[Warwick]

zapkitty wrote: A more apt comparison might be that going all “renewable” will require vast changes in the infrastructure of society and too many ordinary people will be forgotten or swept aside in the struggle to make that change happen. Fusion will make that change both easier and more egalitarian. Fusion will help renewables.

The key here being that to many people “renewable” has become a religion… to the point where they try to fit things into that category that aren’t actually renewable and will respond emotionally to anything they regard as a threat to their concept of what is renewable. And I’ve learned by experience that all too many regard any fusion funding at all as a threat to renewables.

It takes some time to explain to them the irony… that this is what the energy oligarchs [em]want[/em] them to think.

I think the general attitude you get from FoE and co is that “fusion … unproven …. better invest in wind/solar/wave … now, now”. Talking to people in the UK Green party I have usually had “fusion … but it’s always 30 years away … better invest in [my favoured technology of choice] … blah blah”. (Although those people were a fairly rightwing fringe and maybe not representative.)

[Warwick]

Rezwan wrote: Apologies, this came out sounding negative:

2) There’s lots of support for solar and wind, but ultimately, these are too diffuse (and require a lot of space) so if we ever want to get to a fully electric vehicle world, we need to get some real power online – we need to make fusion happen.

A better way to put this is that solar and wind are great but only cover x% of the ideal world wide demand for electric vehicles, so here’s what we need to go totally electric – here’s how much fusion we need.

Info graphics available at David MacKay’s “Without the Hot air” (although this is all UK data)

Auto demand: http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c3/page_29.shtml

Demand vs. Supply: http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c18/page_103.shtml

The red stack in figure 18.1 adds up to 195 kWh per day per person. The
green stack adds up to about 180 kWh/d/p. A close race! But please
remember: in calculating our production stack we threw all economic,
social, and environmental constraints to the wind. Also, some of our green
contributors are probably incompatible with each other: our photovoltaic
panels and hot-water panels would clash with each other on roofs; and our
solar photovoltaic farms using 5% of the country might compete with the
energy crops with which we covered 75% of the country. If we were to lose
just one of our bigger green contributors – for example, if we decided that
deep offshore wind is not an option, or that panelling 5% of the country
with photovoltaics at a cost of £200 000 per person is not on – then the
production stack would no longer match the consumption stack.

Isn’t this a terribly complicated argument? Surely it’s much simpler to say “there is no definite reason to believe that the economic costs of solar or wind will ever be lower than coal, in many areas”. I think people can grasp that since most grid electricity is presently not solar or wind, it’s not likely that everyone driving EVs would be using solar/wind.

The UK is a special case, where offshore wind could probably, on sufficient scale, be competitive with fossil. Similarly if you live in North Africa then solar (probably CSP with big fields of parabolas, given the amount of space) is going to be more cost-effective than elsewhere. If you live in a wet mountainous place full of rivers, hydro power maybe. I get energy from a hydro company and it is like 10% more than the market rate, unsubsidised as far as I’m aware. But whatever the exceptions that are making inroads at the boundaries, in general, renewables haven’t yet proven themselves economically competitive. Solar PV cells are getting cheaper, apparently with changes to the silicon refining market, but unsubsidised they are still miles off the competition. Yes governments are still giving handouts to fossil fuel giants, and yes they could have done more to instead promote green energy of all sorts. But the bottom line remains that at this point, a cheaper clean tech would make the most difference.

Green aficionados aren’t going to readily accept that there are physical limitations to renewables, or that if there are, that man’s consumption shouldn’t be kept within them. But there’s no question it’s economics that has so far made it hard for solar/wind to gain market share. I think that is commonly accepted.

[Warwick]

jamesr wrote: I don’t pretend to know anything about his “Curvature Cosmology”, however I would point out that although the journal he published in claims to be peer reviewed, a quick google on it seems to cast doubt on the professionalism of the operation.

From a reddit thread:

Here is an account from someone asked to act as reviewer for an article
http://www.sentientdevelopments.com/2009/09/explanation-for-lifes-origins-that.html

I know controversial theories are less likely to get published in mainstream journals like IOP’s “Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics” or Elsevier’s “Physics Letters B” but I think you’d have to at least a bit guarded that the peer review process will not have been as robust in a ‘journal’ like this.

In the end all peer review is a human system, which is flawed and imperfect. Reasons for not accepting submissions can be pretty silly, whereas anything that is expected and conventional goes unquestioned (e.g. natural scientists’ grasp of statistical inference is often very poor, but they follow a well-trodden orthodox procedure and that is considered good enough).

Yes, some sources are more likely to be better checked than others. My attitude is, I would approach any scientific information with scepticism, regardless of how authoritative or otherwise the journal. It’s got to stand or fall on its own merits.

That said, reading your link, that does sound fairly damning, doesn’t it.

[Warwick]

Warwick wrote:

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.

Yeah I’ve always suspected that too.

Off topic – sorry, actually where did you get that interpretation? Isn’t it just as easy to interpret the other way round. What actually happened is that the conservatives were turfed out post-demobilisation, in much the same way as Saruman is sent packing.

[Warwick]

Duke Leto wrote: 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.

There is some reason for being anti-immigration. If someone can translate their pay into home currency that has a much higher purchasing power, they will be willing to work for less. That is great news for business, bad news for other workers. In the long term, I’d like to see open borders, but circumstances are not suited to it at this point. And I don’t think you can read ‘spectre of nazism’ into a few such demonstrations. The whole Greek crisis has basically been snowballed to this point by one Angela Merkel and her conservative chums at the IMF and in the EU. It’s soon going to be solved by a massive default and then they can give two fingers to the eurozone – they were justifiably p’d off since we gave Turkey accession anyway.

If it were not for the undemocratic power of the Koch bros, literally able to hold the USA to ransom, the US would probably have already a successful New Deal by now and we’d be debating how FF would fit into it. Looking at a world where democracy has been completely undermined, direct action is one answer, but it’s not the best one.

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.)

So basically a Grade A hypocrite then. He has the gall to stand on a liberal ticket while funding the world’s desecration. The rich and privileged don’t know what’s best for us, and it’s bad news when they can co-opt the system to become ‘liberal’ politicians.

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 wasn’t particularly saying that power corrupts, I said I would stop short of saying that although your idea brought that image to mind. There are so many things you can look at and say “just with one benevolent dictator”. And there have been times in history when individuals have seized power and made a positive difference. I doubt that Eric and Aaron could take over the world, anyway, however, so it’s more or less fantasy.

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.

Yeah I’ve always suspected that too.

[Warwick]

zapkitty wrote:

Thanks. The fusion aspect does play a role though – up until now, design has been to do with availability of energy. With a plentiful supply, there are two differences. Firstly, the design can focus on other aspects such as comfort and minimising noise. Secondly, higher speeds may be possible. If it could do 200+ mph and was comfortable, many people would favour it over aircraft for passenger journeys.

… uh-oh… sounds like you’re going to try to cut in on my market for fusion-powered airships…

Let the first fusion-powered trade war commence! 😉

Yeah I much favour marine transport over air transport. It’s a lot more aesthetic. And I hate flying. Would a fusion powered airship be feasible? (Are there battery-powered electric motor-driven aircraft of any description at present?)

[Warwick]

The role of industry in government has not been beneficial up until now. In a democracy, governments are there to reflect the will of the populace and use their power to control and influence industry and finance. In some countries there is now a significant reversal of that, and the results are not good. Going with this backflow, and hoping for good results, is not the only solution, or likely to succeed, in my opinion. I’ll stop short of saying that you want to give the ring to Galadriel :-). I’d also challenge why you would want to focus much on the developed world in the first place – is that really what you want?

It’s understandable that we live in desperate times that seem to call for desperate measures. What hope of a sensible, democratic future when there are ‘developed’ nations where more people profess to believe in ghosts than in global warming? But I think there are many ways that development of a revolutionary power source would make a difference. It would make a political difference, because in the long term it would get rid of the fossil fuel lobby, and in the short term, use up all their resources fighting its ascendancy. It would also make a political difference if the amount of crony capitalism and market power in the world could be reduced, if the largest corporations owned less of the world economy. Bilderberg is going to be a verbal bloodbath, make no mistake!

I think government ought to support focus fusion manufacturing. Large-scale availability of sophisticated components is far from a given. Of course it’s possible to envisage a plant that builds FF units from raw materials, in the same way it would be possible to have a factory to build solar panels from raw materials, yet one does not exist.
I was reading this
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/sep/16/death-solar-power-solyndra
which imputes the large fall in costs per kW of solar to a change in the silicon market. For a long time there were only a few “solar grade silicon” suppliers and they were exploiting their market position. Addressing bottlenecks like that is one way that government support can help to get an industry going. (I haven’t found out what led to the situation changing in the case of the silicon market. Maybe someone else knows.)

[Warwick]

Thanks. The fusion aspect does play a role though – up until now, design has been to do with availability of energy. With a plentiful supply, there are two differences. Firstly, the design can focus on other aspects such as comfort and minimising noise. Secondly, higher speeds may be possible. If it could do 200+ mph and was comfortable, many people would favour it over aircraft for passenger journeys.

[Warwick]

Rezwan wrote:

However, let’s think positive, and put our energy into making it work out.

Alas, I was just reflecting on this today. I’m a bit of a negative person. I suppose you might call it a pessimist. (pessimists for fusion!) I prefer realist. But in any case, positive thinking seems unnecessary. You do the work. You don’t have to fake emotion around it. Just do it. So, yes, put your energy into making it work out. I agree with that wholeheartedly. But why mask things with unproven positivity? It’s healthier to acknowledge the risks, and diversify the portfolio. That seems sensible to me. General fusion managed to raise $35 million for a fusion project with just such an approach. No need to fake anything. And their scientists want other approaches tried as well. There’s no either/or here.

Back to positivity – I’m still working out the balance. I find that a lot of people require the positivity thing, and this attitude of mine is perceived as a downer. Then again, Fusion has been called the “science of wishful thinking”, with enthusiasm met by the “wait and see” stonewall, (i.e., you talk to folks and they say, “Whatever. Let me know how it turns out”). But we want to engage people now, without “over-selling”.

I can’t change that, so that would be another thing to outsource. A chipper communications person 🙂

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depressive_realism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimism_bias

People that are positive about existing circumstances (and immediate opportunities) are sometimes so because they’d rather appreciate reality than compare it to a more ideal condition. The only people that have the potential to ever change anything are those that are positive, or at least stoic, about the potential of the future, while remaining steadfastly negative about the present. So keeping it real is the only way to go.

I say “or at least stoic” because really it doesn’t matter. You might as well try to make a change; if it’s not possible then it will not have mattered. It makes sense to be indifferent about whether improvement is possible or not.
But it’s probably easier to spread a positive attitude to something than a stoical one.

You’re right of course that any particular endeavour could fail. I don’t think that committing to specifics is overall a bad thing though; no one is going to look at it and assume that success is assured.

This is also a cultural thing as what most Americans consider normal may be slightly more positive than in some other countries (in my limited experience). e.g. if you go to watch a film with an American and it turns out to be a bit rubbish, there’s not much point in taking the mick out of how bad it is … they just don’t see why they’d want to get into the hate.

[Warwick]

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.

[Warwick]

Just about ALL financial assets are vastly overvalued—debt obligations, stocks. commodites—expecially oil—real estate, etc.

I’d agree about commodities, although this speculation started for a reason. There’s money washing around and it has to live somewhere, so it stupidly fled to gold, and asinine legislation demanding biofuel use in the West sparked anticipation of a global food shortage. Both of these are now bubbles, plainly. Real estate I’m not so sure about since this comes up against the labour theory of value – houses in some places became so cheap that they are not incomparable to their rebuild cost…

It will need a poltical fight to ensure that those losses are incurred by the very few people who own the vast majority of those assets

In global terms the owners of BP, Exxon, RWE are few. As a proportion of people in developed countries, I think they’re ubiquitous. Most people with an occupational pension scheme, most people with a savings account, most people with insurance policies. If some kind of Glass-Steagall had been reenacted by now in response to the banking crisis, this would have changed a lot of course: maybe by now, the biggest investors would be the institutions of high finance, acting on behalf of those who can afford to lose it.

I suppose there are two separate issues here really. One is that people investing money on behalf of the everyday citizen shouldn’t be exposing themselves to the risks of high finance (making governments have to guarantee those risks while the rich make high profits out of them — a case of “privatise the profits, nationalise the losses”). The other issue is that holding equity in large oil and coal companies may not be seen as a high risk strategy at all, but in reality they are quite high risk.

[Warwick]

Natural gas already has a huge application in the production of ammonia through the Haber process for Nitrogen fertilizers

Thanks for replying to my post.
What about the environmental impact of using Nitrogen fertilisers though? Using them has resulted in large % of freshwater sites being overrun with green algae that pretty much suffocates the ecosystems. I’d rather see the back of it. Cheap, eco-friendly freight might help with that, I’d hope.
Oops, now I’m off-topic on my own topic.

(I have to admit I have used 2 cans of Miracle Gro for my agapanthuses this year. But if everyone did the same I reckon we’d be OK.)

[Warwick]

Good thing we went for white sapphire (good old Aluminium Oxide) and hydrothermal emerald for the Mrs’ engagement ring.

[Warwick]

On a related subject, has anyone ever worried whether FFS could be read as an amusing acronym?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/22/cia-wikileaks-taskforce-wtf

Or maybe it reads as intentional – it’s FFS because the status quo (environmental devastation of ‘conventional’ energy, hardly any public resources devoted to any fusion but ITER) is exasperating.

Actually it’s too bad they didn’t look up FFS for that article.

[Warwick]

…but I regard that as a specious argument made up after the fact. I am unaware of any evidence that the orientation of the swastika ever meant anything prior to the adoption of the right-facing swastika by the Nazis….

Then it’s urban legend; all the same, it’s very well-known. At school they said the ‘left-facing’ swastika was a sign of peace and consequently inverting it was a deliberate choice to represent war. (Not that their source for that was likely to itself be anything more than an urban legend necessarily.)

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