The Focus Fusion Society Forums Focus Fusion Cafe What can we do with $189 Billion?

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  • #3151
    Duke Leto
    Participant

    No I do not. I do not even disagree that applying Gore’s prescriptions would cause massive economic hardship, but as I see it so will AGW in the long term. Much more so. In fact Peak Oil will probably cause a depression and a World War if nothing is done on AGW or if any measures are taken, so long as no new energy source emerges. So as I see it FF is humanity’s and the US’s only real hope at this point.

    But I do disagree with the Wegman criticism. Basically we have a statistician called in to criticize the conclusions of climate scientists by a Texas Republican house committee chairman to comment on a scientific finding that conservatives are politically opposed too. Lovely. Michael Behe has similar credentials. I’m not even going to bother looking at the findings of the British judge, as they are 100% irrelevant. Judges do not arbitrate science any more then chemists judge the merits of writs of appeal.

    I looked at RealClimate’s contemporary response to the hearing. What amuses me in the whole discussion is that the GW critics are bitching about variations in the amplitude of the graphs, whether it was warmer before the little ice age then it is now and such. That isn’t the point. The point is the 1st and 2nd derivatives of the graph. Did the temperature changes in the past operate as FAST as they are now and does this indicate the appearance of a powerful new force in global climate? I fail to see how anyone can not answer yes to those two questions.

    Plato supposedly wrote “I’ll admit no one who doesn’t understand Geometry” over the door of the Academy. Modern science ought to substitute Calculus. (Yes, Plato WAS an utter bastard.)

    #3152
    Brian H
    Participant

    Duke Leto wrote: No I do not. I do not even disagree that applying Gore’s prescriptions would cause massive economic hardship, but as I see it so will AGW in the long term. Much more so. In fact Peak Oil will probably cause a depression and a World War if nothing is done on AGW or if any measures are taken, so long as no new energy source emerges. So as I see it FF is humanity’s and the US’s only real hope at this point.

    But I do disagree with the Wegman criticism. Basically we have a statistician called in to criticize the conclusions of climate scientists by a Texas Republican house committee chairman to comment on a scientific finding that conservatives are politically opposed too. Lovely. Michael Behe has similar credentials. I’m not even going to bother looking at the findings of the British judge, as they are 100% irrelevant. Judges do not arbitrate science any more then chemists judge the merits of writs of appeal.

    I looked at RealClimate’s contemporary response to the hearing. What amuses me in the whole discussion is that the GW critics are bitching about variations in the amplitude of the graphs, whether it was warmer before the little ice age then it is now and such. That isn’t the point. The point is the 1st and 2nd derivatives of the graph. Did the temperature changes in the past operate as FAST as they are now and does this indicate the appearance of a powerful new force in global climate? I fail to see how anyone can not answer yes to those two questions.

    Plato supposedly wrote “I’ll admit no one who doesn’t understand Geometry” over the door of the Academy. Modern science ought to substitute Calculus. (Yes, Plato WAS an utter bastard.)

    Statistical incompetence is very much to the point. The 1st and 2nd derivitives are bogus issues, since there is no comparison to equally fine-grained data in earlier periods. E.g.: during any long-run episode of cooling or warming, how “jagged” is the process? There very well may have been sharp rises and falls which the data are too fuzzy to resolve. Actually, in more recent geological times, there have been some very fast “flips”, on the order of decades, which are not taken into account in the IPCC data. They are usually as the result, it seems, of poorly understood changes in ocean circulation and wind patterns.

    As far as the economics goes, you misrepresent the conclusion. The Nordhaus analysis INCLUDES the negative impact of AGW, and considers a) how much of it is mitigated by the proposed policy, and b) how much it costs to do so, plus c) the secondary benefits of applying the policy (e.g., increased device and energy efficiencies as spinoffs of upgrading). FF-type solutions have the multiple advantages of costing little and creating great net wealth combined with high effectiveness in cutting carbon use. All the other possibilities are weak in one or more of those areas. Gore’s ideas are weak in all of them, even the first.

    #3153
    Duke Leto
    Participant

    Uhhuh.

    Punctuated Equilibrium in Climate, eh? Right.

    The economic point is not that developing new technology wouldn’t be spiffy. It’s that betting worldwide planning on developing new technology is insane. You don’t know if the technologies you suggest will work or if they will fail, or if they will have some unforseen secondary effects.

    Imagine it this way. Let’s say we’re playing draw poker and you have a 4 card flush but no pair, and I bet the size of the pot on my hand. You can fold or call, because the size of the bet is all the money you have. If you fold, you at least don’t lose everything now. If you call, you might double your stack, but only if you make your flush on the draw card, which is only about a 20% chance. Less counting the legitimate possibility that I’m holding a higher flush or better. So the only sane strategy is to fold. Now if we had a situation where the cost to find out if you get a flush were lower, say I had only bet one tenth the size of the pot, then calling would actually be sensible. Repeating the identical hand 100 times, you would 10 times your investment 2 out of 10 times.

    Problem is that in this analogy, with the economic cost benefit analysis, you are calculating in an assumed ROI for research when you have no rational reason for thinking that there will be one for any given situation. You don’t know if it’s 5 to 1 we’ll hit something like FF or a runaraound against the photosynthetic ceiling, or 100 to 1. Or a million to 1. You also don’t know whether the threat of AGW is as bad as it is being represented. (The analogy to my hidden poker hand.) Maybe it is a bluff. Maybe it’s already so bad that we have to be prepared for an apocalyptic scenario and the resources thrown away on research would better be spent on canned food and ammunition. The point is that the lack of information on GW and future Energy resources strengthens the case for caution and conservatism in resource usage, NOT proceed as if nothing is wrong and hope that technology will bail us out.

    I acknowledge this is an unfair attack on a strawman caricature of your argument, but I’m still in a bad mood about being a Stalinist.

    #3154
    Lerner
    Participant

    First, I really don’t think there is a “party line” on how focus fusion will affect society or how it will be deployed. Our goal will be to get it deployed as widely and as rapidly as possible and to get the price to the consumer as low as possible. My personal feeling is that doing that will require a big political battle with lots of people involved. No matter how we arrange for licensing, and what encouragement we give licensees to keep prices low, it will still ultimately be a political question how much the electricity costs. For example, in the US it will be a political question of how much money will go to paying off the shareholders of companies who have obsolete electricity generators. If the political decision is that those shareholders will take the loss, then the electricity will be a lot cheaper. If the decision is to bail them out at the consumer’s expense, then the electricity cost will come down very slowly.

    However, I don’t agree that trillions in profits on FF itself are inevitable. That assumes, for one, that there will continue for a long time to be a huge gap between fossil fuel costs and FF. But since oil and gas prices are astronomically higher than the cost of production, once the tight control over supply is broken by substantial deployment of FF generators, the price of fossil fuels will fall towards the cost of production. That will still be a lot higher than FF costs, but that will not lead to FF generators being priced way above costs. Look at the introduction of popular new electronic products. Even though initially demand exceeds supply, the price premium is generally quite modest. I can see billions in profits, but not trillions. There will be trillions in savings compared with existing prices.

    I agree with Duke’s goals for spending money. The best way to do these things is to have them funded by the government. But that does not mean a Stalinist model or even a Western bureaucratic model. The ideal way to run things is democratically, with those doing the work, and those affected by it, involved in the decisions. Doing that is tough, because, like FF itself, it has never been done before.

    Eric

    #3155
    Duke Leto
    Participant

    I was rolling up profits and economic productivity gains in the same package, Eric. Since the effective econ productivity gain is equal to the drop in cost of all comsumed energy, the question is how much of the econ productivity is translated to profits for the energy prodcuer and how much becomes the cost decrease, and consequent profit increase, of the consumers. To put that somewhat more clearly, the net increase in GDP is more or less fixed, who gets what piece of the now bigger pie is what’s at issue.

    As to whether the distribtuion net owners in the US are going to charge a “transition cost” to recoup their investment, I always assumed they would just gleefully accept the role as a markup taking middleman for the FF Generator owners, fire 90% of their engineers working transmission lines, substations and other generators and then live off of a free 25-50 cents per kwh for just running the meters. If nothing else, they have the value of the land where the transmission lines currently are.

    But you do have a point, I had never thought of the Blue Chip investment portfolios that have the Power Company stocks. Particularly those that pension plans and 401k mutual funds are invested in. Hmmmm… Oh well, other problems…

    I wish I had your confidence that collaborative democratic management were possible, Eric. My own experience is that ships need captains. Democratically elected captains, but still someone to keep everyone from forming their own plan in a storm. The problem with American management, it seems to me, is that it seems to think that management ought to be hereditary and that salesmen make the best managers. (As opposed to the best petty thieves.)

    #3156
    Brian H
    Participant

    The only way for the existing providers to “rake in” the additional 20+¢/kwh profit (that’s a pretty high number, btw; base is 6½¢/kwh where I live) is if they can erect impenetrable ‘barriers to entry’ to other producers/FF operators. That would be quite a trick. The industrial power buyers, e.g., would install their own generators and take the full benefit, and that would hack away a huge chunk of the utilities’ markets. And the consumer pressure groups would take to the streets with torches and machetes of they were being asked to pay 30-100X the cost of production. You have to be a serious corporate conspiracy theorist to imagine that the market wouldn’t rule in this instance.

    IMO, just the NEWS that FF was workable would start a dramatic move in pricing of fossil fuels and every related power usage and production service and product. People are NOT willing to pay vast markups now for something that will be cheaper later. In fact, there might be a serious transitional deflationary risk.

    #3157
    Duke Leto
    Participant

    Ooops!

    Decimal place error.

    That ought to have read .20 to .50 cents, as in 2 or 5 mils.

    Sorry.

    #3158
    Brian H
    Participant

    Duke Leto wrote: Ooops!

    Decimal place error.

    That ought to have read .20 to .50 cents, as in 2 or 5 mils.

    Sorry.

    Same arguments apply, though perhaps without the torches and machetes.

    #3159
    Brian H
    Participant

    Lerner wrote:

    If the decision is to bail them out at the consumer’s expense, then the electricity cost will come down very slowly.

    once the tight control over supply is broken by substantial deployment of FF generators, the price of fossil fuels will fall towards the cost of production.

    I agree with Duke’s goals for spending money. The best way to do these things is to have them funded by the government. But that does not mean a Stalinist model or even a Western bureaucratic model. The ideal way to run things is democratically, with those doing the work, and those affected by it, involved in the decisions. Doing that is tough, because, like FF itself, it has never been done before.

    Eric

    Bailing: there would be an implementation lag in the best of circumstances, but still … I doubt that kind of bailout could be mounted. There are too many “linked” industries. As I noted above, the industrial users would put the screws on hard to get their own generators, fast. The comparative advantage of having cheap power would be way too great to leave even a small delay in impolementation.

    Fossil fuels: the first casualty would be investment, ongoing and prospective. Those taps would shut off with a deafening CLUNK. Then a simultaneous fire-sale of petroleum products would ensue, combined with a feverish hunt for new uses. Incidentally, the prices of plastics would also crash. The Graduate would have oily egg all over his face.

    Government: too slow, and too subject to pressure group manipulation attempting to direct the benefits and channel the expenditures, much as is now happening with the AGW lobby (which keeps tens of thousands of scientists and technologists, not to mention promoters and hucksters, employed). When this much money is at stake, principle becomes a fig leaf. I’m no Randian, but I’d have far more faith in market chaos than regulatory committees in this instance. Safety and interoperability are the sole areas where top-down control could be useful. The beauty of the small size of the FF generators is that even relatively sparsely populated areas could readily afford and justify installing one or more.

    Even international comparative advantage comes into play. Countries would de facto be competing to see who could bring down energy costs the fastest. As an interesting sidelight, all those mega-towers on the Gulf will make fine diving platforms. The ME may develop a sudden serious Sheikh Shortage. 😉

    #3160
    Brian H
    Participant

    Duke Leto wrote:

    Problem is that in this analogy, with the economic cost benefit analysis, you are calculating in an assumed ROI for research when you have no rational reason for thinking that there will be one for any given situation. You don’t know if it’s 5 to 1 we’ll hit something like FF or a runaraound against the photosynthetic ceiling, or 100 to 1. Or a million to 1. You also don’t know whether the threat of AGW is as bad as it is being represented.

    I acknowledge this is an unfair attack on a strawman caricature of your argument, but I’m still in a bad mood about being a Stalinist.

    Straw everywhere, indeed! We de facto make those kinds of ROI decisions all the time. AGW, or even a full-blown Ice Age, would be, e.g., as nothing compared to a 10-mi diameter asteroid hit. The odds are smallish, and declining (the population of candidate objects has gradually been dropping over geological time spans), but the penalty for being wrong or unlucky is almost infinite. Yet we don’t go on crash asteroid detection/deflection priorities.

    And “any given situation” is not an issue: research is being pushed in many directions, sometimes wrongheadedly, sometimes not. IMO, an example of the former is $100M to the Bussard group, and zero to FF. There’s enough money for many initiatives to be at least piloted. (Even with asteroid deflection, there are steadily gathering clumps of ideas and projects; at some point the perceptible odds of doing something workable will reach action potential.)

    Fundamentally, economics is ruled by opinion about what’s “worth it” and what isn’t, after all.

    P.S.;
    I understand derivatives just fine. My math aptitude is well up in the top 1/10 of 1%, and I handled the Euclidean ‘Pons Asinorum’ with ease at age 12 or so.

    P.P.S. “Did the temperature changes in the past operate as FAST as they are now and does this indicate the appearance of a powerful new force in global climate? I fail to see how anyone can not answer yes to those two questions.”
    You got your positives and negatives jumbled. Personally, my answers are “probably” and “probably not”. CO2 trails warming. As a forcing agent, it is a damp squib.

    Slope notwithstanding, C02-GW cannot explain how there could have been a cooler planet during hundreds of millions of years when CO2 was in the 2,000-7,000 ppm range, vs ~300 ppm now. (Hint: CO2 is a narrow, partial, absorber of the IR spectrum, and its saturated maximum absorption level is reached at rather low concentrations. Thereafter, changes are due to other factors, notably water with its much broader range.)

    #3161
    Duke Leto
    Participant

    Re: 2-5 mil net for the distribution compantes. Metering isn’t free. And there are still the transformers on the poles to be looked after. And you yourself said that the there was a potential deflationary danger. Fat lot of good FF does us in the US in short the term if it sets off a debt default crisis.

    Re: AGW, again I misspoke. My answers to the two questions I asked ought to have been no and yes.

    What you are describing is a global climate, more particularly an Arctic climate, that is subject sudden changes from a highly iced cap to a lightly iced one in a matter of decades every few millennia.

    So where are the black Polar Bears? The majority of polar bears are living on the Canadian and Alaskan coastlines now, and that population is not living on the pack ice and therefore has a considerable selection pressure for dark pelts to conserve albido heat absorption and not stick out like a sore thumb during the land based summers. If, as your theory necessitates, the Arctic vacillates between larglely Ice Bound and largely Ice Free conditions, ice pack Polar Bears must go extinct on the caps every few thousand years for a few thousand years before being recolonized from the continents once the pack ice is able to support them again.

    But if this were the case, they would not BE Polar Bears. They would be Arctic Circle Bears with dark pelts mostly adapted to life on land. Some would live on the ice cap and thrive there when the opportunity arose, but they would not be specifically adapted to a year round on-ice environment. There would not be time to make the full adaptation every cycle.

    P.S. I clearly do not think you are a cretin, or I would not be wasting my breath arguing with you. I think you’re an intelligent person who thinks he’s smarter than the scientific consensus. A rarer, but altogether different species from the workaday idiot.

    #3165
    Brian H
    Participant

    Duke Leto wrote: Re: 2-5 mil net for the distribution compantes. Metering isn’t free. And there are still the transformers on the poles to be looked after. And you yourself said that the there was a potential deflationary danger. Fat lot of good FF does us in the US in short the term if it sets off a debt default crisis.

    Re: AGW, again I misspoke. My answers to the two questions I asked ought to have been no and yes.

    What you are describing is a global climate, more particularly an Arctic climate, that is subject sudden changes from a highly iced cap to a lightly iced one in a matter of decades every few millennia.

    So where are the black Polar Bears? The majority of polar bears are living on the Canadian and Alaskan coastlines now, and that population is not living on the pack ice and therefore has a considerable selection pressure for dark pelts to conserve albido heat absorption and not stick out like a sore thumb during the land based summers. If, as your theory necessitates, the Arctic vacillates between larglely Ice Bound and largely Ice Free conditions, ice pack Polar Bears must go extinct on the caps every few thousand years for a few thousand years before being recolonized from the continents once the pack ice is able to support them again.

    But if this were the case, they would not BE Polar Bears. They would be Arctic Circle Bears with dark pelts mostly adapted to life on land. Some would live on the ice cap and thrive there when the opportunity arose, but they would not be specifically adapted to a year round on-ice environment. There would not be time to make the full adaptation every cycle.

    P.S. I clearly do not think you are a cretin, or I would not be wasting my breath arguing with you. I think you’re an intelligent person who thinks he’s smarter than the scientific consensus. A rarer, but altogether different species from the workaday idiot.

    Actually, the whole Polar Bear meme is bogus. Gore’s misinformation was based on 4 deaths in accidents. Historically, Polar Bears have higher populations in warm periods; they are not pure seal eaters, and find even more food when there is more to be had. That was prior to humans with guns, of course. If they face extinction, it will be hot lead that does it, not hot air.

    #3166
    Duke Leto
    Participant

    You again miss the point. If the Ice Packs are as unstable an environment as you are claiming they must be, there could never be evolutionary incentive for a large predator to evolve with the adaptational traits specific to that environment.

    #3168
    Brian H
    Participant

    Duke Leto wrote: You again miss the point. If the Ice Packs are as unstable an environment as you are claiming they must be, there could never be evolutionary incentive for a large predator to evolve with the adaptational traits specific to that environment.

    Their adaptations include that environment, but are not exclusive to it. Polar bear fossils predate numerous long episodes of extreme polar warming and ice loss. So they are versatile.

    There is a very strong inherent bias in both people and researchers to assume that the current scene is the best and variation from it is necessarily destructive. Just an example: during the last Ice Age, so much water was tied up that coasts extended up to hundreds of miles beyond current shorelines, and there is much evidence accumulating that human proliferation and global spread was expedited by the ability to “bounce” along the coasts from harbour to harbour in simple boats, eating shellfish and shallow-water fish, and coastal plant life. Early colonization of the Americas, e.g., may have simply bypassed the glacial “plug” obstructing the central land mass. So the Ice Age was a “good thing”? Perhaps.

    Human climate influence is trivial on the scale of natural processes, notwithstanding Gore’s order-of-magnitude exaggerations and egregious errors. If we are actually headed for another “Maunder Minimum”, though, we may have to clutch at straws such as requesting the Chinese to burn as much coal as possible to preserve heat and promote plant growth.
    🙂
    😆

    #3169
    Duke Leto
    Participant

    Well this conversation is manifestly futile as neither of us is going to convince the other.

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