The Focus Fusion Society Forums General Transition Issues Here's What FF Can Prevent

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  • #1329
    Brian H
    Participant

    The “permanent crisis mentality” which has been mandated and cultivated will become unnecessary and its exploitation prevented. SciAm just came out with the most honest recommendation/demand for them yet:
    Effective World Government Would Be Needed To Stave Off Climate Catastrophe

    Would any institution be capable of instilling a permanent crisis mentality lasting decades, if not centuries? How do we create new institutions with enforcement powers way beyond the current mandate of the U.N.? Could we ensure against a malevolent dictator who might abuse the power of such organizations?

    Behavioral economics and other forward-looking disciplines in the social sciences try to grapple with weighty questions. But they have never taken on a challenge of this scale, recruiting all seven billion of us to act in unison.

    This deluded and malignant power-push is powering ahead, notwithstanding the patent failure of any of the “underlying science” and modelling to withstand real-world validation. Focus Fusion makes it all moot, as it both bypasses CO2 generation, and permits unlimited ultra-flexible response to whatever transpires.

    #11632
    Ivy Matt
    Participant

    Brian H wrote:

    Could we ensure against a malevolent dictator who might abuse the power of such organizations?

    I note that he didn’t mention history as one of the subjects he wished he had included in the special issue of Scientific American.

    #11635
    JimmyT
    Participant

    Brian,

    I agree completely with your assessment of the current rendition of “This is a crisis and only by giving US complete control can it be prevented”.

    But won’t they just morph it into some other crisis?

    It could be “We are poisoning the oceans”. Or “We are running out of (name practically any natural resource here)” ,or over population. Or one of a million other possibilities which only they can save us from.

    After all, the real point is not any given set of perceived problems. It’s giving them power.

    #11647
    Brian H
    Participant

    Indeed, there’s no curing or getting rid of the power-hungry, and global energy control happens to suit such people to a T. Other vehicles may not be quite so useful (‘sustainability’ and ‘ocean acidification/warming/poisoning/discoloration’ or whatever). And while public memory is notoriously short, the discrediting of the CO2 meme will have lingering effects on the ability of the crisis cabal to herd people along.

    Note that I said that FF would render the issue “moot” by circumventing all the decarbonization nonsense. But I’d prefer to see it properly discredited. Perhaps in the less pressurized and politically subverted science environment FF will bring to the issue, that will happen.

    Here’s an interesting timeline of the morphing of the Royal Society into a propagandistic “quango” (quasi-NGO):
    http://thegwpf.org/images/stories/gwpf-reports/montford-royal_society.pdf

    #12051
    Brian H
    Participant

    The actual engineering/industrial aspect of converting to the current set of renewables from fossil fuel is characteristically soft-pedalled, with much hand-wavy minimizing of the real challenges. Here’s an excerpt from an IEEE article on the subject:

    … turning around the world’s fossil-fuel-based energy system is a truly gargantuan task. That system now has an annual throughput of more than 7 billion metric tons of hard coal and lignite, about 4 billion metric tons of crude oil, and more than 3 trillion cubic meters of natural gas. This adds up to 14 trillion watts of power. And its infrastructure—coal mines, oil and gas fields, refineries, pipelines, trains, trucks, tankers, filling stations, power plants, transformers, transmission and distribution lines, and hundreds of millions of gasoline, kerosene, diesel, and fuel oil engines—constitutes the costliest and most extensive set of installations, networks, and machines that the world has ever built, one that has taken generations and tens of trillions of dollars to put in place.

    It is impossible to displace this supersystem in a decade or two—or five, for that matter. Replacing it with an equally extensive and reliable alternative based on renewable energy flows is a task that will require decades of expensive commitment. It is the work of generations of engineers.

    The author details the specifics of some of the dominant renewables infrastructure requirements. It is notable that FF, of course, bypasses most of the problems and costs.

    So, assuming (as I certainly do not) that de-fossilizing is good in itself, once FF is on the market it will be immensely better placed to do the job. I doubt it will take 5 decades, but 2 is possible. It could be much less because it is pretty much self-financing in pure market terms, relieving the world’s governments of the subsidy ball-and-chain which now afflicts them.

    BTW, given the 14 trillion W of power requirement, it would take about 3 million 5MW FFs to satisfy. That’s about $750 billion worth. (Additional site costs would be offset, I guesstimate, quite handily by the savings on maintaining existing plant, not to mention the opportunity costs/benefits of not having to build out and upgrade the grid as anticipated currently.)

    #12054
    annodomini2
    Participant

    The other issue being a large component of that energy usage is also transport and heating (in colder climates).

    The article only seems to discuss electricity generation, which FF is ideal to compete with, but what percentage of that usage is purely for electricity generation?

    The main one that will take more time to replace is heating, the transport cycle is usually around 10-15years for the bulk of the market, so if electric based vehicles became widespread and cheaper (may take some advancement here as well), transport could be converted quite easily.

    The issue is heating, many countries which developed with large gas reserves, their heating systems in the properties tend to be based around gas fired heating systems, which do not in themselves easily convert to electricity. The users of these systems will be quite averse to changing them due to cost. Unless the electricity is so cheap that the change will pay for itself within a few years.

    Converting purely to ‘renewables’ as they like to be called, is not practical or cost effective, certainly in the short term and other systems need to be in place for the bulk of the generation due to the general intermittent nature of a lot of these systems.

    Climate change can happen and has happened many times before, whether or not humans are influencing the climate as significantly as some people would like to make out is unclear at this time.

    Whether climate change will cause the doomsday scenario a lot of extremists declare is also subject to more investigation.

    #12059
    Brian H
    Participant

    Gas heating is quite efficient, but the pipelines must be in place. The FF location advantage is that it can be set up free-standing to serve an area without needing “feeds” of any kind.

    So I imagine that what is most economic will vary depending on circumstances and existing infrastructure. Head-to-head, with both available at lowest rates, I don’t know which would be better. US gas prices are going to remain very low for a long time to come. The situation elsewhere is more complex, depending on legal, political, and physical constraints on fracking, etc.

    #12924
    JimmyT
    Participant

    annodomini2 wrote: The other issue being a large component of that energy usage is also transport and heating (in colder climates).

    The article only seems to discuss electricity generation, which FF is ideal to compete with, but what percentage of that usage is purely for electricity generation?

    The main one that will take more time to replace is heating, the transport cycle is usually around 10-15years for the bulk of the market, so if electric based vehicles became widespread and cheaper (may take some advancement here as well), transport could be converted quite easily.

    The issue is heating, many countries which developed with large gas reserves, their heating systems in the properties tend to be based around gas fired heating systems, which do not in themselves easily convert to electricity. The users of these systems will be quite averse to changing them due to cost. Unless the electricity is so cheap that the change will pay for itself within a few years.

    If, as is predicted, the cheap electricity comes to pass; I plan to very quickly buy a cheap electric space heater. If I place this next to my furnace and set the furnace thermostat a couple of degrees colder than the space heater’s setting it should take care of most of my home heating. And at minimal expense.

    #12926
    annodomini2
    Participant

    JimmyT wrote:

    The other issue being a large component of that energy usage is also transport and heating (in colder climates).

    The article only seems to discuss electricity generation, which FF is ideal to compete with, but what percentage of that usage is purely for electricity generation?

    The main one that will take more time to replace is heating, the transport cycle is usually around 10-15years for the bulk of the market, so if electric based vehicles became widespread and cheaper (may take some advancement here as well), transport could be converted quite easily.

    The issue is heating, many countries which developed with large gas reserves, their heating systems in the properties tend to be based around gas fired heating systems, which do not in themselves easily convert to electricity. The users of these systems will be quite averse to changing them due to cost. Unless the electricity is so cheap that the change will pay for itself within a few years.

    If, as is predicted, the cheap electricity comes to pass; I plan to very quickly buy a cheap electric space heater. If I place this next to my furnace and set the furnace thermostat a couple of degrees colder than the space heater’s setting it should take care of most of my home heating. And at minimal expense.

    Unfortunately energy is a market and every kWh has an innate value.

    The financial backers will want to see a return on their investment when these systems are installed, therefore charging the market rate is logical, the price only drops when there is a significant surplus in supply.

    This will only occur when smaller investors can get onto the market, currently it’s impossible to compete with the large generators, FF may offer this opportunity, but it will not be as simple or clean cut as many would imply.

    #12927
    Brian H
    Participant

    Fair enough, but using FF will be cheaper even for the “large generators”; if their base cost/kWh is about 1¢, say, the payback for a replacement of their existing generators would be under 2 years. (24 hr. X 5,000 kW X .7¢/kWh saving = $840/day. $500K/FoFu / $840/day = 596 days. Possibly only half that time depending on unit cost per FoFu.) Thereafter it’s all profit. And the costs for many far exceed 1¢. So I see replacement of existing plant constrained mainly by FoFu production capacity.

    #13473
    rashidas
    Participant

    Can someone post information on the progress Aneutronic Fusion research has mades so far (say the last 5 years), and what barriers, technical and financial, are slowing progress?

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