Welcome to the website of
Prometheus II, Ltd.
21st
Century Energy and Propulsion
Paul M. Koloc, President
Box 1037, College Park, MD 20741-1037
Tel: (301) 445-1075
FAX: (301) 434-6737
Corporate Background Information
Please post questions and comments by e-mail to: pmk@plasmak.com
Paul M. Koloc and associates established Prometheus II, Limited in 1976 to safeguard the intellectual property and promote the development of PLASMAK™ technology, an innovative approach to the achievement of controlled aneutronic energy. Prometheus II's mission is to research and develop commercial aneutronic energy engines and associated IMHD electric convertors and launchers based upon the unique PLASMAK™ concept and derived technology. Prometheus II is the owner of the principal patents relating to the technology. Prometheus II also has the sole ability to receive investment funds, and to issue stock.
Prometheus II, Ltd. has two wholly owned subsidiaries, PLASMAK Corporation and Phaser Corporation. Prometheus II has given to its subsidiary PLASMAK Corporation the exclusive licenses to operate in the application areas of grid electric power and production of synthetic chemical (i.e., hydrogen) and nuclear fuels. Prometheus II has given to Phaser Corporation the exclusive licenses to develop high impulse power, DEW, and propulsion for NASA, Defense Departments, and law enforcement agencies. Prometheus II, Ltd. manages these applications and the basic patents on all PLASMAK™ technology.
Intellectual Property
Prometheus II, Ltd. has applied a careful, methodical patent policy over the past twenty-five years, and consequently, has built a strong portfolio of basic patent protections for PLASMAK™ technology. Due to the breakthrough nature of this technology, very broad patent coverage has been extended to the PLASMAK™ concept and related applications. This corporate policy has led to a strong and thorough patent position. In the general areas addressed above. Prometheus II will benefit from additional issuing patents since these patents will be automatically covered by the current license. While the corporate policy is expensive in the short term because it increases the cost of the patent filings and maintenance, the value of the established patents outweighs these expenditures.
Recent relevant Patents:
1. U.S. Patent Application No. 09/046,709 allowed Jan. 14, 2002,
2. U.S. Patent No. 5,015,432 issued May 14, 1991,
3. U.S. Patent No. 5,041,760 issued Aug. 20, 1991,
4. U.S. Patent No. 4,891,180 issued Jan. 2, 1990 U. S.
5. Patent Application No. 0046273-A1 published Nov. 29, 2001.
Patents and published applications are found at http://www.uspto.gov/patft/
The pending EPC patent application is found below.
Note: Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) applications give coverage for 20 years on issuing domestic and foreign patents
Executive Summary
This paper provides a brief review of the concept, and describes the importance of the technology as a solution to the world’s energy needs.
Publications
The Engineering Physics of an Optimized Confinement Concept (the Plasmak)
P.M. Koloc, J.A. Bowery, R.M. Fujii, C.F. Harrison, W.D. Jackson, A. Lowrey III, and R.B. Pittman
Presented at: ICC 2002 - Innovative Confinement Concepts, College Park, MD, January 2002.
Abstract
We began inventing a potentially best workable concept for fusion in 1973, and have since continued that effort from just beyond the community’s mainstream. The patent application described the “compound plasma configuration” whose shared topology was re-designated the Spheromak upon consultation with Dr. H.P. Furth. Initially Spheromaks were experimentally formed within a rigid conducting shell since a plasma conducting shell was too resistive (leaky) to work. Our continuing “work in progress” finally led to the all plasma version designated the PLASMAK™ configuration. The physical embodiment is the hyperconducting PMK that has a fully compressible and impervious conducting shell that eliminates the wall problem and cyclotron radiation losses. This development, including formation experiments, is summarized, and the PMK’s important advanced features are noted.
The conceptual and then physical formation of the PMK was very difficult to resolve. Eventually, the hypothetical solution (unlikely) conceived of a helical injection device (HID or plasma gun) that would result in the plasmoid’s self-generation in a STP gas blanket. After a modification to the HID, the plasmoid formed on the first series of 10 shots. The garage experiment was terminated with the first formation of the PMK, and we started the effort to build a blockhouse and experimental facility needed to contain whatever possible emanations might come from continued low-level work. Some of the evidence from that work is included herein. Our next step will be to produce basketball sized PMKs with lifetimes of seconds. Such PMKs could be inertially ram compression heated in a dense fluid blanket as a magnetized fusion target.
Plasma Magnetic Confinement: The PLASMAK
P. M. Koloc, ICC 2002 - Innovative Confinement Concepts (Skunkworks), College Park, MD, January 2002.
Note: The Skunkworks sessions at ICC 2002 conference provided a forum for presentations of concepts meeting the following criteria:
1. The subject must be a novel idea for fusion reactors -- physics and/or technology -- and not reporting on existing alternate concept research.
2. Novel ideas include significant new twists on old ideas, combinations of ideas that together offer a qualitative advantage, or completely new concepts and new opportunities created by technology advances.
3. Expectations: Concepts should pass the physics, technology and economic plausibility tests.
Abstract:
The PLASMAK™ power generator system will be comprised of a formation chamber, a 25kbar ram fluid-driven compression burn chamber, and an Inductive MHD electric converter that operates at 60 HZ. At the core of the system is a fully compressible, highly stable magnetoplasmoid (PMK) that has colossal ruggedness due to its hyperconductivity and high current density (“g” is about a third of superconductivity on the log scale). While compact toroids have similar topologies, the formation, physical embodiment, and fluid mechanical compression to ignition of the PMK are an elegant symphony of engineering physics. For example, the PMK will self generate in a one or two bar blanket of p-11B due to a single injection of helicity from a modified button gun. Energetic runaways are accelerated when the central magnetized stem channel that connects the surrounding axisymmetric sheath with a central electrode begins to kink and form a tightly wound helix, which then coalesces into a magnetized torus and insulating field in the central midplane. Complete descriptions will be addressed in the presentation. We have been blessed to capture, sometimes serendipitously, a large cross section of the PMK’s unique, and occasionally spectacular, characteristics. Our experimentally produced atmospheric plasmoids have steady lifetimes that are 10,000 times longer than typical Spheromak lifetimes. Our laboratory is a Skunkworks, and our work is self-funded. Our next development will be to form rugged, atmospheric PMKs of basketball size, and with lifetimes of seconds.
For related papers, see: http://wormhole.ucllnl.org/ICC2002
Fusion Implications of
Free-Floating PLASMAK™ Magnetoplasmoids
P. M. Koloc, First International Symposium on Current Trends in Fusion Research. Edited by E. Panarella, Plenum Press, NY 1996.
Description
This paper discusses the application of the PLASMAK™ model to fusion. It reports the successful reproducible generation of small, highly stable, free-floating plasma structures (PMKs) having many of the properties of ball lightning. These PLASMAK™ magnetoplasmoids are formed in the laboratory in STP atmospheric air by the model as described in earlier papers. The paper discusses the possible compression of PMKs for a fusion burn and describes the potential advantages of a PLASMAK™ fusion generator in terms of pressure capability, simplicity, and electric conversion efficiency. PLASMAK™ aneutronic engineering breakeven burns could occur in five years with adequate funding.
Star Power for Energy Intensive Space Applications
P. M. Koloc
Presented at: Eighth ANS Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy, American Nuclear Society, Salt Lake City, Utah 1988.
Published: Fusion Technology, Vol 15 (1989), pp. 1136-1141.
Description
Aneutronic energy (fusion with little or negligible neutron flux) requires plasma pressures and stable confinement times larger than can be delivered by current approaches. If plasma pressures appropriate to burn times on the order of milliseconds could be achieved in aneutronic fuels, then high power densities and very compact, relatively clean burning engines for space and other special applications would be at hand. This paper discusses how the PLASMAK™ innovation will make this possible. Its unique pressure efficient structure, exceptional stability, fluid-mechanically compressible Mantle and direct inductive MHD electric power conversion advantages are described. Peak burn densities of tens of megawatts per cc give it compactness even in the multi-gigawatt electric output size. Engineering advantages indicate a rapid development schedule at modest cost.
The PLASMAK™ Configuration and Ball Lightning
P. M. Koloc
Presented at: First International Symposium on Ball Lightning, Tokyo, Japan 1988.
Published: Ohtsuki, Y. H. (ed.), Science of Ball Lightning (Fire Ball). Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Co., 1989.
.
Description
This paper introduces a new toroidal topology to discuss the formation and stable existence of natural ball lightning. The configuration is protected within a vacuum magnetic field nested within a spheroidal plasma shell pressurized by a gas blanket (such as the ordinary pressure of air). The paper also includes new explanations for magnetized lightning and its formation, and discusses a new concept for the efficient transfer of lightning’s energy into the thunderclap. Other topics addressed include the occasional formation of bead and ball lightning, with discussion of their differences in structure and behavior. The paper describes a number of reported observations, widely dispersed over most of the earth, with brief discussion of how they are related as well as how they vary from one another. It includes a short discourse on Dr. James Tuck’s ball lightning experiment, which unfortunately succeeded on his last attempt, but was never repeated.
MTF – An International
Patent Application
Description
This International Application was published under the Patent Cooperation Treaty April 3, 1997. The patent provides a simple device and method that can reliably generate the PMK, a new compound magnetized plasma configuration with a long lifetime, and provides uses for the PMK. One use is fusion that is achieved through compression as a self-shielded magnetized target under the “Magnetized Target Fusion” approach.
Proposals
NIAC 2002
The First All
Plasma Device for Revolutionary Multiple and Vital Applications
(Submitted to NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts, February 2002)
Abstract
This device ushers in the Plasma Age. The PMK is the first compound plasma structure ever formed entirely of plasmas and fields and having better than the ideal stability of the Spheromak (the PMK exceeds the lifetime of Spheromak by ten thousand times). Descriptions of the PLASMAK™ concept, step-by-step formation morphologies, and special dynamic characteristics, along with examples of same, are included below. Multiple vital applications for NIAC/NASA include uses of PMKs in laboratory simulations of solar and cosmological MHD phenomena to benefit science and education, compression and hyperacceleration as atmospheric EMP bullets for use by home or national defense forces, use as thrust rockets for NASA/USAF, use as an MTF (Magnetized Target Fusion) with a hyperconducting self formed plasma liner similar (although more revolutionary) to the work at Marshall Space Flight Center (Thio 2002), or potentially used for intense aneutronic power. For these purposes Phase I characterize a rugged magnetoplasmoid of increased size and lifetime. Since a sustained discharge is imperative to generate the most energetic currents, a self-protecting semiconductor crowbar switch will be purchased. The use of a rail-gap switch was considered too unreliable for crowbarring the high energy-density capacitor storage bank. This choice was recently validated by LANL (Grabowsky et al., 2002). The physics and technical engineering involved in the work of this proposal is extremely esoteric, and will be difficult to evaluate.
BMDO 2002
PHASER: Phased Hyper-Acceleration for Shock, EMP, and Radiation
(Submitted to Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, January 2002. If you are interested in this proposal, please request: pmk@plasmak.com
Abstract
The objective of this funds-restricted SBIR Phase I proposal is to demonstrate the merit of the core concept by physically forming the stable long-lived PMK at weapon size. The proposed work is a direct extension of previous laboratory results that were marginal for acceleration studies and weapons application, because the initial work used lower energy and shorter current signature inputs. The Phase I physical demonstration will confirm scalability of the formation process and achieve formation of the "Encapsulated EMP Bullet" that will be compressed and accelerated during Phase II to hyperkinetic velocities from 50 to 200 kilometers/sec. Since the PMK is stable, a range of plasmoid energies and velocities are possible; consequently, the target goals for BMDO can be expanded.
Neoteric
Research, Incorporated
Neoteric Research, Incorporated is a non-profit, tax-exempt corporation formed in 1995 and has a restricted license to use PLASMAK™ technology for scientific, educational and charitable purposes. The Internal Revenue Service has granted Neoteric Research 509(a)(1) and 509(c)(3) status. A principal interest relates to natural magnetoplasmoid phenomena such as sunspots, ball lightning, and cosmological jets.
Related papers by: Neoteric
Research, Incorporated can be viewed at http://www.neoteric-research.org/