nice thick margin of error. Logistics. Supply line. Tommy Lee Jones coordinating an investor hunt.

[Brian H]

I’m not at all acquainted with the current LPP investors; I assume they have reasonable expectations for return on their stakes. I think they would be both thrilled and inspired to see “scientific breakeven”, and very inclined not to let LPP starve at the last moment.

At that point, in any case, I’d say the price for a new stake in LPP would be soaring. And all the su~~~~~ who laid all that green on TriAlpha will be kicking themselves. 😉

[Aeronaut]

“The Box” is simply an unidentified and therefore unchallenged hidden assumption. Think beyond 1 and you’ll find another. And another, and so on. Think outside several and you may see a pattern or few that lend themselves to economies of scale and an elegant process design.

[emmetb]

Rezwan wrote: In any case, whatever the jargon, “by the ballot or the bullet, by the bible or the gun,” this endeavor needs more than patience. It needs steady, committed cash flow. Less overselling. More underselling and over-funding. A nice thick margin of error. Logistics. Supply line. Tommy Lee Jones coordinating an investor hunt.

Sure. But tommy is getting weary, and this is just no country for old men.

It seems LPP+FFS are being disruptive here, in more ways than one. Not ONLY is the goal highly visionary, also the methods employed so far in reaching that goal are, in my view, unprecedented. Democratization of venture capital, an open, shared vision, without loosing scientific integrity. What you may be looking at here could be nothing less than the future of human enterprise.

Of course, also here, “you have some serious technical challenges to overcome”. In terms of organization you’re in infancy stage, and there is a very real risk of outrunning oneself. (I definitely agree with the need to “undersell”). So obviously, you’re not there yet, and it seems that it’s not easy to generate a steady cashflow, where it is all too easy to generate too much “noise”. Yet it seems to me that FFS is already becoming creative in finding ways of keeping control without loosing (too much) transparency.

But just imagine the pay-off if this proves to work out in the end: your funding, public awareness, evangelization all highly distributed, crowdsourced… Unprecedented. In this scenario, showing your set-backs only helps: it increases the believability, and engages people more (or adds to the entertainment value if you want to look at it that way).

Concerning the ownership model. Look at google: all they are selling is human attention (ads). Maybe you should do the same. Why not make a modest start with this by running google ads on your site? Personally I would invest in nothing more than partial ownership of the site, and the brand “FFS”. So *not* the intellectual property of the machine itself (which i think should be open-sourced anyway).

This promises immediate return on investment in terms of ad-revenue the moment that feasibility is demonstrated. To me, this would already justify substantial investment.

There’s no way that your organization is going to manage to build these things, quickly enough, all by yourself anyway. But if you open-source the construction plans, and provide an online forum for bringing together supply and demand, questions and answers, provide a technical knowledge base, a component supplier database (add revenue!) etc. your brand will quickly rise in value as it represents a valuable source of information (in the “google” sense of the word).

After the democratization of information though the internet, we can now start to democratize the physical world (power utilities). This will put the responsibility back where it belongs (i.e.: where it hurts), and re-empower people to take back control of their own environment and life support systems on a much smaller scale than the big organizations that hold sway in this moment.

[Brian H]

emmetb;
Good post, generally! But I think your push for and faith in open sourcing is misplaced, here.

Understand the basic plan: given a viable prototype/design, it will be made available for commercial license at very reasonable rates (e.g., $10K per FF produced?) to all comers, world-wide. The license fee is small in terms of the production cost, but sufficient to make sure the would-be manufacturer actually has some “skin in the game”. At the same time, the lack of other restrictions means that outfits world-wide will have equal opportunity to begin making and distributing. They will best know and be able to cope with the local market and regulatory environment, leaving LPP completely uninvolved and unaffected by such concerns.

Since each GW of power requires about 200 FFs, that would generate (per my suggested license fee) $2M for LPP. And there will be thousands of GW to be built out and installed in the medium term. Which is $billions of income. All without presenting any barriers to serious players who can and wish to make and sell FFs.

I like the above plan very much. I think it has numerous advantages. One is that it pretty much frustrates any attempt to choke off or slow and interfere with the deployment of FOFUs by commercial or government forces, firms, or factions. Any jurisdiction that holds back will find itself at severe competitive disadvantage because of sticking with expensive energy when neighboring or competing regions benefit from 90%+ cost reductions. Nothing can resist that pressure.

And it means that every possible application is likely to be explored and utilized rather quickly, whether you talk about desalinization, crisis relief, residential power, manufacturing and refining (e.g., aluminum smelting), waste disposal (fusion plasma torches), remote community power, ship and truck transport, or whatever. Anywhere there is a possible market, firms, communities, cities, and utilities will be free and highly motivated to adapt and apply it.

[AaronB]

On the topic of the thread, I’d prefer to work in stealth mode, but that’s a luxury that comes with abundant financing, which we don’t have. In fact, we could use a white knight (or a crazy old coot for that matter, as long as he’s accredited :)) to drop a few hundred thousand bucks on us. Progress doesn’t happen without resources, equipment, personnel, and ideas. We have the personnel, equipment and ideas, but we won’t make it too much farther with our current funding. It would be sad to have to stop work when we are so close. Therefore, we won’t be going into stealth mode in the foreseeable future.

It amazes me how some projects get millions in funding when the science behind them is questionable at best. Other projects (like this one) struggle to get mainstream attention and funding when the ideas behind them are sound. Fortunately for LPP, our investors are a pretty intelligent and fore-thinking lot, and have seen this project as a good bet. I just wish a few more people like that would come out of the woodwork right about now.

[Breakable]

AaronB wrote: …
It amazes me how some projects get millions in funding when the science behind them is questionable at best. Other projects (like this one) struggle to get mainstream attention and funding when the ideas behind them are sound. Fortunately for LPP, our investors are a pretty intelligent and fore-thinking lot, and have seen this project as a good bet. I just wish a few more people like that would come out of the woodwork right about now.

I guess this the
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demarcation_problem

Basically there is no way to determine which science is sound or non sound in advance and the only way of moving forward is to form hypothesis and falsify them. You cant even validate a hypothesis!

[Brian H]

AaronB wrote: On the topic of the thread, I’d prefer to work in stealth mode, but that’s a luxury that comes with abundant financing, which we don’t have. In fact, we could use a white knight (or a crazy old coot for that matter, as long as he’s accredited :)) to drop a few hundred thousand bucks on us.
…
Fortunately for LPP, our investors are a pretty intelligent and fore-thinking lot, and have seen this project as a good bet. I just wish a few more people like that would come out of the woodwork right about now.

I doubt you mean a “white knight” in the strict sense (see above) who buys control (“friendly takeover”). AFAIK, Eric is not prepared to cede control — very wisely, IMO, since what has once been bought, by however friendly a buyer, can be resold to anyone at will.

I would hope either that your existing investors can dig deeper, or that they know like-minded friends! Or perhaps Paul Allen, who has dropped some of those millions on TriAlpha, would like to hedge his bet?

I speculate that, per a previous comment of yours, that the potential “newsworthy” developments using pB11 fuel by the end of September may heighten the appeal and prospects of LPP and the project sufficiently to attract some of that “finishing kick” funding.

[Author]

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