Reply To: The North Atlantic Current

[Brian H]

Phil’s Dad wrote:

There are a few dozen PF rigs around the world, and people who are quite capable of picking up the ball if Eric’s idea succeeds. And the incentive to do so is HUMONGOUS! Given a few million $$ it would take a few months to crank out numerous versions of this rig and start a-zappin’. The project would be delayed maybe a year, and be completed abroad. And I think the gov. knows it.

I think much of the reason that FFS hasn’t been funded is that it’s too tiny. There’s no porkulus pay-off for spending on it, and no mega-project to generate pricey jobs and kickbacks. Hence, politicians are uninterested. Phil’s Dad — “Am I wrong?” 😉 :coolsmirk:

Certainly there is no great “Public Sector” job creation in this. Lot’s of good honest engineering jobs though.

I think the current low level of interest stems partly from a feeling that it is too good to be true (which will go away very rapidly after proof of concept), partly from the big central system paradigm as you say. Politicians love to control things. This thing could be tricky to control once it’s out there. An energy policy of “everyone’s got one in their garage” is a bit scary for control freaks. They would also have to admit they had been backing the wrong horse for the last n years.

On the other hand, if this thing delivers, it will be wonderful for the balance of payments and the government that is seen to be implementing it will be national (international) heroes. [with everyone except big energy companies] That’s quite attractive to politicians of all colours.

By the way, what’s a kickback. :smirk:
Why, kind of a backwash; a payment from the payee to the payer for the privilege of being paid. Capisce?

The jobs I’m talking about are the in-development/research stage jobs. Tokamaks etc. are pretty good at spreading the cash around a local or regional economy, and pleasing constituents. The FF research cell, not so much. And it’s hard to ramp up; duplicating efforts would have limited value, and still be small potatoes. There’s no big money in or out opportunity till it’s pretty much “in the can”. And then the benefits are spread far and wide; not something a local tax base will see unique payback for. It would take enlightened self-interest, for hivin’s sake! Which is political unobtainium.

As for the ‘balance of payments’, you might like to look over ClearMarkets.com’s John Tamny’s views on the matter. Quite iconoclastic. There are no trade imbalances; the term is a nullity. But even in orthodox terms, it’s kind of hard to see how it would end up; the FF will be made available world-wide simultaneously (any qualified mfr. who pays for a license can begin cranking out prefab FFs and installing them). So “comparative advantage” is limited to the time lags between when each jurisdiction begins to use it, and since lead times are so short even a late starter can catch up. So it will come down to WHAT you do with the power. Quite tough to project all that.