Reply To: Barack Obama on Energy

[Brian H]

@JS, the problem that comes up when you try to answer questions like “who stands to gain and make money” from FF is that there’s a short, early ramp-up period during which one can look at who’s making money from selling the licenses (LLP) and making the generators (?? -whoever buys a license and sets up plants) and selling power generated at market-beating prices (utilities, etc.). But then the real impacts and Change-Tsunami hit. Because the cutting of power costs by 10 or 20X here and everywhere has implications that sound fantasy-driven and demented if you try and lay them out.

As far as the plausibility of FF goes vs. other approaches, consider that the costs of improving on already known results (new hardware, new experiments) are so high with virtually every other model that the probable payoff per development/research dollar spent is VASTLY better for FF. And on numerous measures, FF is far closer to “unity” than its competition.

Some other much better financed approach (all trying to achieve “steady state” containment) like PolyWell might nose over that marker first, but as you suggest, it’s the sheer plausibility barrier that needs to be broken, and once someone does it, all the subjective and objective risk-weighting formulas flip.