Reply To: T-shirt designers unite and take over

[dennisp]

Because you can keep fast cars with roaring V8 engines, pipelines, and gas stations. Just replace the oil wells with fusion-powered gasoline factories and you’re done. If you want to go electric, you have to get the car companies to retool, install an upgraded electric grid and recharging stations, and wait for everybody to buy new cars.

But before doing any of that you have to invent the battery technology that has been “just around the corner” for decades…as energy dense as gasoline, charges in minutes (somehow…that’s a *lot* of current flow), and cheap enough so the car doesn’t cost much more. And it has to use common materials so we can make enough of them. Personally I’ve stopped believing in every new battery breakthrough that hits the news.

Or maybe you mean, why not stick with methanol? Now you’re still using a liquid fuel, you don’t have the efficiency advantages of electric motors, but you still have to change out the cars and infrastructure, to convert to a fuel with half the energy density. When you could take one last step and make things a lot easier on yourself.

Maybe methanol-powered fuel cells? Improves your vehicle efficiency, but you still have to change your infrastructure, and fuel cells are still really expensive. Waiting for cheap fuel cells is like waiting for good batteries.

Major change to the fuel distribution network a giant chicken-and-egg problem. You might need government involvement to get it done. Sticking with gasoline, all you need is to be able to produce it cheaper than the oil companies can drill it, and they’ll do it on their own. Focus fusion can easily accomplish that.