[Aeronaut]

Sounds like a Plan, Duke. Might as well throw in the Bahston area and possibly the scenic coastal areas of RI and NH, if we can keep Amtrak from meddling.

The only flaw I see in the numbers is the need to average the trains’ speeds, since I don’t see 150 mph trains reaching anything near those speeds if the stops are 5 to 10 miles apart. Assuming they did, the changes in velocity could be a rush for us, and a lawsuit lurking in the background when somebody isn’t holding onto the overhead bar or ring when the brakes are applied.

[Aeronaut]

Seems I’m paying 9.3 cents/kwh, making your numbers verry conservative, Brian. But even at 50k$/GWh, doubling the new capacity every year triples the installed capacity every year. YEE HAW!

Another thought is that only the late adopters will be left “holding the bag” of stranded assets. With that kind of snowball effect, the early adopters could make a solid case to their Utilities Commissions to use the windfall to amortize ‘assets’ across 5 years instead of 30. Then the floor could drop out of the pricing without hurting investors.

Yes, we’d want to recycle as much of the buildings and transmission system as practical.

[Aeronaut]

That binary progression was the missing link, Brian. Each GW produces enough annual profit to install 2GW the next year. :coolsmile:

Any ideas how to gracefully bury the roadkill? Or would this kind of “unfair advantage” make the point moot? Since nothing succeeds like success, I imagine the originator has at most a two year head start before any competition can begin appearing online.

[Aeronaut]

I can only hope you’re right, Brian.

[Aeronaut]

I agree that the proven technology will settle all doubts about can it be done. That will leave us in the regulatory regime, where a fission track record has most, if not all of the cards. The NRC’s homepage has an ominous phrase referring to decades of Congressional Guidance, for instance. Therefore, we are voices in the wilderness without very powerful allies in government. At least here in North America.

[Aeronaut]

Figuring that FF will cost 200M$/GW of capacity installed, I’d guesstimate that only the plants built in the last twenty years would tend toward becoming white elephants. Anyway you slice it, a GW of new capacity is a fairly big bond to float in today’s market conditions. I’m sure that it will be an Easy Button purchase within 20 years, though.

[Aeronaut]

I’m forcing myself to be patient. I’m forcing myself to be patient. I’m forcing myself to be patient. 😆

What can, and should be accelerated, imo, is the authoritative confirmation process and the preparations to integrate FF so we don’t end up with a Ferrari with an empty fuel tank. Sure looks good, but how fast does it go?

[Aeronaut]

Brian H wrote:

Peer review becomes even more critical after the Cold Fusion Fiasco. ‘Til then, there’s no reason we can’t benefit from FUD instead of getting whacked on the head by it.

“What if this grabs headlines the day before the Primaries? If not by then, what if it happens before the election?”

Peer review applies to getting articles approved by the little collegial clubs that run science journals. The problem with Cold Fusion was that no one could replicate the results, which were subtle and hard-to-measure excess heat production in test tubes storing hydrogen in titanium/palladium molecular vacuoles, and possible hard-to-detect stray neutrons here and there.

Like I said, a prototype cranking out power, with designs available for anyone who wants to duplicate the structure and do the same, is a whole different story, and the peers can blow smoke out their posterior orifices if they don’t like it.
Please, don’t get me started on scientific peer cliques. 😆 What I have in mind is greasing the skids so that several universities can’t wait to throw the switch. Not just on a test rig like Baby, but one that actually has enough foils to exceed breakeven. This would be a coup for the schools of physics and engineering, not to mention the pols and business people who had the balls to make it ready to happen. It would also bring deployment at least a year closer, possibly two. After all, no guts, no Glory.

[Aeronaut]

Brian H wrote: ANYWHERE that money is allocated but not spent, or about to be budgetted, for power generation, the choice will suddenly be: put up an FF factory and start cranking out generators and deploying them, or throw 10s or 100s of million$ into obsolete technology. Of course, regulations and vested interests will be all in favor of option #2, but I think a sh**-storm would hit if they tried it.

Gotta love it! My local utility’s CEO was on the evening news around a month ago, floating a trial balloon about building another coal-fired plant. The tricky part with the timing is that the plant would go online around the time that FF units start rolling off the production lines. So they’re damned either way. No way can they tell us they’re going to strain capacity or make it up by running the gas-fired plants more of the day (raising our bills) to wait several years to see if a currently unproven technology pans out.

“The fish that got away” could really raise public interest. That’s why I intend to approach the pols before the media. Nobody likes being surprised, especially those in high-profile leadership positions. I’m sure this pico-drama is being played out in dozens of other regions as well, lol.

[Aeronaut]

“Greed is good” (Micheal Douglas in Wall Street). Throw in a few space elevators and the resulting space-based economy will quickly dwarf the Earth’s. Now that’s a Carrot!

[Aeronaut]

Peer review becomes even more critical after the Cold Fusion Fiasco. ‘Til then, there’s no reason we can’t benefit from FUD instead of getting whacked on the head by it.

“What if this grabs headlines the day before the Primaries? If not by then, what if it happens before the election?”

[Aeronaut]

Very well said, Brian. There’s three new pages on my site. The Plan ends with the call to action referring not just to short-term political gain, but to a place in history that can be secured by taking the actions I outlined on The Plan. Scarcity and limited time-frame hot buttons are in there too, of course. ;-P

[Aeronaut]

I always get a kick out of your literal interpretations, Brian, so I don’t take it personal. The point of my previous post is that I’m not required to share your pessimistic views of people and organizations.

Breakable, I’m proceeding on the assumption that Eric takes no unnecessary risks, especially when it comes to scheduling. His Wiki bio is fascinating reading. I believe he’s already published over 600 scientific articles and papers, so his work is not unnoticed in the scientific world. He’s already lined up the University of Ferraro in Italy for confirmation testing, and the UN is operating a fleet of DPF machines very similar to FF. I posted a link recently to a Polish machine of similar specifications that was operating 8 years ago.

Eric is working in a vacuum no more than Edison was in his race. Once Baby demonstrates that net power has been done repeatably, I’m sure we’re going to see a gold-rush mentality at the university level.

[Aeronaut]

The way I see things, if I do nothing, I know the results will suck. If I provide each parochial interest group with a reason to pull for FF, the odds of smooth passage go way up. Combining bottom-up as well as top-down leadership is what keeps everybody honest and pulling in the same direction.

[Aeronaut]

Too bad they don’t take PayPal or otherwise process deposits as a card not present merchant account. I’d take that bet for $10 otherwise, and even more as the “informed world” drives the price down. I’m predicting a low price of around 10 to 20 once we start getting some public awareness. That would be a sweet time to buy in large quantities.

I just contributed the $10 to FF. Better use of the money, anyway.

[Author]

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