Back on May 6th, Lawrenceville Plasma Physics and the Focus Fusion Society launched an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign in an attempt to harness commercial fusion power using Eric Lerner’s theories on temperature and compression in a controlled plasma emission. Simply put – the research is proving out. The money needed is running out.

The Focus Fusion effort is a nuclear fusion project where a bit of private citizen funding will have a huge impact. Here is where anyone – not just the rich and super rich – can light sparks for the future. Nope – you’re not gonna get rich. But you might change the world and make history.

The target of the crowdfunding effort is to buy crucial beryllium electrodes, vital to the final push toward net energy. As you can imagine these electrodes will be custom made to never before seen specifications and are expected to perhaps deliver enough energy into the plasma that the fuel inside will yield back more energy than went in.

The group, which is Dr. Lerner and the staff at Lawrenceville Plasma Physics and the Focus Fusion Society that is made up of determined folks bent on making some history and changing the world, have raised over $40,500 in the first week.

$159,500 to go. No one is asking to get paid, take a slice off the top (Indiegogo gets a percentage), no brokers, salesmen or hustlers. There are some goodies for pay back. Its a raw, man up and thrown in for the future kind of thing.

Here’s the ‘why not’. Your money will be gone. So if you’re uncomfortable trash canning something worth $10 or more – you’re out.

Here is the ‘why’. The research is well understood, some of it around for decades. Lerner’s take has evolved over the years somewhat, but the idea runs just the opposite of the huge multigovernment, big science, $10s of billions spent and $10s of billions to go for decades version resisting the natural physics. Focus Fusion simply uses natural physics in an insightful and clever way.

The fuel is cheap. The technology to harvest the energy is known and low cost with very few moving parts.

The waste material is helium. Non toxic, fills kid’s and party balloons. No radioactive waste. Its fusion combining atoms, not fission blowing them apart into dangerous pieces.

The problem is in the never before seen operating conditions requiring new materials and custom built parts. Its a lot like engineering and experimentation trying to get something to work that’s never been done before. Your humble writer has forgotten how many tries it took Edison to come up with a light bulb filament. This is a similar but much more complex kind of thing.

The danger is in the X-rays emitted while a reactor is running. Most everyone reading this page will recognize that X-ray doses are not real good things and the Focus Fusion reactor will need to be shielded. They won’t be built in wood frame buildings. Folks won’t be watching the reactor run in the room. But moments after shut down the device can be inspected and maintained.

Your taxes are not being drafted or conscripted. Congress or your government isn’t making the decision for you. Bureaucrats are not making up rules, regulations and reports to slow, delay, waste your money and destroy countless trees to fill drawers and fill hard drives with useless data.

Its money straight in. Your humble writer is in, for this one and likely 3 or 4 more if the opportunity comes up. I have kids and grandkids. Lets go. Pass it on.

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