JimmyT wrote: With regards to investments in a fusion economy:

I really believe that the motive fuel of choice in the short term will become compressed natural gas. This is gas that we won’t be using to power the grid or winter heating of commercial & residential buildings. (Electric heat with cheap electricity should be a no brain-er)

It seems like the “holy grail” of auto power is all electric vehicles. But there are some problems associated with that. Our current battery technology is just not up to the task. The battery technology which we do have is based on lithium batteries. And there just is not enough lithium available to build enough batteries for an automotive fleet. True, there are some advances which might occur which would make this argument void (like ultra-capacitors). But these advances remain to be seen.

The automotive industry could readily convert to building natural gas vehicles. The technology is well established. And home refueling equipment is already available. This does add a little bit to the cost of each automobile for the cost of the pressure tanks. But this is theoretically a one time expense for car owners. These tanks don’t wear out. So the sale price of the worn out autos should reflect a premium for the salvage value of the tanks.

Now, if I’m right about this. I wonder who makes those tanks?

Oh, and Brian. The cars will continue to belch forth carbon dioxide.

CNG has energy density problems, too. Plus, it’s very hazardous to handle and store (gasoline burns, NG explodes). And it makes car exhaust smell really bad. :-S

Nano-particle/wire electrodes and the new MIT channel design for slashing internal resistance should be able (soon) to produce batteries with up to 10X the energy (and power) density of current LiIon (the former is already far higher than ultra-caps’, which would require huge volumes and weights to match even the 200-mi range of current TeslaMotors cars with battery-only power).

As for batteries’ need for lithium, two points: The lithium is totally recyclable, so is not really ever ‘consumed’; and lithium (and boron, for that matter) will be cheaply available from seawater once FF-powered desalinization kicks in. I think the latter process will change all sorts of computations about where to get what resource (element) at what price. Mining may become obsolete! Make billions of years of crustal erosion work for you … :cheese:
Edit: Just re-reading the above, and it suddenly struck me how important the first few elements of the Periodic Table have become: H(1), Li(3), B(5); even He(2) and Be(4), the latter being a key construction metal for FF generators.