Reply To: Brain: dualism of consciousness.

[nemmart]

Lerner wrote: Brian, your model of free consumers optimizing their own choices does not fit the real world. The energy companies cannot possibly make up the tens of trillions of dollars they will lose if the price of oil falls to anywhere near its cost. The principle owners of the energy companies are the major global financial intuitions—BP’s main owner is JPMorgan-Chase, for example. They will be bankrupt if oil and gas falls to its cost of production. The few thousand individuals who sit on the boards of directors of the giant companies in every industry in the world (who are also generally directors of financial institutions or energy companies) are themselves most heavily invested in energy and in finance, which are the most profitable industries. They will not make decisions based on the competitive advantage of a given industry, but on maximizing their own personal wealth, which means protecting oil and gas, even if that means higher costs for everything else.
As others have pointed out, the best way to counter these few immensely wealthy individuals—a method which has worked in the past—is building (over years) mass movements that can counter their political power. Focus Fusion folk need to be part of doing that, building our own efforts and reaching out to potential allies who want cheap, clean energy and everything that brings with it. The first step is educating people about what can be done, and what needs to be done–and inoculating people against future dirty tricks—like lumping aneutronic fusion together with fission so it can be labeled as too dangerous to use or falsely claiming that it will contribute to nuclear proliferation, etc.

I wouldn’t worry too much about the potential longer term politics. That stuff will play out — if FF works, it will be adopted somewhere and it will spread over time. The thing that I would worry about the most is making sure that the results are clear and reproducible. Although there will be an incredible temptation, do not hold back on any “secret sauce” in the interest of holding on to the profits. Just patent some important bits, license it out for small sums per unit (5% royalty maybe?) and hope for the best. Set this technology free. The world really needs it.

What really would kill this dead is if the results aren’t reproducible. It’s critical that alternative fusion approaches do not suffer another Pons and Fleischmann fiasco.