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EOG Resources: Continue to Buy on Pullbacks [view article]
how can eog say they dont want to be the bigest ,if you dont grow you become stsgnent ,plus i dont see the ceo buying any of his own stock like chk put your money were your production is .look at mikro soft they cant grow any more so they try to buy other companies .a statment like we dont want to be the begest if i own eog i would sell it yesterday . ReplyThe 'Peak Oil' Myth: New Oil Is Plentiful [view article]
To further show the conspiracy of high price go to and read for yourselves:hsgac.senate.gov/publi...
Reply
Investing In a Resource-Constrained World (Part V) [view article]
You wrote:"So you're looking at roughly what proportion of helium compared to energy? Also, did anyone detect gamma rays, or beta or alpha particles?"
Alpha particles are helium-4, measured in the gas after they stop moving. I don’t think you could get a detector into a liquid cell or even a gas cell to catch them when they are formed. It doesn’t take much to stop them.
"Is there any measurable difference in the other gas products, like Hydrogen, before and after charging? Also, you mentioned some experiments saw 24 MeV . . ."
That’s 24 MeV of energy PER HELIUM ATOM, when they measure helium. Not 24 MeV per palladium atom yet! As far as I know the record is roughly 10,000 eV per atom of Pd. Of course it could eventually go much higher than 24 MeV, as new deuterons move into the lattice.
"Also, the error is not a huge problem, is it larger than 20 or 30%?"
Very large for small amounts, smaller for large amounts. See McKubre or Miles.
“>> There are other disparities and they are the source of the problem,
>> as you say.
Disparities in energy or gas products?”
I would say the biggest inconsistencies are in the tritium, gamma rays and neutrons. My guess is that the reaction produces varying amounts of these. In other words, it isn’t that tritium is measured wrong; it actually appears in widely varying amounts. It seems to appear when excess heat is weak or intermittent, analogous to the way heavy smoke is the product of incomplete combustion. (Incomplete? Insufficient?)
“>> It lacked critical details mainly because these details were unknown.
He meant process details. Precisely what steps to take to reproduce his results. F&P must have known those steps, assuming they took careful notes.”
No, they did not know these steps, as Bockris remarked at the time. Their success rate was still low. Of course they knew a lot more than they put in the paper, but it was mostly common knowledge of electrochemistry, such as: “keep the electrolyte clean.” In other words, do not let cat hairs into the electrolyte.
Everyone, including F&P, grants that the paper was written quickly with few details.
“Of course, it's also possible that they lucked onto perfect electrodes the first time out, and didn't think anything of the difficulty in characterizing them.”
It was not luck at all. When they decided to do the experiment, Fleischmann went to Johnson Matthey, told them he wanted to try extraordinarily high loading, and asked them to recommend the best material for that purpose. They recommended the palladium used in hydrogen purifier filters, which has a lot of silver in it as I recall. That is not a surprising recommendation.
Many others have used this material successfully. Researchers at NASA and BARC both used an actual hydrogen filter (the whole gadget), successfully.
">> Cold fusion cannot be reproduced nearly 100% of the time,
If it cannot be reproduced nearly 100% of the time, roughly what is the success ratio in your opinion?"
It depends on the group and the experiment. Mitsubishi’s transmutation experiments work every time, as far as I know. McKubre says that when they achieve the target loading, flux and whatnot, it always works, but I think they only achieve the conditions ~70% of the time. See:
lenr-canr.org/acrobat/...
www.lenr-canr.org/acro...
"Earth-based plasma fusion has obviously never hit break-even."
I assume you define break-even as: as much heat comes out as you put in. This might also be called “100% excess.” This is not enough to sustain the reaction mechanically.
Many cold fusion reactions with input energy have reached 300% excess. Some cold fusion reactions have no input energy; they are completely self-sustaining or “fully ignited” sometimes for hundreds of hours. This is not actually a desirable condition because there is some question as to how you might control or quench this reaction on a large scale. It would be better to have some control factor such as input energy, but as far as I know the input energy into electrolysis has little relationship to the strength of the reaction. It is needed to form the material and maintain flux.
“>> people used to set up brand-new transistor facilities for about $50,000
Remember the first transistor, it was made for little more than pocket change.”
No quite pocket change. Around $6 each I think, which would be ~$60 today. The zone-refining gadgets and other equipment was expensive. Also the failure rate was much higher than for cold fusion, so they had to make many devices to get a few good ones.
“>> That is not a supposition. It is an experimentally proven fact. As I
>> mentioned, if they were gamma rays are neutrons I would be dead, and
Nah, not necessarily. The body can repair a fair amount of radiation damage.”
The plasma fusion people never tire of telling us that if cold fusion produces even 1 watt, everyone in the room should be dead within minutes. That is called the dead graduate student problem; i.e. why isn’t the graduate student dead? Hundreds of researchers have spent days or weeks working next to unshielded cells that produce anywhere from 1 to 100 W, and not one of them is dead. Although a couple of them narrowly avoided being hurt in serious explosions.
The plasma fusion people think this proves that cold fusion is an experimental error or fraud. I think it proves that cold fusion is aneutronic.
”>> It produces massive excess heat with absolutely no chemical reaction.
>> It produces tritium.
>> It produces helium commensurate with the heat.
I would love to see some amounts/proportions of these. How much tritium?”
Varying amounts. That’s a mystery.
- Jed
Reply
Investing In a Resource-Constrained World (Part V) [view article]
>> The particular disparities you described have not occurred. Everyone who>> has measured helium has discovered helium, in roughly the same
>> proportion to the heat (although the error bars are large.) Neutrons are
>> either completely absent or if present at levels 10E10 or 10E20 times
>> lower than plasma fusion, which is tantamount to being absent.
Okay, I was mistaken in my understanding then, I apologize. So you're looking at roughly what proportion of helium compared to energy? Also, did anyone detect gamma rays, or beta or alpha particles? Is there any measurable difference in the other gas products, like Hydrogen, before and after charging? Also, you mentioned some experiments saw 24 MeV, and others saw less, some much less. Specifically, which energy measurements do you suspect as most accurate?
Also, the error is not a huge problem, is it larger than 20 or 30%?
I would like to write a simple energy balance given your "hero data" that is the most repeatable measurements for what you have. It will probably be wrong, but it's nice to start somewhere.
>> There are other disparities and they are the source of the problem,
>> as you say.
Disparities in energy or gas products? Without the theory, of course it's hard to know which is possibly accurate, but it will be fun to attempt a balance anyway.
>> It lacked critical details mainly because these details were unknown.
He meant process details. Precisely what steps to take to reproduce his results. F&P must have known those steps, assuming they took careful notes. Of course, it's also possible that they lucked onto perfect electrodes the first time out, and didn't think anything of the difficulty in characterizing them. What that an issue?
>> so in these respects it was a good paper.
True, but if these things you write are true, that makes it important research, it still doesn't change the condition of the paper itself, which didn't clearly communicate how to replicate.
>> I wouldn’t know about that. Fleischmann and officials at the University
>> tell me and had to be published quickly.
I patent and publish, and the USPTO hasn't changed their disclosure policy. If they filed the Provisional, they then have at least a year of confidentiality to publish. Then they need to file the Utility and the International agreements, and then they get more confidentiality while that awaits approval. It can increase the publishing window by another six to 12 months.
But remember, they went public with their results before they or Jones published. Which is unusual. I thought that it had something to do with the Exxon Valdez, perhaps an energy consortium promised them some research funding if they would present that morning, which gave Exxon several hours to hold up the news about the tanker crash, and hopefully give the day's news a little spin toward the possibility of clean energy, rather than the reality of spilled crude all over Prudhoe Bay.
But who knows on that one, it might just be pure coincidence.
>> Cold fusion cannot be reproduced nearly 100% of the time,
If it cannot be reproduced nearly 100% of the time, roughly what is the success ratio in your opinion?
>> some cold fusion experiments have produced hundreds of times more
>> energy than the best plasma fusion experiment in history, sometimes in
Earth-based plasma fusion has obviously never hit break-even.
>> 20 years than plasma fusion did in 60, at a cost roughly equivalent to
>> one week of plasma fusion research.
But you need to understand too, that there was (and is) a lot of experiment going on with the various Tokamacs, and confinement projects. All sorts of people tap into the ports and take various measurements, many of which have nothing at all to do with fusion. Confinement has also led to a larger understanding of related processes.
>> You are asking the wrong person, as I mentioned.
Fair enough, but you are the 'gatekeeper' of the CF publications, if someone wrote one down, you would know about it right? You have more overall knowledge of the field than anyone.
>> people used to set up brand-new transistor facilities for about $50,000
Remember the first transistor, it was made for little more than pocket change. And the part I love most about that is even today, the circuit diagram for a transistor is a pictorial of that first transistor with its own little personality. I remember reading somewhere that they don't know where that first transistor is, and that it may have been discarded. I am a lover of art, and I place the beauty of that one right up there with Monet. In my mind, given the result of its invention, as artwork, it is priceless.
>> This is indeed a major stumbling block. This is why research should be
>> carried out at national laboratories and other facilities not oriented to
>> making a profit.
National labs want to make profits too. But I don't see this as a problem the way you do. You write that nature cannot be patented, but the myriad of ways to harness nature can definitely be patented. Of course, we're bucking against the USPTO restriction, because someone important told them it doesn't work. But if the patents are prosecuted individually in the EU and Asia, it seems that would hold the I.P. in the U.S. when and if the USPTO restriction is lifted.
>> It is not an attitude; it is a fact. (Or a very likely a fact.)
I'm not trying to put wind in your sails, but I think this is not the problem you think it is. I don't see why the various configurations here could not be patented. I.P. can be be protected.
>> That is not a supposition. It is an experimentally proven fact. As I
>> mentioned, if they were gamma rays are neutrons I would be dead, and
Nah, not necessarily. The body can repair a fair amount of radiation damage. These things don't run constantly, if they're just being used for research, and if it does have an actual reaction (of which we don't know) then you might see no more than a few hundred thousand becquerels, which won't kill you.
>> It produces massive excess heat with absolutely no chemical reaction.
>> It produces tritium.
>> It produces helium commensurate with the heat.
I would love to see some amounts/proportions of these. How much tritium?
>> It does not produce dangerous levels of penetrating radiation.
Okay, not dangerous, but even if it's some beta, it would explain the process.
>> I did. But he knew hundreds of people, probably thousands. Still, I have
It's quite a feather in your cap. He was very well-spoken.
>> Yes. Emphatically. See the reasons described in the book.
Urgh, you're going to make me read through the whole thing? I'm up to my eyeballs in work and research. Can't you summarize? I promise, when I finish all of this stuff I'm working on I will catch up with many of the books I've been meaning to read.
>> No, we could use a million times more. For example, I think we should
>> terraform Mars.
I disagree. Mars might be the only planet of its kind in the Galaxy, why should we risk damaging (and completely changing) something like that? Same with the Moon. Should we 'terraform' Alaska or protect it as one of our few remaining pristine wilderness areas? Should we melt all the ice in Antarctica to get to the minerals and oil below? What's the point of damaging and changing all of these places? Should people try to live in concert with nature rather than trying to strong-arm her?
>> Advanced technology properly done does not produce trash.
I suggest that a Moon full of factories or a Mars with a changed atmosphere would resemble trash.
>> “The ultimate purpose of cold fusion, or any technology, is to give
>> people the freedom to do for themselves, take charge of their lives,
>> and make themselves happy or miserable.”
I no don't see technology as a liberating force, it's simply a force. Liberation can only come from within. And if we had a billion times more energy, but without evolved thought, we would simply be a billion times more enslaved. China has the Internet, but they can't discuss things the way you and I do.
In my opinion, we currently have far more energy than we need, and we're wasting most of it in our attempts to live like kings and queens. and the end result of our striving for the materials of royalty is that we end up living like slaves. Reply
Sautou
The 'Peak Oil' Myth: New Oil Is Plentiful [view article]
To anaconda1°/ I do not imply that the average EROEI (concerning all energy produced in the world) will evolve very quickly towards a 1:1 ratio. I believe this average EROEI will get lower and lower, but I imply nothing about the pace.
2°/ Making low EROEI fuel may be possible at a very low scale when perverse effects (like government subsidies) allow a few producers to make profits. But that is not sustainable at a large scale.
André Sautou
On Jun 25 06:46 PM anaconda wrote:
> To andre Sautou:
> I gree with your analysis except for one HUGE assumption you make:
> That the energy required to produce the energy will go to a 1:1 ratio
> as quickly as you imply.
>
> Corn ethanol is less than a 1:1 ratio, I think its about 1 33:1.
>
> That's why corn ethanol is ludicrous to make.
> (can only be made with government subsidies)
>
> In the big scheme of things, ultra-deepwater, deep-drilling is still
> substantially over the 1:1 ratio -- I don't know the exact ratio,
> but oil companies wouldn't invest in it if it was less than 1:1 ratio.
>
>
> Almost all hydrocarbons are over a 1:1 ratio. But admittedly some
> get pretty close to 1:1 ratio to the point they are marginal for
> economic production.
>
> Liquid hydrocarbons -- oil and gas condensates don't fall into that
> category.
>
> So your "Peak" gloom and doom, while is right on the analysis of
> the energy cost to produce energy, is wrong on how soon it will get
> there, if it gets there at all within a meaningful economic horizon.
> Over 30 years away and it has no impact on the economics of today.
>
>
> That's what this blog commentary is about -- the economics of oil
> today. Not 30,50, or 60 years from today.
>
> Go back asleep and wakeup 30 years from now and cry your "doom and
> gloom", otherwise you're wasting my time and more important for you
> -- your time.
>
> So is pointless to "doom and gloom" about it now. Reply
Keeping Alternate Energy In Perspective [view article]
The above comments have to be the most educated, polite, enjoyable to read, and non-bashing I've read anywhere on the Web. Why can't we get all the people who are needed to make this energy overhaul get going together and speak to each other in these civilized tones to finally accomplish something good? ReplyInvesting In a Resource-Constrained World (Part V) [view article]
If you hold TSL stock you should be interested in this article that came out today.www.thestreet.com/stor...
Jack H. Reply
Investing In a Resource-Constrained World (Part V) [view article]
Thanks to voice input I said the photo of Arthur is in the "new" section. Meant NEWS section:lenr-canr.org/News.htm
Scroll down a tad to see cute photo.
Scary and pretty photos are here:
lenr-canr.org/Experime...
This illustrates why you should not do cold fusion at home.
- Jed
Reply
Investing In a Resource-Constrained World (Part V) [view article]
You wrote:>> Evidently it is not trivial, because thousands of experts including
>> distinguished theorists have not yet solved the problem.
It's not trivial because it seems nobody knows which data is correct and which is in error. You show me that one group gets 24 MeV, another gets 11, and another gets 0.5 MeV. One group measures no helium, another measures 0.3% flux. One group detects no radiation, another does. With all of this widely disparate data, it's difficult to know which set to use to write the energy balance."
The particular disparities you described have not occurred. Everyone who has measured helium has discovered helium, in roughly the same proportion to the heat (although the error bars are large.) Neutrons are either completely absent or if present at levels 10E10 or 10E20 times lower than plasma fusion, which is tantamount to being absent.
There are other disparities and they are the source of the problem, as you say.
"A well-respected electrochemist claims otherwise, he says F&P's original paper lacks all of the critical details."
It lacked critical details mainly because these details were unknown.
“That's not a good paper.”
On the other hand it is one of the most important papers in history and it was replicated thousands of times, and if political opposition can be overcome it will probably give mankind unlimited amounts of energy without any measurable level of pollution, so in these respects it was a good paper.
”>> paper had to be written in a big hurry, to protect U. Utah’s intellectual
>> property.
Not true. I.P. is filed first, which is not disclosed . . .”
I wouldn’t know about that. Fleischmann and officials at the University tell me and had to be published quickly.
”>> This philosophy is the basis of the scientific method. If we had to have a
>> theory to explain every anomaly, there would be progress in science.
And how is that working out for you in Cold Fusion?”
Magnificently, considering the difficulty of the research, the political opposition, and how little funding there is. Cold fusion cannot be reproduced nearly 100% of the time, and some cold fusion experiments have produced hundreds of times more energy than the best plasma fusion experiment in history, sometimes in fully ignited self-sustaining reactions. Cold fusion has made more progress in 20 years than plasma fusion did in 60, at a cost roughly equivalent to one week of plasma fusion research.
“You can't even give me a basic energy balance of the process.”
You are asking the wrong person, as I mentioned.
”If it was no harder than making an advanced battery I would be able to buy a test Cold Fusion cell for a $0.5 million and get to work.”
If you knew how to do it, you could, of course. If you had known how to make a transistor in 1935 it would not have cost you much to actually do it. In the 1950s, people used to set up brand-new transistor facilities for about $50,000 (roughly $500,000 today). As the scale of the devices got smaller and smaller the production equipment got more expensive.
The equipment and procedures used to make cold fusion devices are similar to equipment used to make other electrochemical devices such as batteries. Some of the hand-made laboratory scale cold fusion devices have produced enough power and energy to be commercially useful, at least for small-scale applications. If people learn to control the effect, there is no reason to think manufacturing will not be a major challenge or expense.
"Let's be accurate here ... you meant to write "at a trivial cost compared to the energy yield of fusion." The extraction of deuterium is only affordable if you can make fusion work."
Obviously that is what I meant! That’s true for both cold fusion and plasma fusion.
">> A force of nature cannot be patented. If one implementation is patented,
>> there will a dozen others available.
Wow, and you wonder why there is no funding for CF."
This is indeed a major stumbling block. This is why research should be carried out at national laboratories and other facilities not oriented to making a profit.
“With that attitude, why would any company invest a few billion into possibly making it work if someone else can just fiddle with their method and come out with their own system for $1 million?”
It is not an attitude; it is a fact. (Or a very likely a fact.) Several executives from large companies have asked me that same question. My best answer, which I will admit is not that good, is that many other products are not patented and yet companies that develop elite making these products often make large profits. For example, food recipes cannot be patented, and yet large companies do make a profit selling food. My other answer is that I predict there will be more profit potential in cold fusion related peripherals than in the core technology, but you can’t have one without the other. So the companies ought to consider the cold fusion technology itself a “loss leader.”
“And remember, all of my suppositions are pure fantasy, and assume that there is no radiation (gamma rays or neutrons, etc.) from the process.”
That is not a supposition. It is an experimentally proven fact. As I mentioned, if they were gamma rays are neutrons I would be dead, and sold several hundred people I know. There are four things that we can be absolutely sure of about cold fusion:
It produces massive excess heat with absolutely no chemical reaction.
It produces tritium.
It produces helium commensurate with the heat.
It does not produce dangerous levels of penetrating radiation.
Researchers have made many other assertions about the effect which may or may not be true, because they have not yet been widely confirmed or refuted.
">> my late friend Arthur Clarke
Nice, you knew him?"
I did. But he knew hundreds of people, probably thousands. Still, I have many letters from him covering an impossibly wide range of topics, and I worked with him on the Millennial Edition of “Profiles of the Future.” Plus I have nice photos from him, especially the one I put in the new section showing him with his pet Tyrannosaurus rex.
"Do we need to use a thousand times more energy than we use today?"
Yes. Emphatically. See the reasons described in the book.
"Is it possible that we already use a hundred times more energy than we need?"
No, we could use a million times more. For example, I think we should terraform Mars.
"Is it desirable to clog up orbit and the trash the moon with our manufacturing?"
Orbital towers do not orbit. If you drop something it falls back to Earth. Trash & pollution are misplaced resources, caused by ignorance and incompetence. Advanced technology properly done does not produce trash.
“What is the end purpose of this expansion you propose?”
Quoting my book again, and a sentiment that Clarke would wholeheartedly endorse: “The ultimate purpose of cold fusion, or any technology, is to give people the freedom to do for themselves, take charge of their lives, and make themselves happy or miserable.”
">> A child playing a video game today has more computing power at her
>> disposal than any scientist had in 1970, and the machine does more
And at what cost? Can the kid with the video game do long division in his head?"
Probably not. People could not do that centuries ago, and yet they did pretty well for themselves. I couldn't do it to save my life. I used a slide rule before small computers came along.
“Can the scientist with the supercomputer do some pencil and paper theory to find out what is happening in his Cold Fusion test?”
Absolutely, positively not. For one thing, the people doing cold fusion are mostly over 70 years old and they do not use computers. A lot of them are “greatest generation” types who cut their teeth at Los Alamos during World War II. One of them pushed the button to fire off the first bomb. Young scientists do not believe in things like cold fusion. Only older scientists to understand how science is supposed to work.
Computers may be partly to blame for that, as you suggest.
- Jed
Reply
Investing In a Resource-Constrained World (Part V) [view article]
Hi Jed,>> Evidently it is not trivial, because thousands of experts including
>> distinguished theorists have not yet solved the problem.
It's not trivial because it seems nobody knows which data is correct and which is in error. You show me that one group gets 24 MeV, another gets 11, and another gets 0.5 MeV. One group measures no helium, another measures 0.3% flux. One group detects no radiation, another does. With all of this widely disparate data, it's difficult to know which set to use to write the energy balance. So theoretically, it's not a complicated thing, but there needs to either be concordance within the experimental community, or else someone needs to derive the theory and then someone else needs to find data to agree with it. Again, this is the problem of doing science without theory, it progresses very slowly.
>> Of course! I suggest you read the papers. Or read any electrochemistry
>> textbook. I am not going to spoon-feed you every detail.
I didn't see any papers that had this data. And I am not interested in standard electrochemistry from a textbook, I am interested in bulk reactions in the lattice.
>> That is nonsense. No one misled anyone. Every electrochemist I know
>> who read the original paper knew the experiment was difficult. If
>> non-experts were confused, that’s a shame but it wasn’t F&P’s fault.
Awell-respected electrochemist claims otherwise, he says F&P's original paper lacks all of the critical details. That's not a good paper.
>> paper had to be written in a big hurry, to protect U. Utah’s intellectual
>> property.
Not true. I.P. is filed first, which is not disclosed, and then the researchers have at least a year to publish, and can actually stretch that up to two years before disclosure. And you see what happens when they hurried, haste makes waste.
>> This philosophy is the basis of the scientific method. If we had to have a
>> theory to explain every anomaly, there would be progress in science.
And how is that working out for you in Cold Fusion? You can't even give me a basic energy balance of the process.
>> What are you talking about?!? Do you think they do not WANT a theory,
>> or they are not looking for one? This is nuts. I said they do not have one
>> now, and they do not need one to prove the anomaly is real.
We don't know what the anomaly is. Is it Cold Fusion? Is it lepton-induced fusion, is it a new process? Is it systemic? Is it a new type of fission? Anomalys drive physicists insane, the Zeeman effect nearly led Pauli to the edge of unreason, and they put all their effort into solving it. But it seems to me that you are quite content to call it an 'anomaly' and then jump right into the commercialization phase.
>> because no one knows how to do it yet, and because the people trying
>> to do it are not funded and do not have the equipment they need.
If it was no harder than making an advanced battery I would be able to buy a test Cold Fusion cell for a $0.5 million and get to work.
>> It does not require tritium! You can separate deuterium from any water
>> on earth, at a trivial cost compared to the energy yield.
Let's be accurate here ... you meant to write "at a trivial cost compared to the energy yield of fusion." The extraction of deuterium is only affordable if you can make fusion work.
>> The cost is of extraction is already thousands of times cheaper than oil or
>> uranium, and it will soon fall to be millions of times cheaper, since the
>> main cost component is energy itself.
No true as it currently stands, because without a practical fusion generator, deuterium has no energy yield. If I extract oil, I am likely to get more energy out of the molecule than I put into extracting it. That is not currently so with deuterium, because we don't have a practical fusion generator ... right now deuterium is just an expensive variation of water.
>> A force of nature cannot be patented. If one implementation is patented,
>> there will a dozen others available.
Wow, and you wonder why there is no funding for CF. With that attitude, why would any company invest a few billion into possibly making it work if someone else can just fiddle with their method and come out with their own system for $1 million?
>> An ounce of heavy water (28 g) costs $28 retail. I can get it from China
>> for $20. With cold fusion input power, any chemical company on earth
>> could make it for $0.28. 28 g of heavy water is enough to power your car
And gasoline used to be a waste product from the manufacture of kerosene, they literally used to throw out the gasoline because the energy density was (is) 1/4 that of kerosene (diesel). Gasoline is no longer discarded because it is now a valuable product.
>> There is not a chance it will be regulated. You might as well try to regulate
>> raindrops.
Okay. But remember, plain old water is heavily regulated. It costs millions to get FDA approval for just regular old bottled water in each state. I doubt your enthusiasm for lack of regulation will cut too well with the DOE. But maybe, you never know. I'm encouraged by government's reaction to solar, they seem to be welcoming to it finally.
And remember, all of my suppositions are pure fantasy, and assume that there is no radiation (gamma rays or neutrons, etc.) from the process. I have no idea of an energy balance that would accomplish zero hazardous output. If there are positrons (which lead to gamma rays) or neutrons, then suddenly that common fusion generator you envision will turn containment vessels 'hot.' I know, you are probably going to say that none of the Cold Fusion experiments measured any gamma or neutron flux or anything naughty, but if I'm skeptical about Cold Fusion, then I'm doubly skeptical that it can magically happen without byproducts. I have never seen one that can do that.
>> lenr-canr.org/BookBlur...
I'll have a look through your book.
>> my late friend Arthur Clarke
Nice, you knew him? My favorite Clarke quote: "How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when clearly it is Ocean."
>> There will be no need to be lean. We will use a thousand times more
>> energy people do today, and think nothing of it.
Do we need to use a thousand times more energy than we use today? Is it possible that we already use a hundred times more energy than we need? Is it desirable to clog up orbit and the trash the moon with our manufacturing? What is the end purpose of this expansion you propose?
>> A child playing a video game today has more computing power at her
>> disposal than any scientist had in 1970, and the machine does more
And at what cost? Can the kid with the video game do long division in his head? Can the scientist with the supercomputer do some pencil and paper theory to find out what is happening in his Cold Fusion test? Computing power is a good thing, as is energy, as long as it solves a problem or advances society. My computer uses 5% of its processing power to correspond with you, but 100% of its processing power to play a war or sports simulation game. From my perspective, all the computer needs from a societal point of view is the 5%, not the other 95%. Okay, maybe I want to do a Mathematica calculation on air pollution and then I want all the horsepower I can get. That's a good use. Maybe industry needs 1000 times the power for a few decades to build space stations with the intent to colonize space. That might be a good thing. But simply making energy for energy's sake seems hollow ... something like Karel Capek's original R.U.R., where after slaughtering the last of the humans, the robots then announce they will build many houses, simple because that is what the humans designed them to do.
There has to be a need for this energy, and simply living lives of increased luxury doesn't sell me.
>> yet no one considers this an extravagant waste of resources, and no one
>> raises objections to it.”
Not yet, it's new. How much new theory has come along since the advent of the personal computer? It seems that most new theory is now somehow connected to analyzing data, fitting curves, Fourier analysis, wavelets, etc.. Maybe all of this computing power has sapped our mental strength and imagination the same way all of our excess power has made us fat and lazy. Reply
Key ETFs Most Overbought and Oversold [view article]
source? ReplyThe 'Peak Oil' Myth: New Oil Is Plentiful [view article]
Dream On Schwarz. for every prospect you cite (some from slumberland, like the bakken formation which has a net energy return one order of magnitude lower than tar sands) i can cite production declines in the real world, where the Cantarell field in México has gone below the 1mbpd mark in may; where Saudi arabia is promising an additional 500,000 barrels as it has done since 2004 every two weeks while in reality reducing production bby 1mbpd since then... if cars ran on spit Al-Naimi would be a major source of energy all by himself; North sea has been steadily producing less every month since 2004; the russian fields are also declining... etc etc. there is a fact: demand outstrips supply. And one of the few REAL markets out there where demnd/supply= price is crude. you can ostrich yourself all you wish, i'm holding USO since the beginning of april (and that's my disclosure).The reality based community is teaching a lesson to all those wishing upon a star. Reply
Key ETFs Most Overbought and Oversold [view article]
I appreciate you putting all this info in 1 easy to read format ReplyInvesting In a Resource-Constrained World (Part V) [view article]
Mike Wofsey wrote:"As long as Cold Fusionists still believe in conservation of energy, conservation of lepton number, etc., it should be pretty trivial to find the formula."
Evidently it is not trivial, because thousands of experts including distinguished theorists have not yet solved the problem.
">> Right. After electrolysis. The cold fusion process never begins.
That's the after, what about the before? Do you have microscopy in some form of the uncharged electrodes?"
Of course! I suggest you read the papers. Or read any electrochemistry textbook. I am not going to spoon-feed you every detail.
"Why would they release a paper that unintentionally misled so many people? It's not transparent science, and now the whole field of CF is paying for it."
That is nonsense. No one misled anyone. Every electrochemist I know who read the original paper knew the experiment was difficult. If non-experts were confused, that’s a shame but it wasn’t F&P’s fault. The paper was not good because their knowledge was incomplete, and the paper had to be written in a big hurry, to protect U. Utah’s intellectual property.
”>> Theory is not needed to confirm that cold fusion is real.
This philosophy is going to continue to hobble CF.”
This philosophy is the basis of the scientific method. If we had to have a theory to explain every anomaly, there would be progress in science.
“Doing science without theory is like trying to find a destination without a roadmap.”
What are you talking about?!? Do you think they do not WANT a theory, or they are not looking for one? This is nuts. I said they do not have one now, and they do not need one to prove the anomaly is real. Nobody ever said a theory is not needed, or desirable.
“Well, based on what you say, Cold Fusion is very difficult and complicated.”
No worse than making computer chips or advanced batteries. The material purity and precision is about the same as an advanced battery. There are probably a thousand industrial corporations that could do it. It is difficult now because no one knows how to do it yet, and because the people trying to do it are not funded and do not have the equipment they need.
Looking at cost of materials and at similar manufactured devices, there is no reason to think that cold fusion generators and heaters will be more expensive per unit of power than, say, automobile engines or gas-fired emergency power generators.
"It requires deuterium and/or tritium, which is pretty tough to get, even if you can separate it from seawater."
It does not require tritium! You can separate deuterium from any water on earth, at a trivial cost compared to the energy yield. The cost is of extraction is already thousands of times cheaper than oil or uranium, and it will soon fall to be millions of times cheaper, since the main cost component is energy itself.
"So do we really get limitless energy, increased a "billion-fold&... Probably not, because the technology (and fuel) is tightly controlled by a few consortiums."
Never happen. That scenario is out of the question. The principles are already in the public domain. A force of nature cannot be patented. If one implementation is patented, there will a dozen others available.
"And then, let's say that Cold Fusion is somehow able to eventually be made so simply that everyone can run to the local K-Mart and pick up a Cold Fusion generator to stick in their basement next to the water heater."
The water heater will also be cold fusion powered.
"Or do you think it more likely that an ounce of the fuel will cost them $1000 and last them three months?"
An ounce of heavy water (28 g) costs $28 retail. I can get it from China for $20. With cold fusion input power, any chemical company on earth could make it for $0.28. 28 g of heavy water is enough to power your car for 28 years. You will not use more than ~500 g in a lifetime. (That’s $500 now; a few dollars worth after cold fusion becomes common.) Energy will cost you far less than drinking water from the tap does today.
"Do you really have that much confidence in the free market that deuterium will not be tightly regulated?"
There is not a chance it will be regulated. You might as well try to regulate raindrops.
"What would we do with limitless energy? Would we have the robot drive the Cold Fusion flying Hummer a hundred miles to pick up the morning newspaper? Would we stroll out to our artificially-lit underground greenhouse and have the robot pick out a particularly delicious mango for breakfast? Limitless energy produces limitless excess."
I disagree. See my on-line book on this subject, which was recommended by Arthur C. Clarke and several distinguished professors:
lenr-canr.org/BookBlur...
"I'm an eternal optimist unfortunately, we'll solve our energy dependence by learning to live lean. And we'll learn to live lean through solar power."
You are neither optimist nor pessimist compared to my late friend Arthur Clarke. He saw how things might be incomparably better than they are now, or worse, in ways that most people could never imagine.
There will be no need to be lean. We will use a thousand times more energy people do today, and think nothing of it. The only problem will be waste heat, which can be fixed by moving heavy industry to orbital towers and the moon. As I wrote in the book:
“If people in future generations expend energy at a rate a thousand times greater than we do, and they expend it for purposes we would consider frivolous, it will make no difference and cause no harm, as long as the noise and waste heat does not bother anyone or harm the biosphere. A child playing a video game today has more computing power at her disposal than any scientist had in 1970, and the machine does more calculations in a single second than an ancient mathematician did in a lifetime, yet no one considers this an extravagant waste of resources, and no one raises objections to it.”
- Jed
Reply
Key ETFs Most Overbought and Oversold [view article]
Agreed papagiki...overbought conditions can remain in place for quite a while, and oversold doesn't mean it's time to buy.The writers are factual and non-committal, merely pointing to conditions that possibly warrant stop loss protection, or positions to montior for entry points. Reply