[JimmyT]

Thanks Brian. Your measured response probably prevented me from blurting out some unkind, and ill considered words.

[JimmyT]

Rezwan, I really think you’re overthinking this one.

I honestly believe there is no conspiricy here.

Just a bunch of ignorant lawmakers who don’t understand the implications of their dictates.

The real question is “Is there any other kind?”

[JimmyT]

JimmyT – 27 October 2008 01:08 AM

You see, I’m a practicing pharmacist and my most frequent contact with CFC’s was in the propellant for aerosol canisters for asthmatics. I dispense a lot of these. Probably a couple of dozen each day. Over the last decade I’ve watched the price of these medications drop steadily, until they seemed fairly reasonable. (about $10 per canister). But then drug manufactures were forced to switch propellants. Suddenly the price for these went up to about $40 each. Oh, and the new ones don’t work as well.

Can you prove causality rather then correlation? The price could have gone up for any number of reasons not stimply because of propellant change to HCFC and HFC.

I suppose I should have said: When the newly formulated one’s were released they were $40 each. Causality was certain.

It’s true the cost of the propellants was very small. But prior to marketing a newly formulated drug (and just the change of propellant does make a newly formulated drug) the entire safety and efficacy test procedures must be repeated. Dispersion of the drug particles in the propellant must be tested. Clinical trials must be done. Raw materials supply chains must be established. New ingredient must be tested for purity. (This often involves the establishment of new analytical testing procedures.) New drug applications must be submitted to the FDA. And on and on and on……… This takes years and costs tens of millions of dollars.

And guess who pays?

[JimmyT]

You sound so victimized. Relax. Bjorn Lomborg, in his book The skeptical environmentalist page 274:

The case of the depleted ozone layer and the solution through restrictive protocols is seen as a success story, in which the world community finally pulled itself together and put the environment before money. … However, it is worth pointing out that the implementation of the CFC ban was strictly profitable. It was actually relatively cheap to find substitutes for CFC (e.g., in refrigerators and spray cans) and at the same time the advantages were quite clear-cut.

I’ve waited a long time to reply to this one. What do you suppose it means when an industry spokesman says that the implementation was strictly profitable? Do you think it means that consumers made money on it?

You see, I’m a practicing pharmacist and my most frequent contact with CFC’s was the propellant in aerosol canisters for asthmatics. I dispense a lot of these. Probably a couple of dozen each day. Over the last decade I’ve watched the price of these medications drop steadily, until they seemed fairly reasonable. (about $10 per canister). But then drug manufactures were forced to switch propellants. Suddenly the price for these went up to about $40 each. Oh, and the new ones don’t work as well.

Don’t tell me it’s a trivial matter for a patient who uses 3-4 of these every month and may be uninsured. This is a bit different than the styrofoam cups you referred to earlier. I’m not the victim here. My patients are.

Shall I tell them that you said just to hold their breath and relax?

[JimmyT]

Interesting stuff, Bose Einstein condensate.

I don’t pretend to understand the physics completely but I believe this is supposed to be a possible pathway to gravity control. A much bigger fish than neutrino detection. Bad news for the space elevator enthusiast’s if successful.

Correct me if I’m wrong.

[JimmyT]

Your analogy is not exactly correct. The bird cage is empty. The plasma is all contained in the wires making up the birdcage. Or otherwise stated, the wires are the plasma. The birdcage is rotating rapidly and shrinks. Also more of a doughnut than a birdcage, as you correctly stated. The plasma strands are continuous through the doughnut hole.

Mr Lerner do the the strands (or filaments) themselves continue to shrink in diameter too?

I think they do. Crushing the mixture causing fusion.

I like your analogy to the 4 stroke engine. It is one of the most successful inventions of all time and is not at all a steady state device.

I’m not sure I would characterize them as old fashioned though. They continue to provide the vast majority of our mobile power needs. Mixed blessing, I know. They also account for the vast majority of our petroleum dependence.

[JimmyT]

The good of the many outweighs the good of the few, or the one.

Doesn’t it?

[JimmyT]

Focus fusion only produces neutrinos via a relatively infrequent side reaction. (The side reaction involving nitrogen and a neutron and antineutrino release. )

But if they truely achieve the sensitivity you are suggesting I guess anything is possible.

[JimmyT]

What? High resolution neutrino flux detectors? 1. We can barely get these detectors to work at all!
2. They are certainly not directional. 3. Terrorist devices wouldn’t generate neutrinos unless a nuclear device was detonated.

Explain please.

[JimmyT]

This whole global warming argument certainly reminds me of the hubub over CFC’s and how they were going to ruin the ozone layer. The “enviromental” lobby forced their will on US business and US people in the form of legislation which cost consumers billions and billions of dollars.

The whole thing is now known to be bad science with wrong conclusions.

Who do we see about that?

I haven’t heard any appoligies from any of the folks who foisted this scam on the public. They all just walked away “oh never mind”. They had the best of intentions, you see.

I think the reason that so many people remain passive about this topic is that they think this argument doesn’t affect them personally. If only they knew the damage and cost that a wrong conclusion about man made global warming was really going to cost them. Carbon footprint taxes. Biofuels using edible grain as feedstock resulting in higher food prices. Whole forests of palm trees being clear cut for palm oil. Government telling me what kind of lightbulbs I may and may not use. What kind of car I can drive, etc, etc.

Brian, this also reminds me of “The Emperor’s New Clothes”. If you are not one of the annointed few who understand the problem; Why you’re just a denier. Don’t you dare try to argue.

The Emperor is truly naked.

There is a growing body of literature which refutes this notion of man made global warming.

If you go to Amazon.com and type in global warming. Most of the first dozen or so books which appear fall into this catagory.
Are all these authors all deniers too?

It’s difficult and dangerous to refer entirely to studies paid for by our tax dollars. We have been paying researchers to produce papers “proving” global warming for decades.

And sure enough, They do.

Perhaps the wise thing to do in this forum would be to avoid this topic entirely. Both sides want focus fusion to succeed. Right?

But I am somewhat resistant to self proclaimed experts trying to govern my life.

[JimmyT]

Perhaps part of the problem getting this project going is the following:

The group with the highest reward/risk ratio from this project accrues to those who invest nothing, take no risk, and invest no effort. Yet, there will be considerable benefit to this group if this project is successful.

Someone please tell me I’m wrong!

[JimmyT]

Electrical Sub-stations do NOT have any normal staffing. They just have a fence with a gate and a lock. Totally NOT secure location. In fact, current price of copper wiring has led to increase in thefts from these sub-stations. Haven’t heard of a fatality from trying to steal a live wire……yet.

I don’t know of any fatalities either. But I know of 2 cases where thieves were severely burned in the process of trying this. The identity of the one set of thieves is unknown. The only reason we know they were burned is because of the charred flesh they left behind. Might have been a fatality for all we know. Southern Ohio region in case you’re curious.

Seems like a hard way to make money to me.

[JimmyT]

But Brian, why are you surprised when politicians act like politicians? I guess we both continue to hope that every once in a while they don’t.

Love your thread title!

[JimmyT]

I just looked up the horse power ratings for a standard size earth-mover engine. The Caterpillar D8n non super-charged engine is rated at 600 HP (or alternately they say 384 Kw). 1000 KWh would be about 2 1/2 hours of diesel operation.
Earth movers can’t compete with a Tesla roadster on the quarter mile. But I would venture to guess that they weigh a good bit more. And a earth-mover in skilled hands can move it’s own weight every few minutes.

Here’s a link giving energy storage densities of various substances. Noticeably absent (from my perspective) is boron 11 and hydrogen.

Wikipedia.org/wiki/energy_Density

Looks to me like even if eestor’s claims are true. (And they are listed in this table) They are still only about 1/45th the energy density of diesel fuel. It’s true your “engine” is going to weigh less and thus you can incorporate more battery weight. Ultimately only a through engineering study is going to determine if this will be sufficient advantage to offset the energy density advantage of diesel.

I actually hope you’re right. Might be worth it. Guess it depends on the price of diesel fuel primarily.

[JimmyT]

I think diesel engines are going to be very difficult to replace in some applications. Earth moving equipment. Probably large farm equipment too. Of course the fuel these use can be synthetic, or will be much cheaper due to the displacement of demand from other applications. But I can’t see any battery technology in any form which will provide the energy density necessary for these uses.

Some other less than obvious uses where focus fusion will excel: Powering oil rigs. These currently have to be powered by diesel fuel transported for some distance. I think Mr Lerner has already mentioned mine sites. And Rematog has mentioned industrial plants in general. And I agree with Rematog, the gains in these areas are easy to overlook and hard to overestimate.

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