NIMBY FUD

[Rematog]

Transmute,

You mention NMRI. Why do you think the public knows it as MRI, not NMRI….. The equipment manufacture felt that having the N word (nuclear) on the machine would make people not want to use it.

So, this example, in fact, supports my position that the general public has a “mistrust”, at the very least, of radiation and nuclear technology.

Why has pasteurisation using ionizing radiation not become more accepted? Why is it called “cold pasteurisation” instead?

[Transmute]

No, they don’t require security of that nature at water treatment plants (but, they too are centralized facilities, most with a 24/7 staff). Didn’t say it was rational, in fact, said it was not.

But, Focus Fusion plants WILL, for the first period at least, be regulated and licensed by the NRC in the United States. They will, in my opinion, require security.

Just remember, I’m seeing this thru eyes experienced in maintenance, operation and construction of heavy industrial facilities. I would be very poorly equipped to critic the methodology of a laboratory. It may be I’m more concerned than you are, due to having to have dealt with people cutting fences, stealing (usually by employees of either the company or contractors on site doing work) and having the public “intervene”. I’ve personally had some one walk up to me and threaten to “bring friends and guns and dynamite and blow this place up” if it was not shut down (a coal fired plant). He was a crack-pot and local police dealt with him.

But…..this stuff is real.

I’ve had to deal directly with State, and indirectly with federal environmental, OSHA and pressure vessel code inspectors. I’ve seen some real chickenshit. I could fill a couple of posts with stories of just plain stupid stuff they have required. Not something to make the environment cleaner or the work place safer, but to comply with their interpretation of the bureaucratic regulatory system they run.

I seen many automated water treatment plants for small towns.

Yaawn, Appeal to Authority. As we mentioned power sup-stations don’t have security other then a fence, a focus fusion reactor would be the same thing. Any issue of permits are equivalent to systems of similar size and danger, For example a Coal power plant is going to take up much more space, money, produce more harmful byproducts and require more permitting then a 1/10 acre fusion power plant. Even a wind mill of equivalent mega-wattage to a fusion power plant will take up more space (and be a giant “eye sour” to morons that lack aesthetics in clean energy) and require more permitting, The focus fusion reactor would be out of sight out of mind, at the foundation of large buildings (were dangerous machinery like industrial air condition and back-up generators already exist) or attached to existing power substations.

[Rematog]

I’ll plead the 5th on the charge of “Appeal to Authority”.

But, my point was that I am speaking from personal experience, not some third hand, unknown authority.

My personal experience is the regulatory agencies can be flustering and arbitrary. My personal experience is that even on attended plants with rent a guards, security issues happen. On these basis, I state that my opinion is that the NRC will be one of the permitting agencies and will require on site security.

I understand you disagree. If I understand correctly, you think that Focus Fusion will be treated like a transformer or air conditioner unit and can be installed anywhere an owner pleases, and believe that remote monitoring and a lock on the door will be the security requirement. You feel that maintenance can be contracted out, just like the building plumping or HVAC maintenance needs. If this is not correct, please explain what I’ve misunderstood and how you think it will happen.

Note: I have limited my discussions to what I’ve referred to as the “first phase” of deployment. This being the 5-10 years needed to switch over, transitioning to more de-centralized nodes out to twenty years after commercial availability. I am not considering the world 50-100 years from now. I’ll be dead.

At this point, I think we will both have to wait and see what actually happens, if it happens at all.

[Transmute]

Rematog wrote: I’ll plead the 5th on the charge of “Appeal to Authority”.

But, my point was that I am speaking from personal experience, not some third hand, unknown authority.

My personal experience is the regulatory agencies can be flustering and arbitrary. My personal experience is that even on attended plants with rent a guards, security issues happen. On these basis, I state that my opinion is that the NRC will be one of the permitting agencies and will require on site security.

I understand you disagree. If I understand correctly, you think that Focus Fusion will be treated like a transformer or air conditioner unit and can be installed anywhere an owner pleases, and believe that remote monitoring and a lock on the door will be the security requirement. You feel that maintenance can be contracted out, just like the building plumping or HVAC maintenance needs. If this is not correct, please explain what I’ve misunderstood and how you think it will happen.

Note: I have limited my discussions to what I’ve referred to as the “first phase” of deployment. This being the 5-10 years needed to switch over, transitioning to more de-centralized nodes out to twenty years after commercial availability. I am not considering the world 50-100 years from now. I’ll be dead.

At this point, I think we will both have to wait and see what actually happens, if it happens at all.

Personal experience means nothing, say a man see a UFO and says it was aliens, you argue against his logic and he claims “you we not their, man, this is what I saw!”

I don’t see why focus fusion can’t be decentralized from the get go, After prototyping, testing and a few pilot facilities of course.

Consider the world 50-100+ years down the line, your child, grand children and any related generation (hopefully) won’t be dead by then. Also considering transhumanism some people might actually live forever eventually, so nothing will be able to be put off for another generation to deal with.

[Rematog]

I disagree with personal experience being irrelevant.

If in a discussion of say, electric car deployment, two people disagree on how they will be operated and maintained. One has had a career in the automotive repair business, the other has not (I know nothing of your background or expertise).

Which ones thoughts on that particular subject would carry more weight with a third party?

I’ve made my case based on:

Existing asset reuse, including very importantly, transmission access (we have agreed, most residential and light commercial power needs will be provided by local distribution I believe).

Likely Regulatory issues.

Public Fears.

Security issues.

Added installation cost for distributed siting (economies of scale).

We disagree on how important these thing are, but I don’t think you could make a believable claim any of them are of no account.

As I recall, the only reasons you’ve stated for distributed installation are:

Savings on transmission costs.

People want to own/control their own generators.

I do not consider philosophic reasons of “I like it more” or “I dislike big business” to be valid arguments.

I agree transmission costs will be an important factor. I just do not believe it and the desire to own will out weight the disadvantages/hurdles I’ve mentioned above, at least for the first 10 years of deployment.

I think we both agree that, with time, the Regulatory, Public Fear and Security issues will become less important. And, I’ll also agree that desire to own will increase with time.

We disagree in our evaluation of these factors. You are stating that your reasons are so strong, that they will outweigh the reasons I’ve given for my opinion that Focus Fusion will, in the first phase, be deploy at central facilities and major industrial sites, along with big ships.

Time will tell.

[Transmute]

Rematog wrote: I disagree with personal experience being irrelevant.

If in a discussion of say, electric car deployment, two people disagree on how they will be operated and maintained. One has had a career in the automotive repair business, the other has not (I know nothing of your background or expertise).

Which ones thoughts on that particular subject would carry more weight with a third party?

If a mathematician says “2+2=5”, and a small child disagrees does that mean the child is wrong? Thus the “weight” of someone’s experience does not make their statements on the subject true, said person still needs to prove its true with evidence.

I’ve made my case based on:

Existing asset reuse, including very importantly, transmission access (we have agreed, most residential and light commercial power needs will be provided by local distribution I believe).

Likely Regulatory issues.

Public Fears.

Security issues.

Added installation cost for distributed siting (economies of scale).

We disagree on how important these thing are, but I don’t think you could make a believable claim any of them are of no account.

As I recall, the only reasons you’ve stated for distributed installation are:

Savings on transmission costs.

People want to own/control their own generators.

I do not consider philosophic reasons of “I like it more” or “I dislike big business” to be valid arguments.

I agree transmission costs will be an important factor. I just do not believe it and the desire to own will out weight the disadvantages/hurdles I’ve mentioned above, at least for the first 10 years of deployment.

I think we both agree that, with time, the Regulatory, Public Fear and Security issues will become less important. And, I’ll also agree that desire to own will increase with time.

We disagree in our evaluation of these factors. You are stating that your reasons are so strong, that they will outweigh the reasons I’ve given for my opinion that Focus Fusion will, in the first phase, be deploy at central facilities and major industrial sites, along with big ships.

Time will tell.

We cover this already:

Public Fear: as scary as an x-ray machine
Security: No more dangerous then a power transformer.
Larger scale: add the cost of high power transmission and problems of centralized grids. Centralization exist because small scale conventional generators are not competitive with large ones, but since focus fusion can’t be scaled up (core size can’t be scaled up in this design) an array of generators in any one spot is not going to cost much less then many single generators all over the place. Distributed generators will reduce energy distribution cost, be improvise to black outs from failures of any single generator and provide energy (and income) in the form of waste heat for heating/cooling water and buildings or powering industrial processes.

[Rematog]

And we have disagreed before as well.

Scary as X-ray machine, to you. To the general public, in my opinion, it will be seen as more like a fission plant, at first.

As dangerous as a transformer. Absolutely disagree. Transformers are not powerful sources of X-ray and less powerful, but still considerable sources of neutrons. They no longer have PCB’s in their oil (and it wasn’t considered a hazard when it was used).

Point to you on value of heat for HVAC and process use. This will drive distributed use to happen somewhat sooner.

Regarding ecomomy of scale, your point about the core size of a focus fusion module neglects all of the supporting infrastructure. Cooling, fuel and waste handling, controls, maintenance etc. All of these are subject to economy of scale.

I agree that the best fit plant size will be smaller then the current 1-3 GW per site. And distributed use will start sooner and grow more and more with time.

But not to any large percentage of installed capacity during the first 5-10 years. Note: I’m assuming distributed to mean less then 10 power blocks and especially, being place in an urban or commercial setting. Large industrial plants will have them early on.

[Lerner]

Let us be clear about decaborane. This is a solid at room temperature. At 100 F, about as hot as it gets in our environment, the vapor pressure of decaborane amounts to 1.6 mg per cubic meter of air. The NIOSH Immediate danger to life and health (IDLH) level for decaborane is 15 mg per cubic meter of air, almost ten times higher. What this means is that you can’t get to that level even if you spill the decaborane on the floor. The IDLH level was determined strictly by tests on small animals. There is no data for humans, because it is very hard to kill people with decaborane gas.

Iodine, which is just about as toxic in gaseous form, has a vapor pressure at 100 F that is about 300 times higher than decaborane.

The only real danger is from fire and the decaborane is very well protected inside the meter-thick water shield. Much better protected than , I suspect , hoptial supplies of iodine.

[Brian H]

NIMBY FUD is truly a real and serious issue. But conditions may be right to “grasp the nettle like a man”, and not tip-toe around public misconceptions. That way lies ever deeper ignorance.

[Transmute]

Rematog wrote: And we have disagreed before as well.

Scary as X-ray machine, to you. To the general public, in my opinion, it will be seen as more like a fission plant, at first.

As dangerous as a transformer. Absolutely disagree. Transformers are not powerful sources of X-ray and less powerful, but still considerable sources of neutrons. They no longer have PCB’s in their oil (and it wasn’t considered a hazard when it was used).

Point to you on value of heat for HVAC and process use. This will drive distributed use to happen somewhat sooner.

Regarding ecomomy of scale, your point about the core size of a focus fusion module neglects all of the supporting infrastructure. Cooling, fuel and waste handling, controls, maintenance etc. All of these are subject to economy of scale.

I agree that the best fit plant size will be smaller then the current 1-3 GW per site. And distributed use will start sooner and grow more and more with time.

But not to any large percentage of installed capacity during the first 5-10 years. Note: I’m assuming distributed to mean less then 10 power blocks and especially, being place in an urban or commercial setting. Large industrial plants will have them early on.

We will see what public opinion will be, as long as the “N” word is not used it will be as acceptable as MRI, if the “N” word is used it could go down like NMRI.

The fusion reactors x-ray and neutron emission are protected against by solid shielding, it would take someone dismantling the thing at which point it would turn off from the drop in coolent and radiation emission would stop anyways.

Coolent is simply distilled water, and a water to water heat transfer system is not very large as for the hot water produced that could either go to really big radiator (or a heat sink of somekind) or to a building. we are talking about 5 megawatts of heat (assuming the claim 50% efficiency) that about as much heat as a diesel electric locomotive gives off. The fuel use is tiny! A hand held tank of the stuff could power a reactor for month or even years! There is no waste to handle except helium gas which could be jettisoned into the air. The controls are automated and the caps used to charge the reactor are already being arrayed so making larger arrays won’t save anything, maintenance is once every couple of months, not worth a full time staff

Now that I think about it though many dense plasma cores could be mounted together and shoot down the same decelerator, the reactor could be scaled in this manner and use less materials then a single core reactor. But a muliple core reactor is probably going to take some research after single core reactors are proven.

[Brian H]

Transmute wrote:
There is no waste to handle except helium gas which could be jettisoned into the air.

As Eric has mentioned elsewhere, W/W helium production will be falling off drastically as natural gas extraction ends, so the helium will be worth collecting.

[Brian H]

Lerner wrote: Let us be clear about decaborane. This is a solid at room temperature. At 100 F, about as hot as it gets in our environment, the vapor pressure of decaborane amounts to 1.6 mg per cubic meter of air. The NIOSH Immediate danger to life and health (IDLH) level for decaborane is 15 mg per cubic meter of air, almost ten times higher. What this means is that you can’t get to that level even if you spill the decaborane on the floor. The IDLH level was determined strictly by tests on small animals. There is no data for humans, because it is very hard to kill people with decaborane gas.

Iodine, which is just about as toxic in gaseous form, has a vapor pressure at 100 F that is about 300 times higher than decaborane.

The only real danger is from fire and the decaborane is very well protected inside the meter-thick water shield. Much better protected than , I suspect , hoptial supplies of iodine.

Thanks for that, Eric. I’d been trying to get good data on the material, but couldn’t.

________

Could you please respond to my post here: https://focusfusion.org/index.php/forums/viewthread/201/ , or update us or post news on CMEF?

[Brian H]

Rematog wrote:
…
I’ve personally had some one walk up to me and threaten to “bring friends and guns and dynamite and blow this place up” if it was not shut down (a coal fired plant). He was a crack-pot and local police dealt with him.

But…..this stuff is real.

I’ve had to deal directly with State, and indirectly with federal environmental, OSHA and pressure vessel code inspectors. I’ve seen some real chickenshit. I could fill a couple of posts with stories of just plain stupid stuff they have required. Not something to make the environment cleaner or the work place safer, but to comply with their interpretation of the bureaucratic regulatory system they run.

There are, it occurs to me, some more recent and very powerful PR tools which can be deployed. GW and global carbon pollution and the billions trapped in subsistence living are allies, here. Anyone wishing to hyper-regulate or delay deployment of FF can readily be depicted as insensitive to those issues, or flat-out self-interested and attempting to keep their lucrative “buggy whip” monopolies afloat. We can play dirty, too! :coolmad: 😆 >:-(

[Transmute]

Yes but the amount of helium produced is minor, though pumping it into a storage tank would not be hard and replacing said tank every few months any trained ape could do.

[Brian H]

Transmute wrote: Yes but the amount of helium produced is minor, though pumping it into a storage tank would not be hard and replacing said tank every few months any trained ape could do.

IIRC, Eric estimated that at full stretch FF would supply about 1/8 of the world’s current helium consumption.

[Author]

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