LYMP GOES DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE

by the light of a fusion torch - Episode 8

“Lymp’s had a personality-ectomy!” stated Tarky to his friends who were remarking how remote, even depressed she seemed since she returned from being lost overboard. “She keeps sliding off to the bloody library!” he complained “I mean, here we are on the most luxurious superyacht in the world and what does she want to do? Update her effin Tiktok and Insta! What else could she be doing down there?” The red haired girl piped up “No, Tarks, sweetie! She hasn’t updated her accounts in a week! I follow her you know!”

Social media influencers like Lymp rarely go a day without uploading at least one photo of themselves even when they are supposed to be on holiday. Lymp was breaking all the rules of online etiquette by maintaining a very unusual silence.

“She shuts the laptop as soon as I poke my head around the door!” moaned Tarky. “She’s up to something!” One of the guys suggested that Lymp may be making secret investments with her newly acquired inheritance, but Tarky whacked that idea into touch “Nah, she has people for that stuff. She hates finance!”

Meanwhile Lymp was discovering that Khan’s worldview was corroborated by thousands of online websites, some of which were reputable and others more speculative. She had found creepy quotations from Kissinger and Rockefeller and had looked into the foundation of the CIA, which had led her to reports on Operation Paperclip. One phrase was repeatedly escaping her lips: “What the fuck?”…..

Lymp had never paid much attention to history or current affairs. She had always avoided politics as far as possible. She had voted Conservative because mummy did, not because she understood anything about their values. Now she was wondering how many of mummy’s friends knew about the Olympians, or worse, WERE Olympians themselves! She remembered that, right up until he breathed his last, her father had spent most of his evenings “at the club”. Damn it, she thought, I never did know which club he belonged to. “Not for pretty heads to worry about!” he had said to her as he left immediately after dinner each night.

Who were her parents? How had they become so wealthy? It had never occurred to her to even think about that before and so, as if she were a complete stranger to them, she looked them up online.

The turquoise superyacht was progressing slowly towards Miami where some of the guests were planning to disembark in a few days time. Lymp hoped to be among them and catch a flight home to London. It’ll be easier to find out more from home, she decided as she erased her browsing history and closed the laptop down.

Tarky was out cold, drunk on a lounger on one of the decks, so Lymp went to the gym and jacuzzi to pass a few hours before dinner. She dressed and wandered up to the main deck. She ordered a cocktail from the bartender in the lounge and sipped it staring out to sea. Two of Khan’s words echoed in her head “Fusion Torch” and she realised that she had not followed up on that titbit. Sounds awfully techy to me! She thought.

The temptation itched around in her head and proved too much for Lymp. She returned to the library and opened the laptop again. It took a while, but eventually she was able to find out that one of the men who had invented the Fusion Torch had died in December of 2007, after he had released the following statement together with his partner, Bill Gough, in April of that same year. There were suspiciously few details about his death.

For a pair of scientists, their newsletter was surprisingly easy to understand and held tremendous hope for a brighter, cleaner global future. Why wasn’t this front page news? Why hadn’t it been developed?

The Fusion Torch

William C. Gough and Bernard J. Eastlund

In the 1960s we were young scientists working in the Research Division of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) on a new and infinite energy source for the world – controlled fusion power. It was considered a long-range research and development effort. We therefore projected ahead to the twenty first century and recognized the major energy needs, resource depletion, waste production, and environmental issues including global warming that our world would face as the developing nations industrialized and population increased. These projections have now become reality. To significantly mitigate these problems we proposed in 1969 a concept known as the Fusion Torch. Basically this concept would apply the ultra-high temperature plasmas (ionized gas) found in fusion research devices and future fusion reactors to reduce any material to its basic elements for separation. Thus, we could effectively close the material cycle from use to reuse.

The concept was presented to the scientific community, received international recognition, appeared in major publications like Scientific American, and was endorsed by Nobel Laureate Dr. Glenn Seaborg who was the AEC’s Chairman at that time. However, the fusion power program was in its infancy and there was little political pressure for environmentally desirable energy alternatives, and very little thought about alternative applications for recycling or the future implications of the developing world. We had presented an idea before the technology and our culture were ready.

Since 1969 the controlled fusion program continued as a limited funded plasma research activity – annually equivalent to about one day of the Iraq War. Never the less, during that 35 years fusion plasma physics has become a mature engineering science and exceptional progress has been made towards the plasma conditions required for a fusion power plant and the Fusion Torch -- the conditions necessary for breakeven fusion power production have advanced four orders of magnitude. The internationally sponsored fusion reactor being designed for construction in France is targeted to reach breakeven conditions. This completes the half million improvement in plasma conditions that magnetic fusion needed in 1969. In addition, the idea of breaking apart solid and gaseous materials in ultra-high temperature plasmas has now been experimentally demonstrated. Once broken into the basic elements the particles must be separated. There are many possible separation techniques and in 1971 we discussed eight of these including the plasma centrifuge and electromagnetic processes. Since that date there have been significant advances in particle separation technologies. Dr. Eastlund in the 1990’s obtained patents for separation techniques specifically applicable to Fusion Torch environments.

We believe that today’s world fusion program should redirect its primary focus from electrical production to Fusion Torch applications. Such applications represent a unique capability of controlled fusion technology and are not an inherent possibility in any other energy option. The focus of the current fusion program is upon using the deuterium-tritium (D-T) fuel cycle. This produces copious amounts of very fast neutrons and requires an inefficient heat cycle. A D-T cycle would be an effective radioactive waste transmutation device that could incorporate the Fusion Torch principles. However, for the primary Fusion Torch application we propose an environmentally friendly fusion fuel that is effectively neutron free – the p-B11 cycle. This uses boron, an abundant nontoxic element.

The United States and Turkey are the world’s largest producers of boron. One familiar use is as a natural laundry booster sold since 1891 as “20 Mule Team Borax” from the Mojave Desert of California. Over 80% of boron is the isotope B-11 required for fusion. The p-B11 fusion fuel cycle will require another one or two orders of magnitude above the D-T fuel cycle. It is our hypothesis that this increase is technologically feasible and has many advantages. Because the energy is released as charged particles rather than as neutrons, the cycle is well suited for high efficiency direct electrical conversion, hydrogen and portable fuel production, and materials recycling using the Fusion Torch concept.

One implication of the Fusion Torch concept is a new approach to global economics. Mainstream economics either ignores the economy’s relation to the environment or assumes that the environment is a subset of the economy (like resource extraction or waste processing). Thus, our society has become infatuated with an economics of throw-a-way growth. The long-range implications of the Fusion Torch would make that mode of economics obsolete and move society into the antithesis of the growth economy. Society would then be based upon steady-state economics since the cycle from use to reuse would be closed. Thus, instead of nations trying to maximize their gross domestic product, and hence the flow of materials, future societies must minimize their physical flow of production and consumption and reduce their gross domestic product. The environmental implications are immense.

In summary we are proposing a major national (and worldwide) effort to use advanced fusion concepts to assure raw material availability, stop waste build-up, reduce environmental pollution, and enhance our long-term security. The biological and physical sciences are now accelerating our understanding of the interplay between the body/mind/spirit. We are all interconnected with each other and the entire ecosystem. Our thoughts and actions will determine our future. The 1969 Fusion Torch paper closed with the statement: “The vision is there, its attainment does not appear to be blocked by nature. Its achievement will depend on the will and the desire of men to see that it is brought about.”

William C. Gough, FMBR Chairman of the Board and Bernard J. Eastlund
https://fmbr.org/the-fusion-torch-gough-eastlund-apr07/

A quick check for images produced one very detailed and interesting video:

Lymp tried to find out more but there was very little information about the Fusion Torch and its inventors. Even Wikipedia was uncharacteristically brief. Lymp sat back in the swivel chair and stared at the laptop screen in frustration. The Fusion Torch had first been invented in 1969….. Lymp’s memory triggered Khan saying that his parents had dropped out of society and been on the run since that year…. he had said that they were hounded and eventually murdered.

She suddenly realised something important that seriously impacted her plans.

The video added some vital pieces to the puzzle. The future that is planned is being kept secret! And it does not include us, thought Lymp grimly….

There is a lot more to this, I just feel it!

I don’t even know Khan’s surname.

In fact, Khan may not be his real name….