(Star Scientific) Star Scientific Limited is an innovative Australian research company developing a unique method to deliver clean, safe and affordable energy to supply the world’s needs for many generations to come – with no greenhouse gas emissions, no use of fossil or fissionable fuels, and no risk of nuclear accident, explosion or meltdown.

Muon catalysed fusion offers a virtually limitless energy source – just like that of the sun and stars. While scientists have been producing fusion reactions from muon catalysed fusion for decades – they have been unable to do so consistently, or in sufficient volumes for it to be considered a viable energy source.

By maintaining a singular focus on producing sustained and controlled muon catalysed fusion, Star Scientific Limited has taken a different path to conventional research to achieve a fusion energy source that has the potential to end the world’s reliance on fossil and fissionable fuels, halt the pollution caused by the global energy industry and address the current climate change crisis.

At Star Scientific Limited, we have long believed anything is possible. Soon, it will be.

Andrew Horvath
Executive Chairman, Star Scientific Limited

Formed in 1998, Star Scientific Limited is an advanced scientific research company with a singular focus: using sustained, controlled muon catalysed fusion to deliver abundant, clean, safe and affordable energy.

The Australian majority-owned and operated company has a unique shareholder base which is spread across the globe. From leading scientists to green philanthropists, the company’s shareholders and staff drive its philosophy of using science to unlock nature’s greatest secrets.

Star Scientific Limited has invested significant resources into setting up its purpose-built laboratory and testing facility, using only the best equipment and constructing virtually everything on site from scratch to protect the authenticity and validity of its fusion energy generation processes and measurement.

Star Scientific Limited believes energy produced through muon catalysed fusion will power the world for many, many generations to come – hence the company’s dedication to perfecting its groundbreaking technique to deliver sustained, controlled muon catalysed fusion for the benefit of everyone – worldwide.

Source: starscientific.com.au

Stephen Horvath (inventor) | Biography

Stephen Horvath - engineer, inventor and self-educated scientist has devoted most of his life to researching fusion with a single purpose in mind: solving the world's energy needs through muon-catalysed fusion.

Born in Hungary in 1929, Stephen was a bright and inquisitive child who was always fascinated by how things worked, particularly engines. He read voraciously and was privately schooled before studying general aeronautical engineering at Budapest University.

World War II brought Stephen's university days to an abrupt end when he fled to Austria and immigrated to Australia under a refugee programme in 1949.

Once in Australia, Stephen re-commenced his studies via correspondence from the British Institute of Engineering Technology. During the early 1950s, he began working in a series of factories where his technical prowess and inventiveness quickly became apparent. He devoted his time to creating various devices to facilitate tasks and to improve numerous pieces of mass machinery.

It didn't take long for one of Stephen's BIET teachers to recommend him to the De Havilland Aircraft Corporation in 1956 where he began work as an engineer converting the Sea Venom Jet Fighter into a two-seat trainer for the Australian Navy.

In 1959, Stephen was appointed Senior Design Engineer at Borg Warner where he was responsible for tooling, assembly and testing of the BW35 Automatic Transmission.

Throughout this period, Stephen was often frustrated by the fact it was difficult to source adequate power for the engines and machines he designed. He continued to read and further his knowledge in the fields of nuclear physics and energy - where his true interest lay.

In 1970/71 Stephen established his own design consultancy, Engineering Design & Development (ED&D), which was a contract design firm responsible for many, many inventions including production tooling for the British Motor Corporation (BMC); tooling for the first plastic agitator in washing machines and a spaghetti machine. Profits from ED&D were ploughed into Stephen's fusion research, which was gaining momentum.

During 1974, Stephen set up Access Control Systems, once again with the goal of exploiting his inventiveness to raise sufficient capital to further his fusion concept. He developed an ingenious electronic access control system which is now used in many banks and high security facilities worldwide and which is essentially the great grandfather of the plastic cards we swipe today to open doors, access lifts and so on.

In 1978, Stephen sold Access Control Systems and founded Horvath Energy Australia (HEA), a business tasked with engineering his muon-catalysed fusion dream. By now, Stephen's love of science had well and truly overcome his desire to work as an engineer and HEA marked the beginning of a more than 20 year full-time research journey which would take Stephen around the world and put him in touch with some of the brightest minds in the energy field.

By 1979, Stephen had developed the prototype for a car powered through fusion-enhanced hydrogen burn as part of his ongoing research into alternative fuel sources. When the then Queensland Premier, Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen learned of the project, he invited Stephen to display his work publicly. Unfortunately, Sir Joh's foresight to bring about a pollution free hydrogen economy has not eventuated as yet.

As a result, an announcement was made which put Stephen in an awkward position, since he knew his work was incomplete and he had never wanted to promote the "hydrogen car" project as a finished product.

Nature is not very kind to inventors and entrepreneurs, not all of the innovative ideas have come to fruition - although each one has deepened Stephen's knowledge and understanding of his ultimate scientific goal - to unlock the secret to releasing energy via sustained muon-catalysed fusion.

Another catalyst for the next stage of Stephen's muon-catalysed fusion work was a fortunate introduction, soon after establishing HEA, to Sir Ernest Titterton, then Foundation Professor to the Chair of Nuclear Physics at Australian National University.

Sir Ernest was one of the key scientists on the Manhattan Project, which produced the first atom bomb and he became Stephen's mentor, teaching him how to develop nuclear systems and sharing Stephen's belief that nature should take priority over force - a philosophy Stephen has applied throughout his career and which is key to his muon-catalysed fusion research.

Stephen's friendship with Sir Ernest Titterton was a meeting of the minds, and a forum for sharing ideas and it continued until Sir Ernest's death on 8 February 1990.

The relationship gave rise to a number of opportunities including an invitation for Stephen to test his prototype reactor at a secure facility at the UK Atomic Research Establishment at Harwell.

In late 1983, Stephen travelled extensively in the USA, discussing his work with the energy world's elite at Los Alamos, German Town (Department of Defence) and in early 1988 New Mexico (Department of Energy); as well as meeting with Vice President George Bush, his energy advisors from the Departments of Energy and Defence to talk about his work.

In 1989, after extensive discussions with General Electric, in Schenectady, New York, Stephen was invited to secretly test the second prototype reactor at their facility.

The next step for Stephen was to design an enhanced reactor. In 1998, he formed Star Energy as the patent holder and developer of the final stage of the fusion development. He began assembling the requisite testing equipment and enlarged system to produce a commercial device to demonstrate energy release via muon-catalysed fusion.

In 2004, Star Energy changed its name to Star Scientific and Stephen entered the final testing phase for his muon-catalysed fusion generator. While many of Stephen's contemporaries have headed in different directions, abandoning muon-catalysed fusion as too difficult and riddled with unsurmountable problems, Stephen Horvath has continued on. His beliefs in nature, in the science and in himself have kept him utterly focused on his ultimate goal and he firmly believes muon-catalysed fusion will herald the beginning of a new era for our planet.

Stephen has been married for 60 years and has two children, Stephen (Jnr) and Andrew, both of whom have been closely involved with the fusion project since childhood.

Source: stephenhorvath.com.au

Star Scientific In Australia

Developing A Unique Fusion Process

Star Scientific Limited seeks to generate effective nuclear fusion working in harmony with nature. Using a nuclear physics principal ennunciated in the 1950s and well-demonstrated and understood, it could offer another, simpler way to produce nuclear fusion alternative energy. Due to some technical challenges most other investigators have given up.

But a long-lived Hungarian World War II refugee, focused on it for the last forty years, believes he is not far from the ultimate goal. His story is one of innovation, persistence and the ability to re-invent himself.

Born in Hungary in 1929, Stephen Horvath, the inventor and patent developer for the Star Scientific company, studied aeronautical engineering at Budapest University. World War II intervened, forcing him to flee to Austria.

From there, in 1949, he managed to relocate as a refugee to Australia. There he continued his interrupted studies through correspondence with the British Institute of Engineering Technology.

Once working his exceptional application brought him to the attention of the De Havilland Aircraft Corporation. In 1956 he joined them, working in redeveloping a jet fighter for training purposes.

His underlying deep interest in physics and energy caused him to keep studying this field while he worked.

In the early 1970s with his own design consultancy business he developed a number of inventions. He was also producing equipment for a number of engineering companies.

A swipe card security system he developed became Access Control Systems. He sold this in 1978.

With that money he founded Horvath Energy Australia (HEA).

The many years of extra physics study had led him to the point he wanted to experiment and develop an effective muon catalyzed fusion system. He felt it should be possible to produce nuclear fusion alternative energy in a method harmonious with nature, rather than exerting brute force.

In this belief he found a common mind with Sir Ernest Titterton. The foundation Professor to the Chair of Nuclear Physics and Australian National University, who had worked on the Manhattan Project, helped Stephen develop his nuclear processes.

Through Sir Ernest's connections, Stephen Horvath was able to test his first prototype muon catalyzed fusion unit at the United Kingdom's Atomic Research Establishment at Harwell.

He travelled and discussed his work with many physicists around the world. In 1989 he was invited to test his second prototype in the US at General Electric's facilities.

The forerunner of Star Scientific, Star Energy, was founded in 1998. Patents had been submitted and were held by the company. Effective fusion energy generation seemed not far off.

The company's name was changed to Star Scientific in 2004.

Although there are details available, the main defining technology remains unknown. It will be part of the patented process.

High profile investors are now rumoured to be involved. There is supposed to be interest from the Australian Navy and Air Force and the US Department of Defence.

With pressure in Stephen Horvath's past to reveal an early version hydrogen car before he was fully satisfied with the technology, he will not be releasing the Star Scientific muon catalyzed fusion apparatus prematurely.

What is the technology?

Table of basic particles, or Fermions, from Fermilab, in the US DOE

As explained in fusion energy the technology of Star Scientific with muon catalyzed fusion allows for nuclear fusion to be achieved at low temperatures. These temperatures can be from several hundred degrees Kelvin to cold temperatures that produce solid hydrogen.

All nuclear fusion reactions attempt to bring atomic nuclei close enough together so that the electrostatic repulsive forces of like positively charged protons are overcome by the much stronger, but shorter range strong (nuclear binding) force.

Muons, one of the basic particles of matter, have a mass around 207 times that of an electron, but with the same negative electric charge. On exposure to atoms like hydrogen a muon can replace an electron.

With its much greater mass it orbits the atomic nucleus much closer than does the electron. In doing so, it allows closer approximation of hydrogen in forming a molecule. As the muon orbits its charge can mask that of the proton's. This allows the strong force to operate. The nuclei can fuse.

A muon decays at around 2.2 x 10 microseconds into an electron, an electron antineutrino and a muon neutrino. During the time one exists it could ideally interact with around 10,000 nuclei.

In reality, though, the muon tends to become bound to a resulting helium nucleus every so often, experimentally reducing its effective interactions to around 200 in its lifetime. This has been the point that has caused other researchers to abandon muon catalyzed fusion.

Generally muons have been produced by particle accelerators. The energy required to generate a muon this way renders an output of 200 nuclear fusions insufficient to produce a useful net gain in output energy.

In the particle accelerator, muons are preceeded by pi mesons, or pions. These have an extremely short life of around 20 nanoseconds.

In nature pions then muons are produced by cosmic rays, in large part protons, interacting with atoms in our atmosphere.

Star Scientific have made the claim that they can produce oodles of pions and hence muons, rendering the stickiness and limited interactions that have been observed irrelevant.

Assuming the Star Scientific process for muon catalyzed fusion works as expected, the energy generated from high energy neutrons can be harvested. Just as with nuclear fission, fossil fuel and similar processes the heat can convert water to steam to drive turbines. The turbines drive generators producing electricity.

The Star Scientific muon catalyzed fusion fuel is proposed as deuterium, readily obtained from seawater. Although energy generated from the initial deuterium to deuterium interaction will be relatively low, some tritium will be bred. Deuterium to tritium fusion will create higher energy neutrons.

Stephen Horvath,married for sixty years, has two sons, Stephen Jnr and Andrew who have been raised around fusion research. They are actively involved in the company.

Andrew is the very prominent executive chairman of Star Scientific while his father remains as the chief scientist.

Although many who have researched muon catalyzed fusion feel it is unable to produce effective net fusion (the Japanese are an exception), maybe there is a process that might work. If Star Scientific can indeed produce multitudes of muons relatively easily with minimal energy, they would be onto a winner.

Source: alternative-energy-action-now.com

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