Thanks to Tim for prompting me to check into news about ‘focus fusion’ — a new form of ‘hot’ fusion being developed by a company called LPP Fusion. I have read about this New Jersey company in the past and they have made some news just recently being featured in an article by Sebastian Anthony on the Extreme Tech website.
Anthony is enthusiastic about Focus Fusion, saying that the approach that this company is taking is far superior to the large tokamak fusion reactors — instead using what is called a ‘dense plasma focus device’ to achieve fusion. A video on the site provides a graphical representation of the science behind focus fusion.
“To be honest it sounds too good to be true — but rest assured that Focus Fusion, at least to my eyes, is the real deal. This isn’t some kind of magical, inexplicable witchcraft like cold fusion: Focus Fusion appears to be based on cold, hard science. This could actually be it.”
According to the article, LPP Fusion has raised 3 million dollars over the last six years, but they are now seeking funds from the general public via an Indiegogo campaign to fund their research. They say that they are almost there, and with the help of the public they can reach their goals. Below is their video pitch from Indiegogo which includes some more information about their technology as well as their overall vision.
The Indiegogo campaign seems to be going quite well — LPP Fusion has raised over half of their $200,000 fundraising goal so far.
There’s quite a dismissal of LENR in the article as Anthony makes a contrast between cold and hot fusion. He writes:
“To be honest it sounds too good to be true — but rest assured that Focus Fusion, at least to my eyes, is the real deal. This isn’t some kind of magical, inexplicable witchcraft like cold fusion: Focus Fusion appears to be based on cold, hard science. This could actually be it.”
To my mind, while LPP Fusion is involved in some very interesting research, I think that the E-Cat has been developed much further than Focus Fusion at this point. From what I have read LPP Fusion has so far yet to achieve the break-even point in their testing — where more energy is produced than is input into a device. It still seems that LPP is in the early stages of development — and they may yet achieve success, but I think that Andrea Rossi and Co. are much further along in comparison: they have long since achieved the elusive (for hot fusion) break-even point, and now seem to be on the verge of industrialization of E-Cat technology. But having viable ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ fusion technologies available together would be quite a leap forward.
