Heinz Klostermann on the Papp engine: “There should be a Marshall Plan to support this”

Infinite Energy #51 September/October 2003Infinite Energy Magazine issue #51 Joseph Papp’s Noble Gas Engine Rises from September/October 2003 reports comprehensively on the events surrounding the Hungarian-born Josef Papp‘s creation of an engine powered by plasma sparked from small amounts of noble gases.

Many credible witnesses to the demonstrations, including aerospace engineers, defense contractors, and Navy researchers, were skeptical of the claims about this “wonder engine”, at first.

They came to be convinced the claims were true by the indisputable experimental facts before them: a lot of energy was being created, with no heat, no toxic emissions, and no understanding of how it was operating.

Joseph Papp with Noble Gas Engine courtesy Rohner Group
Joseph Papp with Noble Gas Engine courtesy Rohner Group
But mainstream interest vaporized after an explosion at one demonstration attended by Nobel Laureate physicist Richard Feynman, who apparently went to the event in order to disprove the technology.

According to Papp, it was Feynman’s pulling of a plug that caused the deadly explosion, though Feynman speculated it might have been conventional explosives planted in the device.

Feynman was represented with his employer in the ensuing litigation and science institutional giant Caltech settled, never finding any evidence of any explosive material, chemical or otherwise. Caltech claims to no longer have records on the tragedy.

For a full story on the noble gas engine and its controversial inventor, read The Mystery and Legacy of Joseph Papp’s Noble Gas Engine by Eugene Mallove from IE issue #51.

Heinz Klostermann in plasma pulse lab in Palo Alto, California
Heinz Klostermann in plasma pulse lab in Palo Alto, California
Today, Heinz Klostermann is one of an increasing number of individuals around the world pursuing the secret of Papp’s engine in an attempt to bring a revolutionary clean energy technology to commercial potential. Klostermann, who originally designed and sold x-ray imaging equipment, first heard about the engine in 1999 and has been involved in developing a plasma-driven piston-generator based on Papp’s principles ever since.

The German-born engineer now lives in California and works with inventor Tamerlane Sanchez developing a line of multi-cylinder engines based on the pulsing of plasma generated from plain air. They call their core technology the Pulser.

Lightning Harnessed by Heinz Klostermann from IE #51 describes his engine design and how it differs from Papp’s.

The reaction begins when air molecules are momentarily ionized into a plasma and then hypothesized to collapse back to air molecules. A small 12Volt battery charges a capacitor providing 500 Volts across a pair of electrodes. When the air between the electrodes is ionized, the plasma allows current to pass through the electrodes, discharging the capacitor with each pulse.

Klostermann and Sanchez maintain that high-frequency cycling of this process up to the Megaherz range causes “plasma shockwaves” that translate into kinetic energy to move a piston. A moving piston can produce power for transportation or electricity.

“Controlling the plasma shockwave is the key, because then you have the ‘push’”, says Klostermann.

Heinz Klostermann's Flying piston diagram
Heinz Klostermann’s Flying piston diagram
Patent US7076950 Internal explosion engine and generator using non-combustible gases was granted for one version of the Pulser engine in 2006.

One afternoon in the end of August, I visited their lab in Palo Alto, California. Klostermann and Sanchez demonstrated a plasma engine core test unit, shooting a free piston outwards.

Flying alongside a board with squares, the speed of the piston could be computed, giving an estimate of its energy out of the chamber.

Klostermann believes the Pulser is over-unity, but admits that “more instrumentation is needed” before he “can definitely show it”.

Opening the door to new energy possibilities beyond cold fusion reveals an array of exotic technologies designed to extract energy from our surroundings. Some utilize magnets and gravity, some work to capture virtual photons from the quantum vacuum, and some use circuits and plasma sparks. Harvesting this always-available energy located in our ambient environment is the focus of “free energy” research.

While cold fusion may be the closest to becoming a usable product by the public-at-large, plasma pulse generators based on the work of Joseph Papp are closely paralleling development.

Like cold fusion, the lack of funding hampers efforts needed to both scale up and control the Papp reaction into a commercial product.

The lack of innovative and usable energy solutions from the current hardware monopolies are driving interest elsewhere, and the handful of companies currently working to make new energy generators a commercial reality are finding renewed interest and support.

The grassroots public is slowly awakening to aid the field with buzz and crowd-funding, replacing what should have been a Marshall Plan with a decentralized but spreading meme: There are an array of solutions to our energy problems, and we choose them now.

Related Links

The Dream Machine by David Ansley San Jose Mercury News August 1989 courtesy Rohner Group

Cold Fusion Now UPdate by Ruby Carat September 13, 2012

Cold Fusion Now UPdate

Cold Fusion Now website may be in and out of visibility as we work on changes to the program files and server. We also will be changing web hosting services to a more affordable and responsive company.

We continue to evolve and prepare for the next wave of interest that, in our opinion, will be even bigger than the Rossi Wave, the huge influx of people brought to new energy awareness by Andrea Rossi‘s public demonstrations of the E-Cat.

Economic failures, ecological collapse and the end of the oil age are converging in one big clusterfuck, and there is nowhere else to run.

Marshall McLuhan, one of the great thinkers of the twentieth century, taught that as much as we shape our tools, technology shapes our minds, and we believe that

the biggest changes in the human mental imprint will occur with a new energy technology that also has the power to free peoples around the world from the scourge of poverty, pollution and war.

It is our function to create the awareness that cold fusion/LENR/LANR/quantum fusion is not only real, but developing at an ever accelerating pace. Providing a platform for the voices of new energy scientists and speaking to the public about ultra-clean energy from cold fusion is our mission. I recently took a trip up to Northern California and here are some highlights.

I first stopped at Heinz Klostermann‘s lab in Palo Alto, California where he and his partner Tamerlane Sanchez are developing a version of the Papp engine. It was a full day tailing Mr. Klostermann here and there through the heart of Silicon Valley, finally getting a small demonstration of the engine that runs on air.

You read right – an engine that runs on air.

Look for that video in mid-October (after Iraj Parchamazad‘s interview of his work with zeolites).

After the Klostermann visit, I couldn’t leave Palo Alto without stopping by Andreessen Horowitz, the venture capital firm of Mark Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. You may remember Mark Andreessen as the young man who gave us Netscape back in the early nineties.

He and his pal Ben have lots of resources that they invest in forward-thinking projects, companies, and industries of the future. I had hoped to get an appointment with the pair and relay the many opportunities available in the field of condensed matter nuclear science.

Unfortunately, they were both out of the office on vacation, but I managed to get an email address for further contact, and left two envelopes containing my card and Cold Fusion Now stickers with the lovely secretary who said she’d deliver them personally.

I took a picture of the library in the Andreessen Horowitz lobby.

As a chronic bibliophile myself, I always like to see what others are reading. This happens to be Andreessen’s personal collection and not surprisingly, the contents are mostly about computers.

On the way out, I stopped at New Enterprise Associates to see if they really do “Dare to Dream Big”, and I dropped off a few Cold Fusion Now stickers to a bemused front desk clerk, as well as a somewhat eager fellow who happened to be standing by the door.

Everyone gets a sticker, ’cause you never know….

Leaving the Silicon Valley, I stopped off at the Silver Crest diner in San Francisco to meet with Gregory Goble, the Cold Fusion Now Poet-in-Residence, and Paul Maher, a cold fusion activist who enjoys emailing institutions and challenging their personnel on clean energy policy.

We had a great conversation, and it was wonderful to meet these talented and committed individuals in person after so many Chip Body encounters (email messages).

Then, I headed north up to Eureka California, my old stomping grounds. I hoped the storage unit sheltering my thousand+ book collection was secure after a wet winter along the North Coast. What a relief to find everything dry and no mold anywhere. Whew.

While in Eureka, I took a long walk on the beach with my Geiger counter, taking radiation samples from seaweed, dead birds, crab shells, a decomposing seal, driftwood, and anything else I could test. I did not have the meter attachment I thought I ordered, so only the audio “beep” signal indicated a positive radiation measurement.

I was really happy to find the seaweed totally clean.

Only a few beeps now and then from lower portions of the dead birds, a few beeps from the decomposing seal. A few driftwood pieces had a little beep or two.

In no sample did I find an elevated, continuous beeping, the sign of higher-than-background radioactivity, which was extremely gratifying.

Of course, the reality of the early 21rst century is this could change at any moment. Whether it’s the thousands of nuclear weapons scattered about the planet on land and sea, or the nuclear power plants on the brink of failure, nuclear holocaust is a scenario much too possible to forget about.

On the beach I met a young man walking his dog who “had all the equipment in his lab” to do cold fusion, but he was skeptical.

I said “Get to it!” and told him to check out our website for more info. I hope he does, ’cause having some active cells in lovely Humboldt County would be a real plus.

On my way back to the Southland, where I’m house-sitting for my uncle in Los Angeles, California, I stopped for a hike in the Humboldt Redwoods State Park, one of the most beautiful and precious stands of giant Redwoods trees on the west coast of the U.S.

I even stopped at the Park Visitor Center, where I was reminded that new energy science has a long and storied history, for here was a display of Charles Kellogg, naturalist and Renaissance man who purportedly put out a flame – on more than one occasion – using sound.

Here’s an NPR piece on Charles Kellogg and a bio from Mendocino Rail History.

Further south in Ukiah, California, I walked by WMEC radio station to drop off some stickers, and ran into two of the station people.

One of them, Govinda, said “Hey can you come back in fifteen minutes? I’ve got to interview somebody right now, but we’ll do you right after.”

“Sure!”, I said.

Within twenty minutes, I had the earphones on and was speaking into the mic about cold fusion. He even interrupted the Amy Goodman Democracy Now! special two-hour broadcast to put me on live.

The two fellows (and presumably all of Mendocino County!) were very interested to hear that cold fusion was alive and well. Apparently, the town of Willits, about twenty miles north of Ukiah, used to have an alternative energy fair where cold fusion scientists spoke!

“I have tapes of that somewhere”, he said.

I was dying to get my hands on those classic recordings. “Hoo boy, you better find em!”

Before I left, I thanked them for their open-mindedness. I have attempted to get environmentalist, Peak Oilers, the Green Party, and plenty of people who should know better, on board with the solution to our energy problems, with no success. Yet these two fellows at the Mendocino Environmental Center want more, and I am sure that I will be back there updating Mendo County again on the positive developments on cold fusion in the future.

So if the website goes in and out over the next week, you can rest assured that we have not been deterred from action. We are gearing up for more and better times to come.

Cold Fusion Now!

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