[outdog]

Several inventors have either made free energy machines, or been very close to this. But they have fallen into the same trap: They wanted to control the technology by getting patents, and perhaps keep important info secret.
When they thus take key positions, following the old creation style, it is easy to stop the projects by snuffing out those individuals.

The new creation style, for the new age, is crowdsourcing, like in Wikipedia.
Even if the main problems are solved by one person: When the info is spread among scattered people intent on creating this machine, the invention can't be stopped.
(Complex megaprojects like conventional fusion is too easy to block, even if many scientists know the solutions.)