By: Tom D. Tamarkin
May 3, 2012
This is the story of Tom Tamarkin & fusion energy in the United Sates, and the trail leading to Dr. Gerald Schroeder in Jerusalem, Israel, Pat Boone in Beverly Hills, California, relationships with scientists at Los Alamos National Labs in New Mexico, and scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Labs in Livermore California…and where we are going with fusion in the United States.
Background:
Over 45 years ago Tom started building amateur ham radio receivers and high power transmitters several years before single side band became common in the art. He experimented with AM modulation using high power vacuum tubes, modulation transformers, and 3,000 Volt, 1 amp power supplies; all home made by him, of course. Interesting stuff to play with while in third, fourth and fifth grade. As a senior in high school Tom took top honors in physics at the International Science and Engineering Fair, Kansas City, MO, 1971, and received one honor and award from Noble Physics Laureate, Dr. Glen Seaborg, past Secretary of the Atomic Energy Commission. That was for his science fair project where he built a Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) Spectrometer and explored Electron Paramagnetic Resonance spectrometry. So Tom had some interest in all this for a very long time. As a child he was taught by his father, a university professor with an EDD & Ph.D. in physics that the then current solution to energy was fission atomic power, and that would be replaced by fusion within a few decades. A Facebook time line has been set up for Tom on Facebook from birth to present. Search under Tomer Tamarkin.
In the early 1970s the first Arab Oil Embargo “energy crisis” occurred but not to fear, we were taught that the United States was on top of this and fusion would be the solution by the end of the century. Tom even remembers traveling through O’Hare and other major U.S. airports at the time to see tables set up by the Lyndon LaRouche group raising money from people walking through the airport for his Fusion Institute, a public advocacy group. Do not misunderstand; Tom was not a LaRouche supporter. Tom believes LaRouche is his own worst enemy with his strident, angry, even bellicose style…but at the time in his early twenties, he did give them some money and got the Fusion Magazine LaRouche published. What happened? LaRouche went to Federal Prison for 6 years. Why? He annoyed Henry Kissinger, James Baker III, and a couple of others by talking about fusion power, and Kissinger quietly put the word out to the IRS and SEC, to close down the Fusion Institute and put LaRouche away for some time along with Larry Hecht and a couple of others.
Please click here to see Tom’s article on “Who Killed Fusion.”
But again, not to worry, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory was making good progress and had stunning results with its TFTR project. And in October 1979, President Jimmy Carter signed the Magnetic Fusion Energy Engineering Act which was sponsored and spearheaded through both houses by Rep. Mike McCormack of WA (a solid friend of NASA.) Problem solved. Fusion would be demonstrated by 1990 and on line by 2000. The Act even said so…click here for the Act in pdf.
However, there was a fly in the ointment. President Reagan came to power and budget director David Stockman was no friend of fusion, and President Reagan was a friend of Margaret Thatcher in the UK. Thatcher favored controlling the Persian Gulf and the “Arabs.” The result was the “Act” was signed but never funded properly. It remained at the “fusion never” level. Then in 1984 President Reagan was hood winked by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev who basically told President Reagan that the United States had no business developing fusion on its own (after all…he who controls energy controls the world…) so Gorbachev proposed that the Soviet Union would give up the arms race, thaw out the cold war, tear down the Berlin Wall, etc., etc., etc. if the U.S. would give up its mission to develop fusion energy unilaterally in the U.S. and Gorbachev further proposed that as a gift to mankind, Russia and the United States would together…with a little help from the People’s Republic of China… develop fusion energy for the world. President Reagan said fine. A joint project was proposed and the U.S. would have a 50% role and the Soviet Union would take a fifty percent role which it would divide with the Chinese. Thus ITER was born… However; ITER was about 18 years late in ground breaking. The U.S. has since been in and out of ITER several times. And ITER is now run by the UN – IAEA. Imagine putting the United Nations in charge of energy. Just think what the Middle East Arab Oil Sheiks were saying to themselves at the time. Those stupid Americans, putting us, the UN, in charge of energy….And in charge they are…of oil that is…
Today the United States has a 9% interest in ITER. ITER is 20 years late. And ITER’s fundamental purpose is not as a demo reactor to produce power but rather as a large magnetic tokomak science project to learn more about plasmas at high temperatures. An international science fair project if you will, which is not scheduled to begin DT reactions (Deuterium – Tritium) until 2028. It is to be followed 10 to 15 years later by a project called DEMO which…if it ever happens…would be a reactor to put power generated from fusion on the grid in Europe. Today by order of the U.S. Department Of Energy and White House virtually 100% of the American fusion energy budget…as anemic as it is…is to be spent on ITER; click here to see the details from the U.S. Department of Energy. The exception being laser inertial confinement projects conducted by NNSA such as NIF at LLNL (click here for CBS News Video) under its nuclear weapons stockpile stewardship authority and its now $11 billion dollar annual budget In March 2012, the Department of Energy proposed, and the current president has supported, shutting down key non-NNSA fusion projects including two at MIT, one at Princeton and one at Los Alamos National Labs. Who told the White House to support such a move? The gentleman’s name is Dr. John Holdren, advisor to the President on Science and Science policy. You will see Dr. Holdren’s name later in this memo.
Virtually all of the above has been set forth in a series of 8 article published by Pat Boone written by Pat and Tom. These are indexed at this link. These articles are also published on-line in Hebrew.
In The Beginning:
In 2001 Tom Tamarkin developed prototype technology for use by home owners to conserve energy. This was done at the time the State of California utilities were experiencing “black outs,” “brown outs,” and later a final “grey out”…Governor Grey Davis, that is. In an open house held in April 2001, Tamarkin made a presentation to many invited guests, showed the early technology, and explained that Americans need to help the energy situation by conserving power until fusion was perfected and put on line….fusion was10 years late. Click here for the bullet background and note each bullet line ends in a “hot link” to background. Over the next few years the company, USCL/EnergyCite®, spent much time working with utilities to market the technology by causing state regulatory commissions to require it (as in the case of California.) The “smart meter” was developed with the in-home displays and local network for smart appliances. Patents were applied for and have since been granted in the United States, Israel, Europe, and China. Very important and fundamental patens worth billions of dollars when correctly handled. However, utilities on their own, move with the speed of a glacier. Only today is the concept of the Smart Grid, Smart Meter, Smart Appliance, and the interconnectivity catching fire in the market place. In the meantime the United States has an energy problem and the various oil producing nations in the Middle East along with their South American proxies, are holding us (and other Western countries) hostage. Our Department of Energy and president just have not leveled with the people in terms of what this means for our future and what we need to do to get out of this mess we are in. What have they done? They have said don’t worry. Go green, and everything will be A-OK. More worrisome is the fact that the smart meter was captured by “crony capitalism” and feed by the “Green Energy movement.” They even figured out how to ban the 120 year old Edison Light bulb we all grew up with as part of the conditioning of the people to cut their energy expectations back.
In January 2007 Tamarkin flew down to Los Angeles along with Rabbi Mendel Cohen (Chabad of Sacramento) to meet with Rabbi Shlomo Cunin, the head Chabad West Coast rabbi. Rabbi Cunin told Tamarkin many things including that he needed to get a copy of a book called “In The Beginning; The Bible Unauthorized.” Hence, the title of this memo. As it turns out, “The Rebbe,” Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson of Crown Heights, New York, and the world Chabad leader, was telling people for years before he passed away that the United States had to get off of foreign oil because we were being held hostage over it. The United States and the State of Israel’s security depended on this. “The Rebbe” said the “Sun is the Secret.” We needed to learn how the Sun works (nuclear fusion) and replicate it on Earth. Simple. Problem solved. And how do we know this? Because Rabbi Mendel Cohen’s uncle was the Rebbe’s secretary for over 40 years and Rabbi Cohen heard it many, many times. The Rebbe did not say: “go solar.” He said the sun is the secret; understand the sun, and you understand how to solve energy and no longer be held hostage to the Middle East oil producing countries.
As it turns out, in the early 1950s, The Rebbe had an interesting association with a gentleman named Mr. Hirsch. Mr. Hirsch would meet with The Rebbe every Monday night in secret for several hours. Then suddenly he was never seen again. However, a book was magically published after the last sighting of Mr. Hirsch called “In the Beginning; The Bible Unauthorized.” The name of the author? H. Moose. Hirsch is German for Moose! Just a few thousand copies were printed and The Rebbe talked it up all he could.
Before The Rebbe passed away he made Rabbi Cunin, his close friend in LA, promise that he would have the Moose (Hirsch) book edited, brought up to date, and published properly. Rabbi Cunin made the promise. Rabbi Cunin then handed the project over to his son, Rabbi Levi Cunin to get this done. Rabbi Levi in turn hired Dr. David Sternlight, Ph.D., to do the research and do the new edition justice. Dr. Sternlight was a Ph.D., past Director of Economics for Atlantic Richfield Oil Company (ARCO) with advanced degrees in physics, geology, economics, and was Rabbi Shlomo Cunin’s helpful friend at Chabad of Los Angeles. Click here to learn more about this edition of “In The Beginning.”
To sum up, Rabbi Cohen and Tom Tamarkin had lunch in LA with Rabbi’s Cunin’s son that afternoon. Tom went home and procured a copy of that book; “In The Beginning; The Bible Unauthorized.” He read the book with interest. Why? Because it mentioned E=MC² multiple times and explained that this meant energy equals mass times the velocity of light (297,000 meters per second) squared. To quote Moose…Hirsch…”all matter; even…rose petals…have this energy equivalent.” Then he went on to say: “…politicians are like the serpent in Adam and Eve. “Tempt the people with what they want, make no difficult demands…and get reelected.”
There it was. The answer to the World’s energy solution and the reason why it was never executed properly. The answer: E=MC2. Why was it not working yet? The serpent was (and is) the culprit. But wait a minute. The politicians are elected by the people; and that is precisely the point of the story of the serpent and Adam and Eve. The people who are not too responsible take the free (and perhaps morally incorrect) lunch and eat it. In other words: “don’t worry and take the easy way out.” The answer was so clear. Tom did some quick computer research, got Dr. Sternlight’s phone number in LA and called him. He asked him “Where is fusion?” Sternlight said, “contact Dr. Gerald Schroeder in Jerusalem; after all G-d did not create dinosaurs and the Grand Canyon to confuse man, and oh, by the way, Schroeder is right, the Earth really is 4.5+ billion years old, and the Jews are right, The Creation was 5,768 years ago (that was 2007.”) So Tom wrote to Dr. Schroeder in Jerusalem and shortly thereafter the two of them worked together on bringing the fusion information to the attention of people they thought at the time could help make a difference. Sarah Palin was the first contact. Dr. Schroeder & Tom wrote a letter signed by Dr. Schroeder and they had it personally delivered to her by a wealthy donor, Jack Donahue, in FL. A few months later Tom flew to Jerusalem to meet Dr. Schroeder in person for the first time. Click here to learn about Dr. Schroeder & Tom.
A year or so passed. Sarah Palin was not elected to a position of prime responsibility. However two things did happen. One, and most important, because of Tom’s association with Rabbi Cohen and respect for Rabbi Cunin and the history of Hirsch’s (Moose) book, he spent hundreds of hours doing research. The result was a paper Tom finally released in its finished and revised form called “Secret of the Sun” based on the Rebbe’s thoughts. Click here to see “Secret of the Sun” in English. Click here to see “Secret of the Sun” in Hebrew.
Secondly, Tom wrote a series of letters on fusion to President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama, Department of Energy, Secretary of Energy Dr. Steve Chu, Senator Harry Reid, Senator Diane Feinstein, Representative Nancy Pelosi, and California State Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. What happened? A $5 million ARRP small business technical innovation SBIR grant which was initially approved by the DOE for Tom’s company, USCL/EnergyCite®, was abruptly canceled without proper explanation, and the company’s Website was “black listed” within the Department of Energy. To this day, the company’s Website is not available to any DOE employee using the government computer network. Why? Perhaps the serpent is guarding the fusion solution? The people are voting for the easy way out…think green and push the DOE’s green button. Click here to read about the Green Button on the Department of Energy Web site: For the record, John Holdren is the president’s advisor on science and science policy. Dr. Holdren has a long and consistent record opposing fusion R&D in the United States and Europe.
Pat Boone & the Fusion Energy RoadMap:
Several years ago, Dr. Schroeder was on an El Al Israel airlines flight along with Governor Mike Huckabee and Pat Boone flying from Tel Aviv to LAX. Dr. Schroeder and Pat were reseated next to each other and became friends. A year later Tom leveraged Dr. Schroeder’s meetings with Pat Boone into a meeting between Pat and Tom, with the help of Brigitte Gabriel and a few other mutual friends. Shortly thereafter Pat, Dr. Schroeder and Tom held a conference telephone phone call wherein Pat suggested the three of them work to prepare an article on fusion energy which Pat could publish in NewsMax, WND and other places. Since that time, 8 articles have been written by Tom & Pat and published by Pat under his pen on fusion. Click here and scroll down for an index of all eight articles as well as a video of Pat and Tom discussing these issues.
The About section of the Fusion 4 Freedom website articulates how Tom’s company, USCL/EnergyCite® and our EnergyCite® private enterprise based operation can leverage off our Intellectual Property and form an industry consortium of the Nation’s 1,000+ utilities as well as manufacturer’s and energy providers to get fusion done as an American project of American national pride (with strong Israeli connections leading to peace in their neighborhood.)
We believe we can work with the United States National Labs like Los Alamos National Labs, Lawrence Livermore National Labs & their NIF and their LIFE project through the proposed EnergyCite® Consortium to get them the funding they need to build a prototype fusion demo reactor to apply power to the grid on the civilian side apart from their National Nuclear Security Administration control.. We can leverage off of NIF’s Houston NASA style Mission Control room. We believe we can work with Los Alamos National Labs and the PJMIF project and the team of scientists and technicians and get them the funding they need to commercialize PJMIF over the next few years which in the long run may prove to be more scalable and economically cheaper than the LIFE approach from NIF. We believe we can use the EnergyCite® network in partnership with social media to bring science into the living rooms of every American…like Walter Cronkite explaining the space programs and shots on TV…thereby neutralizing once and for all, that pesky and persistent serpent.
If we begin now, and push this hard, we believe we will have a National Result as big as going to the moon and back for the American people by 2020.