E-CAT and oil price

[Gilrandir]

Very interesting - very interesting.

As regards the political question of oil and Russia - part of that is certainly the US being able to ramp up production (and thus wean themselves off Russian oil).

And not only the US. If it is what they make of it this invention may spell huge upheavals in whole world economy, distribution of wealth and what not.

[Ironside]

I'm going to say that the dropping oil prices has about zero to do with this. Even if working it is Nobel price worthy and will be a game changer.

Even if it would be coming into to the market next year, I'll take years to build all the major facilities and you still haven't solved how to use this as fuel.
that means either batteries or fuel cells, the same technology that's currenlty under development. Alternatively they're able to get microorganisms that feed on electricity available for the market, rather than the research stage they're atm.

The end that's already seen will become more obvious, but nothing major will really happen for at least a decade.

[I of the Storm]

Could someone please explain this to a natural sciences neanderthal?

All I could make of it is that they had this low temperature nuclear reaction running for a month, yielded enormous energy (using what fuel?) and aren't exactly able to explain why.

Are we on the way to the mythical cold fusion here? Might it be an elaborate hoax?

Help appreciated...

[Gilrandir]

The end that's already seen will become more obvious, but nothing major will really happen for at least a decade.

Seeing the speed at which modern technologies develop one is likely to consider that it may take a lot less time than you predict.

[I of the Storm]

Well, it might after all be not so straightforward. I've read around a bit, and apparently Rossi isn't too forthcoming with granting access to the device or to his data. Reviewers may only work with data supplied (=preselected) by him, says one side, the other side says these swedish reviewers were completely neutral and could access any data.

Sounds fishy. I mean, if you've really just invented some high-yield, low-temperature nuclear reaction (is it really one? Allegedly there was not a trace of radiation), you'd ring all bells and blow the fanfares, right? Also, patents haven't been granted for unknown reason.

[Gilrandir]

Sounds fishy. I mean, if you've really just invented some high-yield, low-temperature nuclear reaction (is it really one? Allegedly there was not a trace of radiation), you'd ring all bells and blow the fanfares, right?

Not really. People who invented/discovered something which is likely to hinder oil companies' inflow of profit have a way of getting into harm.

[I of the Storm]

That may be so, but it's not all there is to it.

Withholding data (nb: data, not specs) after an experiment isn't exactly proper scientific conduct and thus perceived rather poorly.

[Papewaio]

Without independent measurements it could be several things:

1) A hoax as the energy is supplied by an external source to heat up the device... essentially a new light bulb.
2) An exothermic (heat creating) chemical reaction... even if not cold fusion it might be worthwhile depending on the cost (monetary and energy required) to create the device
3) Cold fusion... maybe. Although the oil companies might be against it (we still need plastics). The scientific community would love to see this.

Note that we have working fusion in labs. However the net amount of energy is negative... we can fuse atoms, just the energy we make is less then we put in. Fission (splitting atoms) could be much more widely available and would make an ideal base load provider whilst creating minimum waste. With the intermittent power supplies (wind, water, sunlight) we can solve a lot of these issues with better batteries and/or capacitors (not just electrical but mechanical ones ... like the London Bridge has).

[Gilrandir]

Withholding data (nb: data, not specs) after an experiment isn't exactly proper scientific conduct and thus perceived rather poorly.

Unless it may disclose some important facts and thus prevent you from getting all the money and fame you are up to.

[Ironside]

Seeing the speed at which modern technologies develop one is likely to consider that it may take a lot less time than you predict.

The limiter is scale rather than tech. Replacing oil with say hydrogen, which would probably be the easiest way with this tech. It would require replacing the entire carpark, thousands of electrolysis facilities to produce the hydrogen, thousands of cold fusion plants to produce the eletricity, rebuilding all gas stations, rebuild the entire logistic chain for oil to hydrogen instead. It would also require a lot of rare earth minerals to be mined.

That takes a while.

I thought the issue with ITER was the damage caused by the fusion/stray plasma streams, which caused problems which needed a technological workaround, not the fact it doesn't supply surplus power.

I haven't red about the current issues with ITER, but yeah net gain has been reached years ago. I don't think they can take care of that energy properly and can only run for a very short while atm though.

[Beskar]

I haven't red about the current issues with ITER, but yeah net gain has been reached years ago. I don't think they can take care of that energy properly and can only run for a very short while atm though.

I think it is 1000 seconds or so and they are aiming for a tenfold return. I just did some updating and the one currently in France is going to be the main 'test-bed' replacing JET in the UK. Looking at 2020 for it to be operational, with 2030-40 being commercial application. Biggest issue is the temperature can reach like 33 million degrees.

Having the plasma at far less temperatures (1300'c) as the OP suggests would make the process revolutionary.

[Papewaio]

There are a few caveats with that.

1) We have positive fusion in a lab. We don't have it as a power source (yet). Plenty of things can be created in the lab that do not go on to become commercially viable. So at the moment it's more like we can make an oil lamp, we just cannot harness it into a combustion engine.

2) ITER is still being built and will have to prove its chops.

=][=
However.

Fusion has always been stated as being ready to go "fifty years" from now. If you ever read science reports and they say it will be commercially available in fifty years it means they have no idea the timeline other then a long time. Its the scientific equivalent of the biblical forty days and forty nights.

The promising part is that the over the horizon time line has dropped by over half with the ITER and reached zero with the NIF breakthrough.

So even with the stated caveats and quite a few more as a trend it is looking more and more possible that we will see commercial fusion within fifty years. It does depend on the total energy cost to create the device, fire it, recover the energy and rebuild it. It might be that the current designs are too much like the space shuttle which was supposed to be used multiple times, but in essence was stripped down and rebuilt for each mission.

The world would change dramatically if fusion was achieved at a cheap enough price point. Every oil barrel dictator would suddenly lose their revenue base and would not be able to have hired guns run rough shod over their populace or pay for extremist religious schools or more sinister funding.