Fusion Future

[philstro]

I thought the above posting related to the difficulties of fission power generation was exceptionally well presented and thorough. The conclusion that green power must be the alternative is naïve, though.

Our demand for energy far exceeds any capability of green power, and I want to use wind turbine generation as an example. Last I knew, the life-cycle cost of wind was 20 cents/KWH, compared to coal at four cents or less. Fission is usually quoted at the four cent level also.

We live in a small community about ten miles from a wind farm of 432 large turbines. This was the largest capital project in the history of our county. Warren Buffet made this expenditure largely as a gesture to the greens in my opinion. The sight of the installation is awe inspiring but ultimately destructive to the natural landscape. At night a deep red strobe pulses atop each of the 300 foot high columns.

A commercial last night on ABC following Boston Legal pictured some wind turbines. This commercial for green power was presented in full screen, high resolution format and it disturbs me greatly. It stated, “We are not asking anymore!” (i.e., we are demanding) What does this imply, civil disobedience? Each person who strongly believes in wind turbines should build and live with his own generator. Associations of these people can be formed to finance a project. Communities of these people can live together and be among the spinning blades for their lifetimes.

This commercial was not an isolated incident. It appears that there is a rapidly growing movement here toward green power. I think there is something called 20-20 which means 20% renewable by 2020. This sounds modest compared to “We are not asking anymore.”

To me, this is a demonstration of non-critical thinking and unrealistic dreaming. Then these people scream and cry until they succeed in getting what they want. This comes at a tremendous expense.

Right now I want a plug-in hybrid with regenerative braking; and a Blu-ray recorder. These technologies are decades and years old, respectively. Ironically these items are, for political reasons, unobtainable at a reasonable price in the U. S. Shameful.

The result of the conflicting political agendas is that nothing gets done. No politician seems to have the courage to push forward the building of new, clean coal plants or new fission plants, both proven technologies that we desperately need to implement. D-D fusion or accelerator produced neutrons inducing subcritical fission should be researched to the tune of many billions of dollars. Highly secured fast breeders should be generating some of our electric power in my opinion. The general population has no concept of the size of the energy problem. How can I change what is happening?

[Reformator]

Without Flywheel technology, storage is IMPOSSIBLE!

http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Flywheels

[TheTim]

Having a keen interest in renewable/green energy sources, I think wind power just doesn't have the output required. Good idea on a small scale (5000 homes, for example) but for larger projects (100,000+) you can't beat the efficiency of hydro or other sources.

Solar thermal concentrators (dish/stirling engine or 'power tower') designs may provide the needed electricity of the future...Lots of open land in high-sun-hour areas, but stirling engines don't scale up particularly well, when looking at cost. If price is no object, they're probably the best alternative, but price is *always* an object. Also, they can still run at night, by storing heat in the form of molten salt, which then heats water to produces steam, turn a turbine, blah blah blah...Far more efficient than PV cells will be, at least for the next decade or three.

Fusion power is certainly the holy grail, but I don't anticipate any breakthroughs any time soon. I figure we're still 100 years from a functional commercial-scale fusion plant (that is if we can even hit break-even in the lab).

My $0.02...Which, in today's economy, is worth less and less...

[Richard Hull]

I have always liked alternatives where they make sense......... Isolated smaller communities in locations suited to the various methods available would be great. Every small patch that doesn't need to be on the he-man grid with its long and lossy xmission lines is another load off same. Of course, initial cost and continuing costs will be an issue in each isolated case.

If you want to feel good about yourself and go rather spartan on your electrical lifestyle. 20 or even 25 cents per kwh would not increase your electrical bill, as you are living an electrically leaner lifestyle.

I would love to have all Americans have a monthly power meter cutoff at some reasonably arrived at kilowatt-hour level for their particular household. An electrical allowance or budget, if you will with the juice coming into the home sold at no more that 30% over actual cost. If a consumer overdraws on their budget, the meter could be overridden by the customer at any time to return power, using a code on a meter keypad. The power would then flow in again, but at $2.00/kw hour.

Real American inventiveness and ingenuity would return to family life like water rushing into a sink hole. The ostentacious, over rich, and the odd fool would pay for the power infrastructure in the long run. Some states, (like my own), already have heavy use surcharges that are only mild slaps on the wrist.

This would be a rude awakening if ,say, your power goes off on the 26th and you are forced to stumble to the basement, flashlight in hand, and punch in a code to get power back realizing that until the 1st of next month it returns at $2.00/kwh. Currently you never lose power at all and are just quietly billed a modest 20-50% more per KWH after crossing an unseen trip point on your meter.

Richard Hull

[Chris Bradley]

Though what you say and aim for in regards the on-site power consumption of private individuals may be true to a greater or lesser extent, I'd not follow a point of view that has this as a priority. I feel the priority should be to target the excess consumption of industry. I'd suggest it is our demand and expectation not only from the private consumption of products from industry, but also to look at all the inefficient use of resources that flow through local and national governments who, supposedly, consume vast quantities of raw materials on our behalf to build and support the environments in which we live.

I do not believe punitive responses are in order for this, which is mostly the knee-jerk imposition of penalties/punishing tax rates for crossing some arbitrary demarcation between 'acceptable' and 'not acceptable'. Just the gradual ramp up of wholesale prices by managed tax control changes and in concert with natural price variations (not these bubble commodity markets we are seeing currently). Either way, this is actually happening already and will be an effect that slowly trickles through. Don't rush it, else the price of energy will destabilise. I suspect there's enough renewable energy to supply private consumption, but no where near enough to supply industry - unless we are prepared to expect less. This is the real dilemma for renewables.


Phil Strohbehn wrote:
> How can I change what is happening?

In what ever way you mean that, I'd say: Consider and form your preferred progressive solution to the problems you see around you, then take positive action yourself where you can, try to persuade other to help and work with you where you cannot, seek helpful supportive people in political power after you've tried yourself, then harass and goad them if they present you with a brick wall. It may not get you anywhere, but if you do it honourably, respectfully and with conviction, whilst braving critisism and ridicule, then no-one could ever have asked more of you, nor you of yourself.

[Reformator]

I believe in the 24KW EDF generator of Mark R. Tomion. It's better than wind or solar
http://www.stardrivedevice.com/power_plant.html#update

[Pascal Dennerly]

I stumbled on this a couple of months back, from what I gather (after the short time I looked into it) it appears to be a type of homopolar generator. The idea that the friction losses that would normally be associated with the brushes are negated by using plasma to carry the current. It would suggest that there is a great efficiency saving to be had. I await actual figures and commercialisation as proof though.

[Carl Willis]

>I believe in the 24KW EDF generator of Mark R. Tomion. It's better than wind or solar

I hope you're kidding. This invention is classic pseudoscience, quackery, "snake oil." Believers are either missing the rudiments of a high-school science education, or are sipping bongwater. From the website:

>Many alternative energy researchers and 'ZERO-POINT ENERGY' enthusiasts will be glad to learn that a 24kW prototype of this exotic non-nuclear over-unity electronic dynamo, for producing abundant, clean, and inexpensive electric power, is now being assembled.

Examples of classic, meaningless but mellifluous "word salad" from this website, good only for a laugh:

-"quasi-coherent DC corona"
-"electric discharge's ability to dissipate and reabsorb more quantum energy [...]"
-"leading-edge micro-electrodynamic fluctuation theory"
-"has the capacity to absorb endless quantities of quantum background energy"
-"It may in fact be the world's first self-sustaining over-unity power plant which directly taps the energy of the quantum vacuum"

-Carl

[Reformator]

The man wrote a book. And here is a part from it.
http://www.stardrivedevice.com/web_ch13ex.pdf

Looks like he knows math better than others

[Chris Bradley]

Oh dear, here we go again. Carl, pass me some of that bongwater - I feel the need for a stiff drink all of a sudden and it sounds just the ticket!!!

[Carl Willis]

>Looks like he knows math better than others

Well, a cursory glance hints at the possibility that he made it through middle-school algebra, which for all I know does put him in the mensa league among quacks. Of course what it cannot do is help put his "over unity" concept on firm conceptual footing physics-wise.

In general I wish pseudoscience didn't come up here at all, but sometimes it is good for a chuckle or has "educational value".

-Carl

[Reformator]

But unlike others he is publishing every one of his failures and progress
http://www.stardrivedevice.com/news.html

So, I have a reason to believe him!

[Carl Willis]

He publishes his work, you say?

>I regret to announce that publication of both our proof-of-concept webpages is hereby withrawn due to serious and strategic intellectual property concerns.
http://www.stardrivedevice.com/news.html

D'oh!

-Carl

[Richard Hull]

Man! If only I had a buck for everyone who flew over the coo-coo's nest like this example.

Still, it shows just how gullable a lot of folks can be. Will logic and reason ever prevail to show there is no free ride on this or any other planet. I used to enjoy the word salads as a form of idle amusement. But one can onl remain amused only so long before it becomes a drone. All this is especially bad when you consider all the folks taken in on this stuff. That fact that thousands are believers is not the bad part... it is that they are also voters and have a say in the realities about us in some fashion.

The only hope is that they are so frustrated with the government not accepting this or than quantum vacuum energy device, that they will refuse to vote.

As for Chris' suggestion to lead by example rather than turn off the power..........
After a long time on this planet you get to know what really gets folks off th' dime.

Cutting off the power is enough to do it.

However, watching a neighbor do without by choice and having him exhort you to do likewise is telling you that you have a nutball neighbor.

Seeing your neighbor have light and never lose power over the month with a normal $53.00 power bill while you had power go out on the 25th and receive a $205.00 bill making him laugh at you is telling you that your neighbor has beat you at "th' game".

We are pretty much dealing with a low order system here and need lower order solutions.

Greens are still looked at as kooks by the vast majority of folks making this country work, regardless of what the media would have us believe.

Richard Hull

[philstro]

For your amusement or disgust:

http://www.stardrivedevice.com/over-unity.html BEGIN QUOTE
The fact that a few have actually demonstrated a "free energy" operational power gain is important to point out in this turbulent time, when a definitive breakthrough in over-unity electrical power generation is needed so imperatively and so few people are having any real success at achieving one that is practical. Therefore, we are pleased to offer this webpage as a concise but detailed engineering analysis of these fascinating machines, one that appears to be much-needed, in order to foster a proper understanding of them and to assist students and alternative energy enthusiasts in their researches.

For present purposes, we shall define a "formal" or self-sustaining over-unity device as "an electrical machine or self-contained system that, once started, will operate entirely on its own output and supply excess power to a load with no external input energy being provided thereafter by the operator." END QUOTE

What this probably is, is a man with meager education who has somehow become so intellectually arrogant that he believes so strongly in his ideas that he thinks this type of thing is true. He may also have the charisma to convince many others, and make a living or even a fortune from his quackery. This man probably does not see himself as such, making him all the more convincing. He seeks a proper understanding and wishes to assist students. Excuse me while I try to hold my lunch down.

I had a materials science professor who warned us repeatedly that there were quite a few perpetual motion believers. His approach was to have their license revoked (PE for example). In my opinion it becomes criminal fraud at some point.

Phil Strohbehn

[Reformator]

I believe in free energy and your influence won't succeed. If Fusion reactors don't be available in a few years, QFE will replace the nuclear power. It's a natural evolution, and you can't stop it. Others more inventive people will shift you away.

[Reformator]

Carl, you are an envious man!

[Carl Willis]

>Carl, you are an envious man!

You are correct about my name and gender, but I doubt you know me well enough to support the "envious" claim! Where did you pull that out of?

-Carl

[Reformator]

Because people like you only speak, but people like Mark work. That's the difference.

[Carl Willis]

>Because people like you only speak, but people like Mark work. That's the difference.

Maybe you could be specific about how you know me and my work output so well (I don't believe we've crossed paths).

-Carl

[Reformator]

You are right, I don't. But your attitude makes me think that way

[Carl Willis]

>your attitude makes me think that way

This so-called way of thinking takes you from perhaps not liking my attitude (specifically my intolerance toward the steady drizzle of off-topic pseudoscience permeating this forum), all the way to the proclamation that I don't do any work.

I'd venture to guess that this same way of thinking is what led you to become a true believer in an "over unity" device.

For that matter, it's probably the same way of thinking that has led many an unfortunate lepidopteran into contact with the seething incandescent orb above my porch. They see that shine with their compound eyes, and by some reflexive and primitive twitching of their notochords that defies all logic but nonetheless can be called thinking, they swoop in to be broiled out of the air.

-Carl