Next Generation Nuclear Fission Plant

[Brian H]

Lerner wrote: We DO want publicity–all the time and any time! We especially want some after the machine starts to operate.

Brian is right that there are many steps between starting the machine and demonstrating scientific feasibility. But we will be running initially with only deuterium, not with DT, which we don’t intend to use.

Thanks for weighing in, Eric! Please enlighten us what you hope to gain from early publicity, and whether you think my concerns about getting premature hassles or intervention are paranoid. Is it a matter of hoping to drive up the attractiveness and hence value of participation shares for the second tranche of development & investment?

[Aeronaut]

Brian H wrote:

We DO want publicity–all the time and any time! We especially want some after the machine starts to operate.

Brian is right that there are many steps between starting the machine and demonstrating scientific feasibility. But we will be running initially with only deuterium, not with DT, which we don’t intend to use.

Thanks for weighing in, Eric! Please enlighten us what you hope to gain from early publicity, and whether you think my concerns about getting premature hassles or intervention are paranoid. Is it a matter of hoping to drive up the attractiveness and hence value of participation shares for the second tranche of development & investment?

Yes, please keep us up to date on what you need for publicity, Eric. My aim here is that everybody on the planet is eagerly anticipating FF solving all those problems. Politicians should see it as politically suicidal to oppose FF and/or its desired regulatory changes. Big business should take those cues (no political support for their status quo) as a clear signal to see if they qualify for a license (see the foreign aid paragraph). :bug:

[Lerner]

There are two main reasons. First, if we wait until the completion of this experiment to publicize FF and raise money for ther next phase, there will ineivitbaly be a gap and delay. Better we publicize now, paving the way for getting money either privately or from the government. Second, it is only reasonable to expect that there will be resistance to FF, even once proven, from a lot of powerful interests connected with existing energy sources. We need a broad educational effort to counter this resistance and that means a big organization. It will take years to organize that, so we better start now!

[Brian H]

Lerner wrote: There are two main reasons. First, if we wait until the completion of this experiment to publicize FF and raise money for ther next phase, there will ineivitbaly be a gap and delay. Better we publicize now, paving the way for getting money either privately or from the government. Second, it is only reasonable to expect that there will be resistance to FF, even once proven, from a lot of powerful interests connected with existing energy sources. We need a broad educational effort to counter this resistance and that means a big organization. It will take years to organize that, so we better start now!

Yes, such resistance could be very potent. However, my thinking has been that if proven, the economics will rule. Your design and patent(s) will provide sufficient information to countries such as China, e.g., that are demonstrably willing to ignore such niceties if it is in their interests, and if US and other jurisdictions were to be slow on the uptake, they would replicate and implement FF on their own. The competitive advantage that this would provide would be so massive and so obvious that even the most reluctant vested interests would be forced to follow suit. The US already whines about cheap labor in China; can you imagine if it also had energy costs which were 1/20 of America’s and Europe’s?

Even if the patent details were suppressed, there is a well-known phenomenon in technology and science: once something is demonstrated to be possible, it is not necessary to know the details to duplicate it with enough effort and intelligence. As you yourself have noted, Eric, there is no new and heretical physics or technology for the establishment to choke down here, only the acknowledgment that careful and creative extension and tweaking of known principles can achieve what brute force Tokamak-style thinking cannot.

Once you’ve done it, LPP, I believe, will have a window of a couple of years max to establish itself as the prime source of reliable and refined designs for license; if there is any delay beyond that, others will have replicated the generator on their own.

These factors (competitive advantage and existence proof leading to duplication/replication) are certain to be obvious to anyone attempting to suppress FF or its implementation. They will have no choice but to get on board or be left so far behind that they would have to exploit FF for all it was worth to try to catch up.

Either way, once this genie is out of the bottle there is no putting it back.

[Aeronaut]

Lerner wrote: There are two main reasons. First, if we wait until the completion of this experiment to publicize FF and raise money for ther next phase, there will ineivitbaly be a gap and delay. Better we publicize now, paving the way for getting money either privately or from the government. Second, it is only reasonable to expect that there will be resistance to FF, even once proven, from a lot of powerful interests connected with existing energy sources. We need a broad educational effort to counter this resistance and that means a big organization. It will take years to organize that, so we better start now!

Hopefully we can skip the several years to public awareness part and get private donations to pay for the engineering phase in the process.

Part of the reason I set my site up the way I did is to pre-sell new visitors so they aren’t overwhelmed like I was for several months. Closely aligning with http://stabenow.senate.gov/infocus/index.htm is another.

The links are in my site now. A few more will be added when I re-proof tomorrow morning. You’re going to get a kick out of the venture capital and career path contextual links. Enjoy!

[Brian H]

Aeronaut wrote:

There are two main reasons. First, if we wait until the completion of this experiment to publicize FF and raise money for ther next phase, there will ineivitbaly be a gap and delay. Better we publicize now, paving the way for getting money either privately or from the government. Second, it is only reasonable to expect that there will be resistance to FF, even once proven, from a lot of powerful interests connected with existing energy sources. We need a broad educational effort to counter this resistance and that means a big organization. It will take years to organize that, so we better start now!

Hopefully we can skip the several years to public awareness part and get private donations to pay for the engineering phase in the process.

Part of the reason I set my site up the way I did is to pre-sell new visitors so they aren’t overwhelmed like I was for several months. Closely aligning with http://stabenow.senate.gov/infocus/index.htm is another.

The links are in my site now. A few more will be added when I re-proof tomorrow morning. You’re going to get a kick out of the venture capital and career path contextual links. Enjoy!

Private contributions aka investments, probably; private donations are not something I’d count on being sufficient, though I might be wrong.

As far as government legislators and regulators, “Put not your faith in Princes” (or priests, for that matter! 😉 ) Your effort to appeal to self-preservation by warning them they will be left behind and turfed if they don’t get with the program is likely to be received with considerable skepticism, given a) that the technology is still speculative, b) that public awareness is still minute, and c) the pressure to stick with the current paradigm is unceasing and intense. Some awareness, growing as the project moves closer to fruition, is probably the most that will be possible.

I find it hard to envisage any public official putting career, reputation, or neck on the line to advance FF before consensus and demonstration are achieved. Especially when there are no lobbyists throwing about bribes, perks, and pork!

Which brings to mind a contrast between this and any other technology and economic shift I can think of. There will be a (relatively speaking) infinitestimal ramp-up period. Once the ultra-clean, ultra-low-cost energy option is on the table, the move to change over will be blazingly fast. The payoff speed, as we discussed earlier, is so quick that economic barriers to entry will be tissue thin, notwithstanding the stranded assets issue.

[Aeronaut]

Very well said, Brian.

I still haven’t topped and tailed the copy, so it’s a good time to inject scarcity, urgency, insider knowledge type excitement. Above all else, it has to be a very good read to go viral. Maybe I’ll tell the story like a Western, where the hero, in hot pursuit, has to switch horses to overtake the quarry and save the day. The longer it takes to switch horses, the greater the risk…

Eric, precisely how much of the system is covered by a manufacturing license? Senator Stabenow (D-Mi) mentioned that a wind turbine has 8,000 parts, so I made a list including foils, capacitor plates, cables, fasteners, etc. that I could put on page 3 if only the vacuum chamber and its contents are protected by licensing. What I’d like to be able to present is the thriving aftermarket potential similar to the auto and computer parts aftermarkets.

The GM plant I’ve been eyeballing was on the news last night. It’s 2 million square feet, double my rough guess. If we make foils the hard way, this stamping plant was made to order. And We The People now officially own most of it.

[Brian H]

Aeronaut wrote: Very well said, Brian.

I still haven’t topped and tailed the copy, so it’s a good time to inject scarcity, urgency, insider knowledge type excitement. Above all else, it has to be a very good read to go viral. Maybe I’ll tell the story like a Western, where the hero, in hot pursuit, has to switch horses to overtake the quarry and save the day. The longer it takes to switch horses, the greater the risk…

Eric, precisely how much of the system is covered by a manufacturing license? Senator Stabenow (D-Mi) mentioned that a wind turbine has 8,000 parts, so I made a list including foils, capacitor plates, cables, fasteners, etc. that I could put on page 3 if only the vacuum chamber and its contents are protected by licensing. What I’d like to be able to present is the thriving aftermarket potential similar to the auto and computer parts aftermarkets.

The GM plant I’ve been eyeballing was on the news last night. It’s 2 million square feet, double my rough guess. If we make foils the hard way, this stamping plant was made to order. And We The People now officially own most of it.

10s of millions of cars/year far exceeds the possible 10s or 100s of thousands of FF generators a year. E.g.: even one petawatt capacity/year would be 200,000 generators. Add another factor of 10 for the valuation, and you’re talking about an economic equivalent to 2,000,000 cars worldwide, still off by a factor of 10 or so (actually 30; the 2008 sales were around 60 million).

BTW, as far as aftermarket, licensed or unlicensed components, patented or unpatented, makes no difference to the aftermarket. As long as it’s part of the supplier/subcontractor/enhancement chain, it’s all spin-off aftermarket. Anyhow, the economic side-effects of cheap energy will dwarf any direct manufacturing impact, since energy costs impact every aspect of every economy, from the most primitive to most advanced.

[Aeronaut]

All I’m after right now is lining up the early adopters who will get the snowball rolling downhill so there is an aftermarket and huge public interest.

My current working headline is “Psst- can you keep a secret?”. The new copy is aimed squarely at visionary leaders with the balls to invest 1M$ in lining up 2 or more state universities to rapidly confirm breakeven, before the proof, so that they can lead the way into Industrial Revolution 3.0 . I’m also suggesting that a license and plant could cost less than 50M$ for very well-qualified licensees. That may be priced too low for credibility.

[Brian H]

Aeronaut wrote: All I’m after right now is lining up the early adopters who will get the snowball rolling downhill so there is an aftermarket and huge public interest.

…
. I’m also suggesting that a license and plant could cost less than 50M$ for very well-qualified licensees. That may be priced too low for credibility.

Yes, I don’t have a grip at all on the possible costs of a manufacturing plant. One would have to have a fairly detailed grip on the specific components. Maybe Eric’s original breakdown of cost-of-production would provide guidance, if available. There are, of course, plants and PLANTS! One capable of assembling 2-10 generators a week would be far different from one able to produce 100-500/week, obviously. I wouldn’t expect the larger ones to get put together until some experience and refinements had been accumulated; the risk of being undercut by rapid advances in assembly or design would be too great. The first manufacturers will need to be flexible and aggressively innovative, I think.

I also wonder how fast the generator itself will evolve; Mk I, Mk II, … Mk XX, etc. !

[Brian H]

Aeronaut wrote: …
My current working headline is “Psst- can you keep a secret?”. The new copy is aimed squarely at visionary leaders with the balls to invest 1M$ in lining up 2 or more state universities to rapidly confirm breakeven, before the proof, so that they can lead the way into Industrial Revolution 3.0 . …

Sounds like politicians who would budget money for directed replication. Hm. I’m not sure that’s workable or useful; the time saved would be very small, and the payoff for the politician questionable. I say that because fusion break-even is such a major event that challengers and testers and replicators would be lining up. Of course, having materials in advance to hand to verify with might save a few months, but that’s not much to worry about.

I’m not sure what you envisage happening, here. Suppose “unity” is achieved with the test rig (though, AFAIK, its purpose is actually to verify that the temps necessary for pB fusion can be achieved, and pB fusion initiated; any sustained output would be attained later, in the engineering development phase.)

Then what?

[Aeronaut]

There’s a tricky interaction here based on the facts that (almost) everybody knows at least 100 people, and that birds of a feather flock together. In this case, the pols get the early heads-up, pass it on to their business friends who fear they’ll need a break on carbon taxes, then I test the copy by buying visitors from StumbleUpon’s business sections.

AFAIK there is only one existing DPF large enough to even think about replicating. I think it safer and more productive to find the right personality type to invest as much as 1M$ to get 2 machines and campuses ready to confirm. This psychology is the all-important ice-breaker- like the first guy to cross the gym to get the dance started.

Sustained output? I’m not sure why the engineering phase would start with anything less than a solid promise of an operational ignition and control system happily pulsing in a repeatable manner.

[Brian H]

Aeronaut wrote: There’s a tricky interaction here based on the facts that (almost) everybody knows at least 100 people, and that birds of a feather flock together. In this case, the pols get the early heads-up, pass it on to their business friends who fear they’ll need a break on carbon taxes, then I test the copy by buying visitors from StumbleUpon’s business sections.

AFAIK there is only one existing DPF large enough to even think about replicating. I think it safer and more productive to find the right personality type to invest as much as 1M$ to get 2 machines and campuses ready to confirm. This psychology is the all-important ice-breaker- like the first guy to cross the gym to get the dance started.

The timing seems odd … fear of carbon taxes is a longer term issue than 2 years, from what I understand of the ramp-up. But once FF is on the market, the question is, or should be, moot. Carbon output will fall off a cliff regardless, and people will not need (or be willing) to put up with bloodsucker taxes like that on productivity. FF will solve that rapidly, on a local, national, and global level.

As far as replicating, I’d assume new rigs conforming to the latest successful design would be assembled. If any of the existing DPFs were unity-capable, it would already have achieved it, so it’s irrelevant. And you can’t physically “get ready” what isn’t ready to get ready. Unless Baby works more or less unmodified.

Sustained output? I’m not sure why the engineering phase would start with anything less than a solid promise of an operational ignition and control system happily pulsing in a repeatable manner.

Depends on the issues the engineering needs to solve. There’s a reason 3 yrs. has been “allocated”; the specifics may well be devilish! A “solid prospect”, or even a “reasonable prospect”, might be all you get.

Actually, your use of the word “promise” seems to illustrate your assumption that once unity has been achieved, it’s all over technologically but the tinkering. Some tinkering! 😆 :cheese:

[Aeronaut]

Yepper, I’m an optimist, and Eric is a scientist. I’m guessing that we may see unity just in time for the new year. Maybe- just maybe- unity will bring alumni out of the woodwork to fund replication machines, but I’m hedging that bet by looking for somebody with the vision and faith to commit before unity. An unsigned Sir Richard will do just fine.

I’ve worked in stamping plants, and I can tell you for a fact that a thousand or more foils of varying thicknesses would be a logistical and assembly nightmare. CVD would knock the engineering down to the ion recovery tube/coil imho.

[Brian H]

Aeronaut wrote: Yepper, I’m an optimist, and Eric is a scientist. I’m guessing that we may see unity just in time for the new year. Maybe- just maybe- unity will bring alumni out of the woodwork to fund replication machines, but I’m hedging that bet by looking for somebody with the vision and faith to commit before unity. An unsigned Sir Richard will do just fine.

I’ve worked in stamping plants, and I can tell you for a fact that a thousand or more foils of varying thicknesses would be a logistical and assembly nightmare. CVD would knock the engineering down to the ion recovery tube/coil imho.

Hm; as I read the projected sequence, that’ll likely be NYrs 2011, not 2010. I think you’re overpromising.

[Author]

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