"Electric Fusion Systems"

[Paul_Schatzkin]

A new one just showed up in my junk mail:

https://electricfusionsystems.com/fusion-technology/

EFS was founded in 2020 by Ken E. Kopp and Ryan S. Wood to advance a breakthrough approach to safe, cost-effective nuclear fusion power with the lowest cost of energy in a small and scalable way with a clean environmental profile. With our patent pending approaches EFS is poised to deliver a transformational energy source capable of supporting the planet for centuries. EFS is based in Colorado and is using our proprietary science insights and engineering to deliver a global transformation for all humanity.

I suspect Ryan S. Wood added me to a mailing list, which is why it showed up in the 'junk' folder.

I know Ryan from 'The Before Times' of the Townsend Brown Project, 2003-2008. He and his father were UFO investigators, and in... 2006?... I spoke at his 'UFO Retrieval Conference' in Las Vegas.

Click the link for a FAQ about the company and its technology. I think this is the money quote:

EFS has the problem solved; aneutronic nuclear fusion with lithium + proton = helium + energy converted directly to useable electricity. EFS is pioneering this revolutionary clean energy technology, using a novel nuclear fusion physics that does not emit dangerous radiation. The founders have found an easier and safer way to generate fusion chain reactions. First, we do not try and contain the sun in a huge nuclear reactor, we use a cyclical process that dances into and out of fusion in a dense plasma with electrical arcing, coulomb explosions, with magnetic induction field and pressure confinement. Think of it as an electrical arc, passing through a dense plasma fuel, with pressure confinement. In short, a fusion plasma transformer. One of the keys is our unique lithium ammonia noble gas fuel that creates a super dense plasma much denser than historically failed approaches.

Well.

I guess the millennium has arrived, and our work is done here...



--PS

[Richard Hull]

The wind blew and s--t flew and that is how these folks roll. Long on talk, no data, no proof it works at any level. Why? Because it is a proprietary technology. (Their equivalent obfuscation to government's, "its a matter of national security") Such fusion startups are new form of million dollar plus "go fund me" setups by tapping into the fusion hype currently buzzing about the internet, seeing other startups are already in the millions.

These guys are late to the trough. All they have is a flashy website with some grammatical errors. Considering most folks knowledge, they serve up a delicious smorgasbord of lengthy, well crafted word salads filled to overflowing with sci-jargon that would impress any investor with more money than brains.

Should they land an investor, they will move out of their combined garages and spend the first half-million on a large steel shell building and try and stuff it full of impressive kit. Gotta' have that to suck in other investors. (garage operations don't cut it) Just like NIF and ITER, you build your monstrous office building and outfit a public greeting center and pour a giant concrete slab for the reactor first. Doing this using the first 500 million. You must have a show place filled with many floors of scientists, engineers, designers to create a "make busy" environment with all the trappings of important work being done.

The startups are just lucky to fund a single impressive aircraft hangar size steel building with walled in offices for the few full time people until more money comes in. I am sure the bigger startups have their offices in rented space in some strip mall to appear big. Here, they have meetings with investors to whom they sing the sweet song from 10 to noon. The "marks" are then taken to lunch. After lunch they are escorted to the reactor building after filling their bellies, walking about belching and being impressed at how far along "they" are.

These new guys only have some hand wound coils on a stick with some well placed ball valves to show on a glitzy website.

Their fusion, like all the startups, is the fusion of the future and most certainly never will be.

Richard Hull

[Paul_Schatzkin]

I neglected to include a link to the 'interview' with EFS principal Ryan Wood that was also in the email I got this morning:

https://electricfusionsystems.com/press ... rnational/

I'm sure that will answer all your questions and erase all your doubts.

I'm gonna go down to my basement now and figure out where their miracle machine will go.

--P

[Frank Sanns]

The part that I can't just not understand is the ignorance of people. I mean, the fusion guys sell the Brooklyn Bridge over and over again for big dollars. I am not singling out this particular startup but rather spreading over all that are out there now and have come before.

I MAY understand that the general public and those with cash to burn but what of the scientists? Government grants?

How many billions and billions of dollars have been spent on ideas that have exactly a zero chance of success and that is even giving them quantum uncertainty odds. I mean and electron has a non zero chance of being found inside of the nucleus of an atom. But the chance of working even 1% is a flat zero. No probability of working.

[Richard Hull]

Paul thanks for finding this interview in your post and sharing it. Thanks go to Frank for his tirade regarding startups looking to retire on gains in the money substances rather that fusion.

Reading this interview really fixes this effort in my mind. First, it is aneutronic! No neutron counter needed to prove you are doing fusion. In fact, there is no way to prove you are actually doing fusion in the device depicted! The hold up is the war in Ukraine screwing with the worldwide supply of Xenon and Krypton. (Lame, very lame) However, the tokomak folks seem to have trouble with Tritium should they succeed. Nothing like a non-extant product in the quantities involved to do power ready fusion fusion to let you off the hook.

The device shown could be cobbled up in a garage and most likely was. I love the high end vacuum gauge attached. (Maybe it is a pressure gauge)
I have always felt that Ex-UFO buffs have a much better handle on the physics of fusion than most folks.

I am an ex-Tesla coil builder and am doing fusion and can prove it. I do it at great cost and great net energy loss. I am proud of it too. Of course I only do it for the neutrons, something the saucer people eschew in their device.

For my part, what is wrong with putting in a billion times more energy than you get out in fusion? I got a deal going with my electric utility. They are willing to sell me all the electric energy that I can pay for. I have the math to back up my economics of doing fusion. A one hour run on fusor V uses about 2000 watt-hours of energy for a total billing of 16 cents. I pour out a full 1 or 2 microwatt-hours of fusion over this period of time.

Paul, I am stunned you must descend into your basement to find space for a roller case sized power plant for you home. My home and lab is packed, but I could throw out a couple of cubic feet of old shoes in my closet for something that would take me off-grid!

Richard Hull

[Kenneth Kopp]

Hello, Very sorry if we came off spammy. I have found Ryan to be an amazing partner. Together we are pushing the "Light Element Electric Fusion" discovery ahead. Our reactor design is fairly simple approach. The simplicity is allowed by the fuel discovery. Lithium proton fusion in condensed Rydberg matter. Electric Fusion System's LEEF is new and very real... in fact... I'll bet there will be DIY LEEF reactors discussions on this very board.

[Paul_Schatzkin]

Welcome, Kenneth (and Ryan) and thanks for stepping up.

As others have expressed, all we have to go on so far is words-on-screens (and, OK, a couple of photos of a something).

It's going to take more than that to persuade the jaded skeptics in these parts.

A LOT more.

Eagerly awaiting actual.... what's the word? Oh yeah.... evidence.

--P

[Richard Hull]

Yes, as Paul, Frank and I note. The folks here are always open to making stuff and we have heard it all for years related to fusion break throughs. Break throughs that have yielded nothing. Startups that have burst onto the scene and folded up leaving investors bereft of their cash. Please excuse our skepticism.

Heck, No less than Lockheed skunk works made bold claims 5 years ago about fusion power demo reactor in 2 years, then. No telling how many millions have been spent on their many revision reactors. Just crickets chirping in the night air so far. They have assembled reactor after reactor since 2010 and nothing. Their idea is putt-putt boat fusion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_ ... on_Reactor

We understand Q and how to figure it accurately based on the realities of power in vs power out. In the engineering biz it is referred to a COP, Coefficient Of Performance.

We eagerly await the full explanation of the system with top grade engineering figures related to your device Q as is used in the fusion biz. I don't mean the false and lying Q reported by the NIF and DOE recently in their big "wool-pull" over the eyes of the public claiming an over unity Q of 1.5 when actually it was a vastly lower Q of 0.01. That don't feed th' bull dog.

Richard Hull

[Patrick Lindecker]

Hello Kennet,

Congratulations to propose something new.
I read all the documents available about your system which would be a revolution if it would work. However, I have a big doubt.
Your fuel has a very high density fuel compared to the fuel density used inside Tokamaks, without being ultra-dense matter. You don't use a laser as with ultra-dense deuterium. Instead, you use an electric arc which reaches a temperature of 10,000 °K (about 1eV). Even if all the heat is used for fusion, the fusion cross-section for p-Li6 is extremely weak, not to say nil at 1 eV. Where is the trick?

Patrick Lindecker

[Richard Hull]

There is always a "trick" in such fusion ideas and scenarios. The trick is played out on the investors, of course.

The worst enemy of such tricksters is someone with intimate knowledge of the physics involved stepping forward to point out that he emperor has no clothes.

Richard Hull

[Paul_Schatzkin]

The wind blew and s--t flew and that is how these folks roll... Their fusion, like all the startups, is the fusion of the future and most certainly never will be.

I'll be talking with Ryan Wood, one of the principals at EFS today (we go back to the 'aughts when I spoke about TTBrown at his UFO Crash Retrieval conference in Las Vegas in... I think... 2006).

So I'm poking around the Interwebs, looking at EFS and trying to discern the science behind 'Rydberg atoms'. Either because I'm a glutton for punishment or I just need to spend a couple hours every week swimming in waters waaaay over my head.

Amid my various point-and-clicks, I found this item from Forbes:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmaho ... cial-says/

Money quote:

“As the technology continues to mature, there will be a point where private investors feel that they must be invested in fusion, and I feel like we’re starting to reach that inflection point,” Scott Hsu said Thursday in a webinar hosted by the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine.

So, yeah, it looks like the ground is being softened with an imprimatur of veracity to get more lemming$ lined up to keep the future of the future adequately funded.

What did Everett Dickson (Google him) say? "A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you're talking real money." Except now it's trillions.

--PS

[Paul_Schatzkin]

The above linked article goes hand-in-glove with this one:

https://sifted.eu/articles/renaissance- ... e-nuclear/

The money quote (literally?) in this one:

Nuclear fusion [has] seen a big breakthrough recently: in December last year, US researchers announced they’d created a fusion reaction that produced more energy than it took to make for the first time.

That, lest there be any doubt why the big noise about the DOE/NIF event last year.

Maybe I should have put these last two posts in that thread, but this one is still active.

--P

[Richard Hull]

You get folks with lots of recent "new cash" interested in making much more, "real soon now", and "they will come"!

These are the "never bitten", "never shy" Nouveau riche. Throw out enough hype amid a fresh crowd of monied idiots and "they will come"....

Fusion is as far off as ever. There is nothing new, fundamentally new, in the fusion biz other than announcements which have spurred new hope.

With all the new ideas,....let them have at it. They are in good company of all that preceded them and failed. Hope will always cost cash money in the fusion biz. Fusion is the biggest biz there is.

As always like, "the gold rush", it's the ones who leaped in first who will walk away, leaving the field with all the money after failing to do fusion. Now that the rush is on, you will have far less polished and more speculative sideshows on the midway to try and drag in the stragglers with money.

This is no brass ring to grab. This is the golden fleece! (in more ways than one!) This is the future of all mankind! "Buddy, can you spare a dime."

Richard Hull