[Glenn Millam]

I’d like to see what Eric Lerner has to say about this… it sounds really cool. Focus fusion is partially supported by JPL, and, before spending cuts, by NASA as a potential breakthrough spacecraft propulsion technology. There is an article somewhere on the site about it. It would be great if the emdrive could be coupled to a PFF reactor. I just wonder if the emdrive would be a better solution, given what the FF can do on its own.

[Glenn Millam]

Well… it took me longer than expected, but here is the second draft. One thing that is missing is a cutaway of the core like there was in the scanned image. It was too small to make out what the cutaway was showing… what is it that we want topoint out with the cutaway? I think there should be a zoom of that section to show detail if it is important.

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[Glenn Millam]

Hmm. The TVA. One of the best government programs ever. Gives me some thoughts. I’ll have to think on it for a while.

I am glad to hear that licensing will be for construction. Developing partners for the construction of power plants shouldn’t be that hard once most of the major obstacles are overcome; in fact, there should be people tripping over themselves at the opportunity once PFF starts to prove its viability. I am sure you already have a few in mind.

As for the distribution networks… due to the nature of focus fusion, I think it would be best to go to municipal power companies first. The one in Austin, TX, Austin Energy, comes to mind. They are small, and could easily adapt to focus fusion. Also, they are already heavily involved in alternative energy, such as wind, so they don’t mind change. I am sure the company and its citizen/owners would greatly appreciate massively lower energy costs than the rest of the country, and it would be an enormous PR win. It could be a good candidate for the US testbed.

[Glenn Millam]

Will this be much better than the beryllium that has already been written about on the site in stopping anode erosion caused by x-rays? If so, this would be great, for safety sake as well, as beryllium isn’t exactly a nice material in powdered or aerosol form (assuming that some erosion will occur to any anode over time). In fact, it would make quite a bad waste product in the replacement of anodes.

[Glenn Millam]

Ahh… I see now. I’ll work on this later tonight, and post something closer to reality.

[Glenn Millam]

4) Fostering of new technologies, and allowing existing technologies to florish.

Ever seen a video of one of those maglev trains in Japan? Pretty awesome. People on a train going at airliner speeds. Why don’t we have them everywhere?

I bet its because the infrastructure and energy costs are so high that it doesn’t seem worth it to places like the US where airports are common. But airplanes use fossil fuels, and contribute greatly to both global warming and global dimming. Maglev is a technology in need of another one. Focus fusion could be the solution.

If the train company owned its own power plants, it could afford to build Maglev lines to all the major destinations currently being served by jets. It could offer luxuries that can’t even be offered on jets like the new Airbus jumbo jet, and could even let you load your hydrogen-powered car on board so you didn’t have to rent a vehicle when you got there.

That hydrogen-powered car would finally be possible because of focus fusion. All the major car manufacturers have at least a toe in the water, waiting for this tech to have its day. They also see the future oil calamity, and they are hoping someone will solve it before we go back to horses and bikes.

Capital made in selling focus fusion tech, assuming it pans out, should be invested into these kinds of technologies. It will provide further capital to fund a global rollout.

5) Using energy as a weapon to fight the degradation of the environment.

Much is written on this site on this subject. All I will say further is that the owners of focus fusion should not only foster the development of this tech by providing the energy necessary to make it happen, but invest in its development with money earned from selling focus fusion technology, which leads to my final goal…

6) The enrichment of those involved in the development of focus fusion, and hopefully a Nobel Prize.

If focus fusion works, all the researchers should get a Nobel Prize in Physics, and a standing ovation at the UN. That said, its really up to the Nobel committee who they choose every year, and you can’t count on it.

However, I am reminded about two people in all of this. Philo T. Farnsworth, and Bill Gates. Farnsworth invented Television (and the Farnsworth Fusor); Gates invented Windows. Farnsworth was a nice guy who just wanted the current winners in the media world to give him his proper due. Gates was a ruthless poker-player of a businessman, and did not trust the current winner in his field, IBM, and side-ran them with Compaq, Dell, and Intel to create a virtual monopoly. Farnsworth died a broken man, and most do not know of him. Gates is now retiring, and is not only the richest man in the world, but the worlds largest philanthropist. He and his wife intend to spend most of their wealth in finding cures for the worst diseases mankind faces before they die, and to use their clout and business acumen to see that it gets done. Farnsworth never had the money for such giving, and never had any clout.

So, what will it be for the scientists and backers of focus fusion? Will they be able to use their invention to set the course of their own futures, and change the world in the way they envision? Or will it fall into the hands of the current winners, who will use the tech only to serve their needs, on their own time schedules? Who should steer this great wealth?

[Glenn Millam]

So, what should be the goals?

The over-arching goal should be securing the energy future for mankind practically indefinitely. Broken down, this means that everyone on the planet should benefit, not just the current winners. It means that new possibilities should be opened that were not even thinkable before. It should also, by shear force of its existence, be a positive change agent in the lives of everyone around the world, in fact, every thing living on it.

It is important to set your goals so that you can see the obstacles in your way of achieving them. Here is my set of goals. See how they compare to yours.

1) Elimination of fossil fuels as an energy source. (Really obvious one, here)

As Eric Lerner has written, oil is actually a really important resource. Think of all the things we do with petrochemicals. Plastics, lubricants, medicine, you name it. We need this resource to last as long as possible and we need to recycle it as much as we can. Instead, its going up in smoke. It is also driving us to slit each others’ throats.

Here is a good book to read, if you are here simply out of curiosity and still haven’t gotten that sense of urgency: The Coming Economic Collapse, by Dr. Stephen Leeb and Glen Strathy. Leeb is a psychologist and financial analyst who usually writes investment books. It was in his research on future trends that he found something very disturbing about the future and oil. He also found that the oil companies knew all about it, but they see themselves as the winners and care nothing about solving the huge problem we face. Important stuff.

2) Cessation and reversal of global warming and global dimming.

Tied to the first goal, global warming is a planet killer. A lot of people are panicked over this. I am myself, but I am a bit more optimistic than others.

The reason why is that, as a college student, I worked for the university as a graphic designer for the Media Resources department. My job was to help professors publish their research. I got a good indoctrination to the politics of research, and to the motivations of researchers. One of the best things I did there was a powerpoint presentation for Dr. Thomas Coohill, who was involved in the effort to rid the world of CFCs that were depleting the ozone layer. This presentation was used by Coohill to travel to the various capitals around the world and show the danger we faced to world leaders. When he came back, he seemed pretty happy, and felt that his work had done some good. He even told me about about how the graphic I made of the “smoking gun,” with a Colt 45 with smoke snaking out the barrel, elicited gasps from the audience, since most places around the world don’t let people own firearms.

A few years later, CFCs were banned globally by international treaty. Recently I read that the ozone layer has now stabilized, and by the time my future grandkids get out of college, the ozone layer will likely be back to where it was before. I am not saying that I saved the ozone layer, by any means. I am just saying that it really feels good to know I did my share, and that we humans can solve our problems if we put our minds to it. It is also means that any contribution, no matter how small, helps.

As a side note, it was this experience with researchers that convinced me that the focus fusion project is real, and is based on real science, and is worth the effort.

3) Reducing global poverty

In my previous posts in this thread, I made the point that the success of the focus fusion project would mean the creation of sudden, vast wealth in the form of practically free, clean energy. This wealth must be spread, and the best way is to make use of market forces to defeat the current energy winners and let everyone else win. Focus fusion energy is cellular, and can be afforded by small communities and entrepreneurs who formerly could not hope to break into the energy market. At the same time, who will put up the cash to let the poorest get the benefits of this technology?

The common theme is for rich Western countries to give money to poorer countries to help them develop their energy infrastructure. The problem is, the west has been giving handouts to the governments of poor countries for years, and in general, it has not worked. Why? Because the mindset of the leaders of poor countries is to enrich themselves, and give just enough to their people to keep themselves in power.

Another solution must be developed to side-step, yet again, the current winners and let everyone else win for a change. A good book to read is The Future of Freedom, by Fareed Zacharia. It will explain the relationship of liberalism, democracy, taxation, and resources, and how they play in explaining the problems faced by people around the world. Between the lines, it also explains the problems faced by anyone trying to attack poverty.

I think the answer is to give locally in countries. Come into a community and offer to build a plant and a grid, no charge, using profit from selling the technology in the West, where we can afford it. This bypasses a lot of red tape, and if the community is denied by government officials above them, it will create a shockwave that will embarrass the government into letting it happen.

(Remember too that poverty is a relative term. “Real” poverty is not being able to sustain your basic existence. Food, shelter, cooking fuel, clean water, basic hygiene. Anything above that isn’t poverty, it is keeping-up-with-the-Joneses. My kids think we are poor because I couldn’t rush out and get them a new XBox 360 when they first came out. Like they need another video game.)

(Cont. in next post)

[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.

[Glenn Millam]

oops… here’s the image

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[Glenn Millam]

Lerner wrote: The plasmoid is toroidal. However the density is not donut-shaped. Imagine an iced donut, with the icing covering the donut and filling the hole. The icing is in the shape of the dense regions of the plasmoid. There used to be a drawing of this on the site. can we put it back on, Rezwan?

Ok. To show my current confusion over the shape of the plasmoid, here is a rendering of what I currently have, basically a heavily-frosted donut. From here, it may be easier to tell me where I am wrong so I can get a more accurate one on a second draft.

Also, is there a better way for me to send up images? Should I start a different thread just for the purpose of collaborative work on images?

[Glenn Millam]

Alright. Here is the same illustration I put up before, using the site’s color scheme. I think its an improvement. What do you think, Reswan?

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[Glenn Millam]

Rezwan wrote: Also, I thought you were switching to beryllium electrodes, whose color I am not sure of.

A good place for reference to the color and texture of elements is Theo Gray’s Periodic Table Table. If you haven’t checked it out before, its a great site. Read what he has done with sodium.

[Glenn Millam]

Rezwan wrote: 1)Although I’m not sure about the colors. Very earthy, and we’re going more for high tech space age silvers, blues and purples. Although maybe fusion should be more fiery like the sun? No, fire freaks people out. Blues seem more in control and less like an imminent explosion – and as you know, there are many unfounded fears of proliferation and such.

Well, as another poster said, I was trying to represent the materials used on the diagrams. I think that scientific illustrations should attempt to remain true to actual colors, and if possible, textures. Depicting energy and other invisible or non-corporeal objects is another matter. There needs to be an accepted way of portraying plasma, for instance. My use of purple came from the image used as the icon of the site. I’m fine with it, but it is an issue that I think can be discussed and agreed upon by everybody.

Another thing that can be looked at is a common color scheme. Take the green I used in the gaussian behind the device. I chose it kind of randomly; greens were the “odd-man out” in what I had used so far in the drawing and I felt it needed a background. What would be cool is if you could give me a list of RGB colors that you use on the site for your color scheme, and maybe we’ll play around with them to help unify art to that scheme.

I think people coming to this site will really respond to it with the added touches of science-art to go along with everything else. One thing I want to know is how to draw a figure to help explain the magnetic-field effect. Is the final plasmoid that is created in the PFF process torroidal in shape? If I knew more about the structure, I could show the mechanics of how the MFE slows electrons while keeping proton speed high enough for electrical energy to be released. It would go great with the article on the site, and its a pretty crucial thing to get across to skeptics.

[Glenn Millam]

Charles Wilcox wrote: Some general characteristics that seem to be common in my ideas, and things I think would be good discriminators:
– we want something that is visually clear and immediately evident to any viewer. No offense, but some of the pictures here could use work in this category.
– we want pictures that are worth a thousand words. Thus the idea of instructional illustrations or animations that tell the story succinctly.
– we want to capture people’s imaginations, thus the artistic style I referenced with sci-fi magazines. Of course, we don’t want that to go overboard and make it seem too fantastic and futuristic. This is plausible technology… or “hard sci-fi”.

I agree. Personally, I think you guys have done a nice job on the site and the forum areas, and I like the place. But some things can be done to enhance the credibility of the project simply by upping the values of the graphics on the site, as well as having these graphics unified into the general look-and-feel you have established with the site’s redesign.

One particular graphic I would like to clean up is the diagram of the Plasma Focus device itself. I’ve seen this same graphic used in other places (Wikipaedia, etc) and it looks like it is, a quick and dirty scan of something that came out of an old plotter. What if it were redone cleanly in Illustrator, then saved out as a PNG or JPEG with careful settings to avoid artifacts? And with some color? Attached is a quick example.

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[Glenn Millam]

I am a graphic designer. The most famous thing I’ve been responsible for is the Papa John’s Pizza logo, which I did back in 1993-1994 when I worked at Papa John’s Print Services (at the time, QC Printing). I’ve done work for Diageo, Aegon, and a few other smaller entities, and have won a few awards along the way. I would be happy to donate time to any project you guys would need work on.

[Author]

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