Power struggles ahead?

[Brian H]

[Split from this post – Admin]

tcg wrote: I really like the image of some poor slob shoveling coal into a boiler as what we are trying to step up from.

Thanks! 😉

But the most trouble would come from the few who have a vested interest in the status quo. Coal and natural gas produces most of the electricity in this country, and the owners of these resources would be desperate to preserve their money makers.
…

As I keep re-iterating, I can’t see how they could cause trouble for anyone but themselves. The initiation of FF power production (or even setting up a generator mfg. plant to make and sell them) would leave any region/jurisdiction/market that opted to refrain from getting on board out in the cold. No customer base will put up with 10X+ higher costs just because a quasi-monopoly wants to exclude the competition or sell only a higher-margin product. Businesses and their jobs and production will ‘vote with their feet’, if all else fails.

Plus — investing in FoFus and quickly increasing the market (consumption) has a much better ROI than standing pat. I’m sure their accountants will make that quite clear to them.

[zapkitty]

Brian H wrote:
As I keep re-iterating, I can’t see how they could cause trouble for anyone but themselves. The initiation of FF power production (or even setting up a generator mfg. plant to make and sell them) would leave any region/jurisdiction/market that opted to refrain from getting on board out in the cold. No customer base will put up with 10X+ higher costs just because a quasi-monopoly wants to exclude the competition or sell only a higher-margin product. Businesses and their jobs and production will ‘vote with their feet’, if all else fails.

Plus — investing in FoFus and quickly increasing the market (consumption) has a much better ROI than standing pat. I’m sure their accountants will make that quite clear to them.

Perhaps you miss the point… they will try as surely as the sun rises. This immense change will mean an opportunity for equally immense profit-taking on the part of our lords and masters.

They are very used to bending governments and laws to their will and getting their way no matter what it costs their serfs… I mean their “customers”…

They will try and they, de facto, wield vast power.

But it will be funny to watch the “deregulation” tide suddenly turn, at least as far as this particular subject is concerned, and those fierce advocates for liberty will start carefully explaining how aneutronic fusion must be strictly regulated under experienced corporate oversight.

And the House and the Senate will, again, carefully follow their instructions from the oligarchs…

[tcg]

When did the fishermen and other vicitims of the Exon-Valdez oil spill to get compensation, and how much did they get. The answers are: “just recently and very little”.

If I wanted to gum up the works for LPP, I would rely on time tested methods. I don’t want to get too specific (you never know who is reading this), but if I have already figured this out, so could the vested interests,. Remember, we are talking about the most vicious and greedy people on the earth, people who would find no difficulty halting production of something which threatens their profits. Underestimating them would be a critical mistake.

The best political strategy I ever learned is to anticipate where your opponent will next leap, get there before him, and cut the ground away so he falls into a hole. If the DPF can become a successful electrical generator — many ifs there — we would be in for a war on many fronts, and we would be wise to consider our moves now. For example: perhaps the U.S. would not be the best choice for introducing a device which generates electricity at 1/10 the present cost. Perhaps better would be a country with chronic budget problems and a hydrocarbon defficiency. Some momentum, a reliability record, and demand could be built up before taking on North America.

[Aeronaut]

Ladies and gentlemen, our most apparent detractors, like most posts in these threads, seem to assume that we mere mortals can do nothing to change reality. I beg to heartily disagree, as I’ve posted the details of many times over the past few months.

My understanding of the folks who run the big corporations is that they’re really motivated by profit —> stock prices climbing predictably. This means that they can become allies for a price. I doubt these people are married to their resource anywhere near as much as any mortal would be to the power and prestige that go with a strategic position in the economy.

Now, what might motivate 10 to 20 warring factions in the Afganistan regions could be a challenge to outline.

[zapkitty]

Aeronaut wrote: Ladies and gentlemen, our most apparent detractors, like most posts in these threads, seem to assume that we mere mortals can do nothing to change reality.

Uh… translation? What is an “apparent detractor”?

Advising of a set of very real pitfalls and possible countermeasures to same is hardly being a “detractor” and such labeling serves no useful purpose in discussing a set of facts that are very much in evidence.

As for the rest of your comment… you seem to think that the middle managent will be calling the shots for the uber-wealthy…

… when the results so far have been those in power announcing yet another “grand bargain” with the uber-wealthy via their proxies in the corporations… a bargain that always winds up with the oligarchs walking away everything they wanted with a cherry on top and everyone else getting screwed, blued and tatooed.

The question you should be thinking on is this one:

“How can you deal with them when they believe they can have everything without your help and have no problem with being as dishonest and as ruthless as it takes to get exactly what they want?”

[Aeronaut]

zapkitty wrote:

Ladies and gentlemen, our most apparent detractors, like most posts in these threads, seem to assume that we mere mortals can do nothing to change reality.

Uh… translation? What is an “apparent detractor”?

Advising of a set of very real pitfalls and possible countermeasures to same is hardly being a “detractor” and such labeling serves no useful purpose in discussing a set of facts that are very much in evidence.

As for the rest of your comment… you seem to think that the middle managent will be calling the shots for the uber-wealthy…

… when the results so far have been those in power announcing yet another “grand bargain” with the uber-wealthy via their proxies in the corporations… a bargain that always winds up with the oligarchs walking away everything they wanted with a cherry on top and everyone else getting screwed, blued and tatooed.

The question you should be thinking on is this one:

“How can you deal with them when they believe they can have everything without your help and have no problem with being as dishonest and as ruthless as it takes to get exactly what they want?”

Hm I guess you missed my bootstrap a corporation posts. Basically one shows Them that They’ve lost their touch. Them=Detractor in my usage of the word, because I seldom see reality as being static.

[Brian H]

Two points:
1) If any jurisdiction, anywhere on Earth, starts making and/or using FoFus, everyone else will have to fall in line or be subject to unbearable competitive disadvantages.
2) Even for utilities now using the cheapest available power sources, they will get better ROI by spending the next billion $ on new FoFus and deploying them — and on a much shorter timescale — than by any conceivable expenditure on existing plant or plant types. (Which is why I brought accountants into the picture.)

And the cat is pretty much already out of the bag. Unless these malign powers act NOW to stop achievement of unity by LPP, the simple fact that it has happened will be the starting gun world wide for anyone who has been tracking DPF research even at arm’s length. It’s called the “existence proof” effect, I believe: knowing something is possible is more than half the battle. Even if you have zero details about the specific technology, there are a myriad of brilliant reverse-engineers who can “get there” by the same or related means just knowing that it has to be possible.

And the incentives are beyond huge.

[Lerner]

Brian, your model of free consumers optimizing their own choices does not fit the real world. The energy companies cannot possibly make up the tens of trillions of dollars they will lose if the price of oil falls to anywhere near its cost. The principle owners of the energy companies are the major global financial intuitions—BP’s main owner is JPMorgan-Chase, for example. They will be bankrupt if oil and gas falls to its cost of production. The few thousand individuals who sit on the boards of directors of the giant companies in every industry in the world (who are also generally directors of financial institutions or energy companies) are themselves most heavily invested in energy and in finance, which are the most profitable industries. They will not make decisions based on the competitive advantage of a given industry, but on maximizing their own personal wealth, which means protecting oil and gas, even if that means higher costs for everything else.
As others have pointed out, the best way to counter these few immensely wealthy individuals—a method which has worked in the past—is building (over years) mass movements that can counter their political power. Focus Fusion folk need to be part of doing that, building our own efforts and reaching out to potential allies who want cheap, clean energy and everything that brings with it. The first step is educating people about what can be done, and what needs to be done–and inoculating people against future dirty tricks—like lumping aneutronic fusion together with fission so it can be labeled as too dangerous to use or falsely claiming that it will contribute to nuclear proliferation, etc.

[Brian H]

Yes, but-but. It’s too late for them, Eric. Honestly, given the amount of info already on the loose about your research, what would block anyone from the Chinese to North Koreans to Taiwanese to Singaporeans to Chileans to ….. from replicating the results if you once announce achieve unity? Even if they deep-six you and Murali and John and Aaron, it’s gone too far.

They won’t “jump on board” willingly, but unless they can stop EVERYONE from producing and using FF, the jig is up.

The price of oil would take some time to drop to the cost of production in the lower-cost arenas, since there is such a huge overhang of gear that uses gasoline/diesel/jet fuel/heating oil, etc., but it would eventually come to that. Meanwhile, the extractive industries would either find new ways to deploy existing capital, or perish. Which has happened to numerous ‘dominant’ sectors throughout history, including recent history.

The fact that the current economy is in the Great Recession doesn’t hurt, either. I expect FF to bust that downslide in fairly short order.

But your point about being well known and well thought of is part of the story, too, of course. The more people know, and expect/hope FF will succeed, the harder to slow/squelch it.

And … back to ROI. The creation of, say, double the current generating capacity (and expansion of the grid, and deployment in hitherto unworkable locales, etc.) will provide earnings opportunities which will be unparalleled. And the uses to which such power can be put is the real “boost”. Take some time and give the basic numbers to a competent accountant, even an industrial cost accountant, and ask him to extrapolate. Or even an economist, though they won’t have the same gut feel for the implications.

I don’t think FF can be stopped, if your science is right.

[Brian H]

tcg wrote:
…
For example: perhaps the U.S. would not be the best choice for introducing a device which generates electricity at 1/10 the present cost. Perhaps better would be a country with chronic budget problems and a hydrocarbon defficiency. Some momentum, a reliability record, and demand could be built up before taking on North America.

You are talking as though LPP is going to be doing the choosing, the taking on, or even the introducing to the market. If Eric makes the licenses, as indicated, available to all comers world-wide simultaneously, then the buyers themselves will, as I have pointed out several times, do their own “introducing” and production and dealing with regulators, etc., etc.

NONE of that is, can be, or should be LPP’s concern. JUST MAKE IT AVAILABLE!

[Aeronaut]

1. Build a sales/communications company with 10,000 local offices- almost down to the township level.
2. Reinvest profits in 10,000 cutting-edge fusion research labs. Rewrite SEO rulebook with 10k unique IP dot coms, followed by 10k more unique IP dot edus
3. Manufacture and install 10k to 20k FFs as a tax dodge, if nothing else. The interactions of all of these components brings all sorts of sweeteners to the table.

The hardest part is believing that most of this is possible in less than a year and that it (creating around 3 million US clean energy and education jobs)can be done with less than $500 of capital. IOW, no IPO required.

[Brian H]

As a way to make money off FF, it might be viable. But it is irrelevant to the real question, which is “will FF get picked up just because it exists?”. My thesis is that economics mandates it. Once the news is out, SOMEONE (some country, company, state, whatever) will see it as the huge lever and advantage it is, and will put the pedal to the metal. And no neighbor or competitor will be able to refrain from emulating that.

Once the cascade begins, it sweeps the planet. Economics rulz!

[Brian H]

As a side note, Merkel in Germany is taking heavy flak for announcing that the government is commuting the death sentence for its nuclear fission reactors for 12-14 years. It seems the renewables they have mandated to take over the load are running up huge costs and providing puny or no returns. In a few years, I suspect they will be desperate for something that works but doesn’t burn money or bring the Enviro car-torchers out into the streets. :cheese:

[tcg]

I am certainly glad that Eric took the time to weigh in on this thread, and reading his words, I am convinced that the right people will be making the decisions when the time comes.

I would only like to add the coal industry to the list of potential opponents. Natural gas and oil will find uses in transportation and heating for some time to come, but coal is only used in this country to generate electricity, to the best of my knowledge. The companies which own these resources will see the development of cheap, pollution free means to produce power as a severe threat to billions of dollars of future profit. The fact that much of the central and eastern part of the U.S. has no alternative to using their product gives them tremendous leverage to continue despoiling huge tracts of Appalachia and charging ever increasing prices. They will NOT be good sports about loosing this advantage. They would be happy to see wide use of FF only after they have sold the last lump of coal and the last barrel of oil. The important thing to remember about these people is that they don’t merely sell fuel resources, they are in the wealth extraction business.

I would like to think that market forces and popular will would be all we need to open this door into the future, but they rarely have been enough in the past. Great changes have needed a little muscle, a bit of guile, some misdirection, publicity, spellbinding, political hustle, and judo, to name a few of the arts which may have to be used.

[Rezwan]

As a good girl scout, I think we should be prepared for any eventuality.

That point about handling nuclear fears is important. A pre-emptive strike now to counter nuclear disinformation in the future is a good policy. To that end, help us out with this project.

Brian H wrote: Once the cascade begins, it sweeps the planet. Economics rulz!

Yes, we should also be prepared for a sweeping cascade. For either outcome (overcoming entrenched interests, or cashing in on the cascade), the organizational prep is similar. Building relationships, education, affiliation, outreach, awareness, improving the web platform, clearing property rights issues and logistics. Get Sting to sing “I want my D P F”

[Author]

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