[Glenn Millam]

The water desalinization effect you mention has been speculated as the cause of the Little Ice Age, that occurred between 1550-1850. In the previous, warmer era, water from Greenland and the northern ice cap supposedly stopped the flow of the North Atlantic Current, which makes Europe nice and warm. There is a lot of good literature on the effect on mankind of the Little Ice Age. Not all scientific investigators of this period believe this was the cause, or the main cause. Some point to increased volcanic activity, while others suspect decreased solar output. Those who disagree with the concept of Global Warming point to this last effect, saying that we are not affecting our environment as much as we think we are, we are just in a cyclical phase starting from the end of the Little Ice Age.

What I find interesting is that, if Global Warming triggers the stoppage of the NAC, thus cooling the Earth, then the Earth sounds like its pretty good at regulating itself. While little creatures such as we may be pretty frightened with all this, it does show that the Earth can put up with quite a bit.

[Glenn Millam]

Admin wrote: Great! Although perhaps pointilism would convey the fuzziness better?

Well, pointillism would be great if you didn’t want to show structure. I’m going from the instructions from Eric and Reswan about how the structure needs to look. My interpretation of the structure may be wrong (quite possible, in fact) but I don’t think that reducing the plasma filaments down to particles will help show the physics of what’s going on, especially at website resolutions. However, if you have a link to something that may show what you are after, I’ll be glad to give it a shot.

[Glenn Millam]

Just to second Reswan’s comments, solar and wind power demand very high capital costs for the machines and the real estate necessary to harvest enough energy to meet global needs. Also, not all sites on the planet are good for each technology.

Hydro power is pretty limited; in the US most of the sites for hydro are already being utilized (unless you feel like damming places like the Grand Canyon). Other countries with hydro power in their energy arsenal have ran into similar problems. Add to that the silting that results in the man-made lakes that provide the power, you’ll find that hydro is a limited solution with a limited life span. The silting reduces the lakes water-holding capacity, eventually reducing water pressure to the point of being uneconomical.

Of the three, wind is the most promising, and we should be doing more of it than we are, but it has its problems too, as I previously mentioned. It would be great in South Dakota. It would suck in NY state.

Focus fusion power is fusion, not fission. No uranium or plutonium. It does not use radioactive fuel, instead it fuses non-radioactive fuel at super-high temperatures. Because of this, it is worthless for producing a thermonuclear weapon. It produces almost-zero nuclear waste, most in the form of x-rays. It generates electricity directly, thus giving the best (theoretical) power generation/fuel consumption ratio of any technology ever invented. The fuel, plain hydrogen and boron, is so plentiful that the Earth itself has about a billion years of it, and as the technology can also be used to power engines for spacecraft, in a billion years I am sure we can figure out how to get even more just from the local solar system. And to top it all off, a reactor can fit into a building the size of a garage.

What this adds up to is this: permanent, clean, environmentally friendly, super-cheap energy that can be made in huge quantities wherever you want it. No more fossil fuels, no more Yucca Mountains, no more Global Warming. Also no more people dying because of heat, cold, lack of water, and lack of food, because with unlimited power, you can do miraculous things. This is why this project is so important.

[Glenn Millam]

Funny, isn’t it? We do it to ourselves. We all work so hard, and we end up making ourselves unhappy via our own constantly-rising expectations.

One of the things I like about this project is the fact that it could be a great opportunity to relieve a big chunk of burden from people’s lives. If accomplished, it will set into motion over a century’s worth of research in numerous fields, and, at least for a while, allow life to exceed our expectations for it.

[Glenn Millam]

In addition, we need shorter working hours

[Glenn Millam]

Look around the world

[Glenn Millam]

Finally got some time this weekend to finish this latest version of the image. This one includes the cutaway-and-zoom mentioned earlier.

Attached files

[Glenn Millam]

I liked the “fusion reactor overload” in Aliens II, which is probably the thing that got me seriously thinking about fusion back in the ’80’s, when a physics-major friend of mine explained how hokey that concept was. When I learned that sustained, runaway reactions were impossible with a fusion reactor, it made me wonder why we weren’t putting more resources into its development.

[Glenn Millam]

My research on the subject seems to say that most fusion projects out there have a 20-50 year research-to-commercial reactor plan. This project hopes to have a 6-10 year plan, maybe less if it can get better funding. Most will agree that there is a need for something with a faster roadmap, but most money is going into tokamaks.

As far as China goes, they are members of the ITER tokamak project, which is a 50-year plan. I am unsure of other projects being funded by, or worked on, by the Chinese, so, maybe there is a chance that they can beat it.

[Glenn Millam]

The flaw in this argument is this assumption that all the ordinary matter in galaxies is in easily-visible, bright, stars. Instead, most of the mass of galaxies may well be in the form of dwarf stars, which produce very little light per unit mass

[Glenn Millam]

Lerner wrote: The cut-away illustrates that as you get closer to the axis, the pitch of the helical filaments decreases unitl the current runs along the axis. Is there any way we can make this look less exactly like string? How about transparent or translucent filaments?

Absolutely… in fact, I had to put in extra objects to make it appear solid. In fact, I thought about making them appear rather fuzzy to imply plasma.

I’ll make the change along with a cutaway and zoom on the next version.

[Glenn Millam]

Elling wrote: I would think that FF inherently promotes a libertarian political agenda. Libertarian in the good ole 40 acres and a mule sense.. The GOP would not favour FF because it shorts out big corp. And just utter the word nuclear to your average German or Swedish green liberal..Scandinavians are early adopters of new mobile phone gadgets. Traditionally purists or luddites when it comes to energy, however ripoff oil and electricity prices have forced upon us a better acceptance of the nuclear industry.
I guess Eric is right when he predicts that serious political change must preceed the adoption of FF.

The GOP probably would not favor development of focus fusion, at first. Focus fusion has a lot to offer them, however, and I think they will begin to see it.

First off, take the example of the glass factory in one of my posts above. Focus fusion should bring energy production down to the industrial level; right now it is in the hands of large utilities and government agencies. An industrialist can look at the technology and see where he can cut his costs tremendously by getting off the grid. He will give to the campaigns of pro-business GOP candidates and incumbents, and request that they “consider” eliminating the regulatory roadblocks in the way of him building his own power plants. He will also look at lobbying. Never doubt the power a big donor has over needy politicians in the US; it is our biggest shame, and I think it is tantamount to bribery. But it can also get things done. If enough industries see the potential of in-house power generation, energy companies may not have enough resources to stop it.

Second, alternative energy and nuclear fission are gaining traction amongst GOP conservative thinkers as a way of combatting terrorism. They have finally put three-and-three together in the links between Middle Eastern oil, Western dependence on it, and Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. They have even done something that no administration (even President Clinton’s) has done since Carter, in coming out with an actual energy policy. (One could debate its effectiveness, but its a start.) They know how important it is. But they also know that they have rich oil buddies. The late Ken Lay of Enron was once the GOP chairman. Its going to be hard for them.

I think the worst part for the GOP, assuming the next administration is Republican, and the focus fusion project achieves its goals in the time frame currently given, is explaining why this project, once funded and worked on in the US, had to be rescued by the people of Chile. If achieved, it will be one of the major turning points in history, like the steam engine, powered flight, or the internet. America had it in its hands and it was given away because of lack of vision, not lack of funds. That could be a big issue in a future presidential campaign.

[Glenn Millam]

We actually think pretty much alike, I just may be a bit more optimistic. To add to the list of problems, I would put in the vast fields of methane clathrates on the Gulf of Mexico, which are heating up and bubbling to the surface as we speak. Talk about runaway greenhouse effects.

To address a few things, if you have vast energy on tap, you can do a few things that are impossible today, such as building towers to sequester and breakdown greenhouse gasses. It can be done today, but its too expensive. If you took energy out of the equation, then suddenly it gets more attractive. Same applies to robotics and other technologies waiting for the last piece to fall into place.

The Middle East is similar, in the sense that a lot of the problem is oil, or more precisely, who controls the oil. Oil money keeps the governments of the Middle East from having to answer to their citizens, because citizens who don’t pay a lot in taxes do not have much leverage. Also, the concept of liberalism doesn’t have many supporters in the Middle East. This is one thing I feel that is wrong with Iran’s democracy. Without liberalism to balance “mob rule,” you have the tyranny of the masses.

In comparison to focus fusion, oil will never be as cheap, as it has to be pumped, refined, and transported in large quantities to compete with the small amounts of decaborane needed for focus fusion, which can be made anywhere, and whose supply is nigh-infinite. The “sudden” impoverishment the oil barons who control the governments in the Middle East will force political change in those countries, but more importantly it will remove the leverage that these countries have had over the West. The West will no longer have to bend its ethics over the fantasies of Middle Eastern oil tyrants. America and Europe can get back in the business of defending and promoting freedom (liberalism) and democracy, insisting that those who seek to trade and prosper with us treat their citizens with due dignity and respect, and do not engage in or tolerate terrorism.

Ask yourself this question: Why doesn’t Saudia Arabia build cars? As a supplier of fuel for vehicles, it would seem a no-brainer to get into the business of making those vehicles. Car manufacture requires lots of other industries, and also requires a society to educate its citizens so that they can take advantage of all the employment opportunities. Is it a lack of natural resources? Japan doesn’t have a lot of natural resources, but they make pretty good cars, so that isn’t an excuse. So why are there no Saudia Arabian cars being sold in the United States and Europe?

Some problems are beyond the purview of this research project. The problem of Israel and Palestine is not solvable directly via the wealth of energy from focus fusion (although a lot of the problem is linked to lack of resources for everyone in the region; just ask Jordan about Israel’s adherence to water-rights agreements). These things fall into the “are we grown up enough” category. I am no Middle Eastern scholar. However, my readings on the subject tend to make me think that one of the problems in the Middle East is that people there tend to value history more than any other set of people on the planet. This may seem like a good thing, but if your thinking is jaded by what one group of people’s ancestors did to to your ancestors, then it is hard to forge a new, better future.

I think it is one of the things that America does pretty well. I hold no animosity towards Britain, Germany, Japan, or Russia. In fact, I want to see all those places do well. There comes a point in time that you need to set aside the past and look at the future. Freedom, once achieved, must be utilized, and old grievances and debts of honor must be written off, and a new future with former enemies must be forged. This is what I speak of when I say whether or not we humans have grown up enough to properly use our new-found power. Adults forgive; children bicker. Adults learn from their mistakes; children fight change. A society’s process of growing up is continuous and painful (look at the lessons America is learning with our current government). Societies which seek to avoid this pain by avoiding change have worse fates, however.

So why doesn’t Saudia Arabia make cars? Because it is ran by a family of rulers who get all they need from oil revenues, and they don’t need the people to do anything but follow orders and help pump the oil. That is why they haven’t looked towards the betterment of their people. They give the people enough to get by, a few choice government subsidies and programs, and they pay for religious training. They seek to maintain a solid-state society, with themselves on top. The decrease in oil revenues may make them start thinking of other ways to make money, ones that require more from, and more given, to the society at-large.

If focus fusion can be a catalyst for this change in humans, well, good. Lets get it started.

[Glenn Millam]

I agree about climate control being next. However, eliminating most of the greenhouse gasses being blown into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels, via focus fusion, would be a great start.

One thing to consider is this: focus fusion, if successful, won’t just replace our energy generation capacity with something new. It will greatly augment it. It will usher in a new age. This new age won’t be about free gas at the pump. It will be about humans doing the miraculous. Perhaps the god-like.

Join the refinements in our understanding of the universe at the lowest and highest levels that will be achieved in the coming decades, the increase of computing power that will follow along with that, and the ability to harness near-unlimited energy at will, and you have the makings for a global golden age, if we are smart about it. I don’t think greenhouse gases and climate will be the real problem. I think it will be if we as humans have grown up enough to handle the responsibility of our new-found power.

[Glenn Millam]

Well, I’m not really sure what you’re saying here. Maybe I need to clarify the question.

There are a lot of holes in the BBT. One is the need for non-baryonic “dark matter” and lots of it. It has only been inferred in the past, but, according to NASA scientists, dark matter has been found.

http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2006/1e0657/

Now, this isn’t enough by itself to solve the problems with the BBT, but it does seem to go a long way. What is the take of Plasma Cosmologists on this discovery, and what impact does it have on their theories?

[Author]

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