[Duke Leto]

Can’t hear!

Busy sleeping.

[Duke Leto]

I return to my eternal slumber!

Wake me when something changes…

[Duke Leto]

Dumb question:

Has LPPX now achieved Proof of Concept?

[Duke Leto]

In the interest of being totally unhelpful, Speedy Tungsten would make a great name for a Looney Tunes character.

[Duke Leto]

No, zapkitty’s right. The current Desal process is obviously too equipment intensive by comparison to just boil and coalesce. If he’s right then 50 cents might not be unrealistic.

Then and again I’m barking mad.

[Duke Leto]

zapkitty wrote:

Tell me more Mr. Kitty. It’s much better than balancing my checkbook!

Reduce the issue to lowest common denominators… the current multi-stage flash distillation process with its graduated stages of vacuum chambers, countercurrent heat exchangers and the myriad of pipes, pumps, valves and controls to make it all work… and contrast with the waste heat from an FF unit evaporating seawater straight up, without vacuum tricks, and condensing the steam on a nearby air-cooled surface.

No matter how sophisticated you make a real-life FF desalination unit the cost will be only a fraction of the cost of using current tech.

Coolness!

[Duke Leto]

Tell me more Mr. Kitty. It’s much better than balancing my checkbook!

[Duke Leto]

“gathering and sharing” my friend, “gathering and sharing”.

[Duke Leto]

To answer the easy question I’m keeping my eye on the developed world and making sure that they get their standard of living jacked up because the last time there was a deflationary depression that lasted a while in the developed world there were some VERY unsavory political complications that arose from it in parts of the developed world. Good things happened in the US thanks to the emergence of FDR and the Democrats, but the same could not be said of much of Europe. There are already anti-immigrant demonstrations going on in Greece for example.

Second I want a fast and brutal rollout to the developed world to jack down carbon emissions as fast as possible. I’m including China in “the Developed World” in this formulation. That really is no longer much of a stretch.

Phase 8) would be to take all the cash from the previous 7) steps and pour it into the developing countries to bring their standard of living up to par.

As to “giving the ring to Galadriel”, I think that reflects a fundamental disagreement on the nature of power. I don’t think power corrupts in and of itself, I think it attracts the corruptible. That would be Frank Herbert’s formulation and probably Socrates’. (Socrates of course was a pro-Spartan sack of crap though, naturally.) “The Ring” can’t be destroyed as such, just harnessed by good people. And good people who stay good do exist. The Rockerfellers for example have been fairly progressive all the way back to John D., and most of them, despite being Exxon shareholders are now politically active liberals. (See for example Jay Rockerfeller of West Virginia.) Brian H. has pointed out that unions can be corrupted by power, although the corruption worldwide is nowhere close to what he asserts, but we don’t want to get rid of unions because they’re socially useful.

I could also point out that Tolkien was an out and out recidivist politically, he may not have been a racist per se in the strong sense, but his ideal polity was a monarchy and the chapter on Saruman in the Shire was a none to thinly veiled allegory about the rise of Clement Attlee’s Labour party in Britain.

So I’m a power optimist in both senses of the term. 🙂

[Duke Leto]

Actually, I goofed on the Rudebusch Taylor Rule. It would actually be 8.85%, which is really pretty good for fixed income earners and savers but not so good for debtors or corporations. If deflation is 5% though, the rate falls to ~5%, a bit better. If anyone cares.

[Duke Leto]

Warwick wrote:

Who now will fight an entrenched plutocracy that is not only vested in the status quo but is intent on regressing matters as far and as fast as they can? They are currently aiming for broken governments and an unending recession as the new status quo… quite relaxed and profitable for them, not so much so for the un-elite.

In short: we’ve seen what thirty-plus years of the “trickle-down” BS brings and trickle-down fusion won’t fare any better.

Couldn’t agree more – this is a very important recognition.

This is exactly the political movement I want Eric and Aaron to undo. I think I can summarize my suggested plan as follows:

1) Aggregate large scale licensing income from the FF generators to LPPX.

2) Use the promise of future income to leverage massive investments in job creation. Borrow and invest a few 100 billion or trillion into projects with a high economic multiplier. Basically BE Keynes’ government spender. (Most of these should be profitable in and of themselves. Feeding the cycle of further leveraged investments. For instance, Brian H.’s Aluminum smelters would be able to run at a higher profit if built by LPPX then they would by anybody else.)

3) Thereby keep unemployment to minimal, perhaps even NEGATIVE, levels in the developed world while headline inflation remains low but real, forcing the central banks to keep interest rates fairly low. (2% Deflation ad 0% Unemployment would still force a required interest rate of -.5% according to Glenn Rudebusch’s estimate of the Taylor Rule, thus forcing a continuation of 2).)

4) The above forces wages up while prices and costs go down and interest on mortgages and CC debt stays minimal, helping the middle class at the expense of the investing class. (In fact a CC remortgaging bank run by LPPX would probably be wonderfully profitable.)

5) Profit.

6) Use 5) to organize a massive anti-conservative political movement in the developed world to force a rollback of policy to New Deal norms or better.

7) Make damn sure a high progressive inheritance tax gets recreated in the US to ensure that Eric and Aaron have no heirs who can potentially undo 6) in their own unenlightened self interest.

As plans go, I think it’s a pretty good one.

[Duke Leto]

Brian H wrote: Well, if you’re convinced you live under the rule of plutocrats, you’re never going to change your worldview. Enjoy!

I think, Brian, that our worldviews intersect on two points.

Firstly that FF is an incredibly exciting technology, and second that we probably agree on nothing else.

[Duke Leto]

I wonder why the server stopped informing me about replies. Must just be my breath I guess.

KeithPickering wrote: You were doing just fine up until this point. But now there are a couple of problems with your analysis. First, FF coming online isn’t just waving a magic wand. It will take time, and during that time markets will adjust. So the effect isn’t immediate.

Well, firstly obviously implementation is not instantaneous, but I believe it will be vastly faster than Eric and Aaron give it credit for. The primary limiting factor will be expanding Beryllium and Capacitor production as best as I understand it. If LPPX is a strongly organized single producer, I think rollout to the developed world can be done in 3 years.

KeithPickering wrote: Second, and more importantly, you’re forgetting the Jevons effect (aka Jevons paradox) in which it is shown that more efficient use of energy increases demand.

I think you’re misreading Jevon’s Paradox. Jevon says that if usage of energy becomes more efficient demand for energy will increase, not that if cost of producing energy becomes lower the total spent on energy will increase. That’s a subtle but really important difference.

Let’s say that the price of energy drops from $120 per Megawatt Hour to $6 per Megawatt Hour. That means that if energy consumption increases twentyfold then there is the same Dollarwise consumption as there was before. That’s a pretty tall order.

I would really like to find some economic studies on the rollout of coal power but I’m having trouble doing so. Basically what I’m saying is that short term, although consumption of energy may increase dollars spent on energy will go down, which is the key when we’re talking about macroeconomics.

The real point here is that in the short run FF will increase the deflationary/disinflationary trend and high unemployment will remain.

DennisP wrote: The whole idea of “printing” money is kind of misleading, because with fractional reserve banking most of the money supply comes from debt. If banks must have 10% reserves, they can loan out ten times as much as you print, and when those loans are paid off or default, the money supply shrinks. You can print more money to give to the banks, but if they don’t lend, it doesn’t do anything.

Japan struggled with deflation for decades.

Thank you for the further explanation. Japan is struggling with deflation again, BTW.

Lerner wrote: First as Aaron says, the markets don’t exactly need us to create a downward economic spiral—they are doing it all by themselves, thank you! And what exactly will happen with this process in the next three of four years depends on a lot of political and economic events. FF won’t be able to influence that until we have a working prototype generator—not before 2014. I am sure that any announcement of “just” scientific feasibility will be shrugged off by the markets.

All that is very true. Main problem is that I see no likelihood of the US and the developed countries in general exiting their liquidity trap by 2014. So conditions prevailing now will be basically identical to conditions prevailing then. To backup this assertion, see more or less anything and everything written by Paul Krugman since 2009.

Lerner wrote: Second, there can’t possibly be a monopoly in focus fusion no matter how many patents we have and we do not promise any such goal to LPP’s investors.

What other producers would there be? Would there simply be other ways of utilizing the existing DPF to achieve Net Electricity or do you foresee alternative Aneutronic Fusion methods coming rapidly to fruition?

Lerner wrote: From our standpoint as a company, pricing way below the current market makes sense. You can’t penetrate an enormously established and huge market like energy without a really large price advantage in any case.

Well, yeah. I was thinking that a rate of $10-20 per MWh coming into LPPX as end revenue would be fair enough. Just low enough that you wipe out coal but not so low that you instantly make energy free. Maybe cut that rent by 25% every year after the rollout to the developed world and China and India are done and hand over the generators to municipalities when it hits cost. That’d only take 5 years or so.

At the same time it would be silly not to price the electricity as close to market as you can while there are still only a very few FF generators in operation. $10 under market per MWh would get you oodles of market share. I would assume that much is obvious.

Lerner wrote: But no matter how we draw up licenses, how much of the saving in cost will be passed to final consumers is ultimately going to be a political battle. If people insist that the saving be passed along and organize to make that happen, it will, but not otherwise.

Therein I am afraid we differ, my friend. My own jaundiced view of human nature says that money will decide how it gets passed on to the end consumers so if you want a say you better make sure you have money. I’d also point out that organization and advocacy are not something you can do for free, a fact I’m sure Rezwan has informed you of.

Lerner wrote: The key thing in the world economy today is WHO gets the money—the many or the few?

From my own study of history, the only time when the few don’t get the money is when the many establish a well organized political machine backed up by strong unions influencing major political parties. (The US desperately needs a multi-party system, but how to get to that is a whole other argument.) We don’t have that right now and it’ll take a lot to get us there. Post too long… Maybe write more later.

[Duke Leto]

zapkitty wrote:

OK, I’m proved wrong, foci it is then.

As to Fusion alternatives emerging, I’d like to know what they’re going to be. Bussard’s Polywell? Needs a steam turbine.

Errr… Last I knew EMC2 was working towards aneutronic fusion of Boron 11, same as LPP. Direct conversion, no turbines. Did somerhing change?

Interesting. How would it work? Wouldn’t the positive ions just fly off in all directions and not be captured by the superconducting rings? The FF style decelerator I understand, but in this case the Polywell would have to be both a accelerator and decelerator and I don’t understand how that would be possible/ Please enlighten me.

[Duke Leto]

OK, I’m proved wrong, foci it is then.

To my understanding Lerner and his team is keeping an iron grip on the patents. So I’m not sure what effect, say for instance, China just up and producing FF generators on their own would have. Aaron I’m sure has a plan in place for that.

As to Fusion alternatives emerging, I’d like to know what they’re going to be. Bussard’s Polywell? Needs a steam turbine. The reverse whatsamathingy Paul Allen is invested in? Awfully bulky. Conventional D-T? Awfully messy and STILL needs a steam turbine.

What else can you run with a profit margin of a mil and still make millions? Show me an emergent technology that is going to be able to compete with FF on cost and I’ll take the threat of fusion technology proliferation more seriously.

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