Clean Planet Ltd (Japan) updates

Quote from Shane D.

It would be nice if they made it easy for us to know if there has been a change, instead of us having to dig for it. A simple "this is what we said last year, and this is what we improved on, or didn't" would suffice. That includes both their research, and PR departments.

MFMP has been a good example for others to follow on being totally open. But understandably, those based on a business model, have other factors to consider.

The Thunderstorm Generator is Open Source and a Business.

How can there business be successful?

Patent protection?

Knowledge of the physical theory is not sufficient for a business. The engineering part, how use the physical effect, how to make it repeatable and stable at low cost, how to use it safely, how to scale to MW output, how to make an application (not an LED lamp but a boiler) - this is a business, and it's patentable.

Quote from Paradigmnoia

A jaded view might be that the company is a charity to fund LENR stuff disguised as a business so that the inevitable research=investment losses can be more easily written off against profits from somewhere else.

I don’t know how it works in Japan, but in the US there are severe restrictions on how net operating loss carry forwards can be used and transferred.

Quote from orsova

I don’t know how it works in Japan, but in the US there are severe restrictions on how net operating loss carry forwards can be used and transferred.

True, and I know nothing of Japanese finance.
Most North American stock market mining exploration companies lose money forever until they roll back the stock, bleed out and repeat until no one will give them any more money, and that is considered standard practice. New energy research can’t be too more likely to find something to sell than junior would-be miners are.

It just seems that the front office and back work zones aren’t communicating to each other very well and so fantastic stories are sometimes told by the public facing part, albeit with probably a kernel of facts lost in there somewhere.

Quote from Paradigmnoia

True, and I know nothing of Japanese finance.
Most North American stock market mining exploration companies lose money forever until they roll back the stock, bleed out and repeat until no one will give them any more money, and that is considered standard practice. New energy research can’t be too more likely to find something to sell than junior would-be miners are.

It just seems that the front office and back work zones aren’t communicating to each other very well and so fantastic stories are sometimes told by the public facing part, albeit with probably a kernel of facts lost in there somewhere.

I don't know that it's an apt analogy.

The behaviour you describe is confined to publicly listed junior miners who survive by issuing equity ad infinitum. The same kind of behaviour goes on in listed biotech a lot. The real purpose of this kind of behaviour is to transfer investor money to executives via inflated compensation and related party transactions.

A private company generally doesn't have the luxury of issuing endless stock to unsophisticated counterparties. Moreover, Clean Planet seems to be well funded by its anchor shareholders, who are very credible large companies.

Are the left and right hand singing from different hymn sheets? Perhaps. But that doesn't mean there's anything untoward going on, operationally speaking.

Quote from orsova

Are the left and right hand singing from different hymn sheets? Perhaps. But that doesn't mean there's anything untoward going on, operationally speaking.

They come across as completely making stuff up, and that is not good.
The big module was exactly the size of however many 350 W modules and these were well on the way a whole back and now we are working on the 35 W modules of which I will step out and guess that ten of these go into a 350 W module, ad infinitum, so the 35 W will constructed of yet to be designed 3.5 W and 0.35 W units therein.

Quote from orsova

Moreover, Clean Planet seems to be well funded by its anchor shareholders, who are very credible large companies.

At around the time CP were formed I had the chance to buttonhole the deputy energy minister at the Diet in Tokyo. We had lunch together and afterwards I took the opportunity to quiz him on the governments cold fusion funding plans. He said to me 'they can have as much as the want'. His English was pretty good, but I suspect that by 'want' he meant 'need'.

Each of us running commercial LENR companies face a different set of problems to solve. Calorimetry of CP seems to be a weak link for them. For us, cooperation with other labs with excellent calorimetry has removed that burden from us. Each entrepreneur has a different approach to PR and funding. Mizuno and I tend to prefer the low-key approach and laser targeted honest communication with investors of the mindset that fits the company's mission.

CP with their large corporate backing faces a different set of challenges. I am by no means making excuses for them not meeting their targets but as companies go through successive rounds of funding, experienced entrepreneurs know that with each round where stated targets are not met, the ability to raise additional capital with good terms reduced exponentially so I personally am very much with the "promise less, deliver more" line of strategic thinking. But for us, again the parameters are very different than CP.

It's also very hard to know what happens behind the curtain. Speaking from experience, some very silly or trivial issues can be devastating to research progress some which we have control over and some which are external and we don't (like EU customs ruining a couple of our reactors en route to validation labs).

Running an under-funded development project means making very difficult decisions everyday. We could get a lot more progress done with 10+ calorimeters running in parallel and a materials research lab to support our fuel development but you gotta do what you can with the limited resources you have.

So I guess my point is that one can come up with valid arguments positive or negative about CP, their apparent lack of progress, or not meeting certain public targets but its hard to draw any specific conclusions one way or another without knowing the full context of what is going on and that is very hard to get for outsiders. Only time will tell. In any case, I do believe the competition is heating up (pun intended) for LENR in general so let's hope more companies are getting more successes because the potential industry that we would create is certainly big enough to support multiple companies vying for different niches.

Quote from orsova

I don’t know how it works in Japan, but in the US there are severe restrictions on how net operating loss carry forwards can be used and transferred.

In Japan, corporations can carry forward losses for 9 or 10 years depending on the date the losses were incurred as there was a law change in 1 APR, 2018.

Quote from Daniel_G

In Japan, corporations can carry forward losses for 9 or 10 years depending on the date the losses were incurred as there was a law change in 1 APR, 2018.

My comment was more about the transferability of NOLs from one entity to another.

Quote from orsova

My comment was more about the transferability of NOLs from one entity to another.

That would depend on whether the current structure would allow for consolidated financial filings.

This is normally established by the amount of control the parent company has over the subsidiary. Since we don't know the terms of the investment by Mitsubishi or other corporate entities it's hard to say. It would be a strategy for a large parent company to set it up so that they can claim ongoing losses as a tax offset but somehow I doubt that Yoshino would give up that level of control to achieve that but as everything is rather ambiguous in Japan its hard to say.

Quote from orsova

My comment was more about the transferability of NOLs from one entity to another.

Tobashi ?

Quote from Frogfall

Tobashi ?

Repair bonds!

Unrelated to my train of thought, but still a fascinating piece of financial history.

Quote from Daniel_G

That would depend on whether the current structure would allow for consolidated financial filings.

This is normally established by the amount of control the parent company has over the subsidiary. Since we don't know the terms of the investment by Mitsubishi or other corporate entities it's hard to say. It would be a strategy for a large parent company to set it up so that they can claim ongoing losses as a tax offset but somehow I doubt that Yoshino would give up that level of control to achieve that but as everything is rather ambiguous in Japan its hard to say.

Any tax benefit wouldn't even be a drop in the bucket for the likes of Miura & friends. It just doesn't seem plausible to me.

Quote from orsova

Any tax benefit wouldn't even be a drop in the bucket for the likes of Miura & friends. It just doesn't seem plausible to me.

Profitable corporations like to offset potential taxes with losses in research and investments in other companies that are losing money. It is a good strategy that is encouraged by government taxes and laws designed to put some guardrails in. Corporations are more nimble than governments and small research labs and fringe companies are more nimble than corporations.

231112_TEDxBoston_Masami_Hayashi - Create and share your videos with Clipchamp

Watch videos made with Clipchamp, the best video maker for everyone.

clipchamp.com

I hope this link works OK- Clean Planet at TEDX in November '23 -

Quote from Alan Smith

https://clipchamp.com/watch/aZ…social&utm_campaign=watch

I hope this link works OK- Clean Planet at TEDX in November '23 -

It loads ok, thanks.

A very good summary presentation ... The wright brothers were crazy ... We'll stay crazy!
But very short on details ... only that the output (steam) is hundred's of C, so can be used in turbines.
And they are still working on the Ikaros "engineering prototype" project.
Everything else, particularly the industrial version, is "will ......"
Not behind schedule, which is Phase 3 2023-2024 Phase 4 2024 https://www.cleanplanet.co.jp/technology/

RAN (Dir. Akira Kurosawa)

Quote from Alan Fletcher

A very good summary presentation ... The wright brothers were crazy ... We'll stay crazy!
But very short on details ... only that the output (steam) is hundred's of C, so can be used in turbines.
And they are still working on the Ikaros "engineering prototype" project.
Everything else, particularly the industrial version, is "will ......"
Not behind schedule, which is Phase 3 2023-2024 Phase 4 2024 https://www.cleanplanet.co.jp/technology/

Not behind schedule if you move the schedule…