Jay Caplan <uniqueprodu...@comcast.net> wrote: ** > Military might want an exclusive interest in a cheap small heat source for > a number of strategic interests including ships . . >
They might want exclusive use, but they cannot get it. Too much information about this has already circulated. It is in the hands of people in Italy and Greece, which are outside the jurisdiction of the US military. once it becomes generally known that it is possible to make a Rossi reactor with nickel powder and two other elements, many organizations will frantically pursue this technology and figure out how he did it. When I say "many organizations" I mean every major industrial corporation and every national laboratory on Earth will devote hundreds of top experts to work on it 7 days a week. People who think the NRC might ban this, that it might be kept secret fail to grasp how important this is, and how much of an impact it will have -- how much it must have, by the nature of the discovery. This is the most important technological breakthrough in all of recorded history. The only thing comparable is the discovery of language, or fire, or the domestication of horses -- which occurred before recorded history. Probably, nothing as important will ever be discovered again in the future. Even antigravity or a reaction-less space drive would have less impact. (Human immortality might have as large an impact, but I hope that is impossible.) This is also probably the most lucrative breakthrough in history. Anyone with knowledge of military technology will see that it is by far the most important advance in weapons technology. It will make all weapon system obsolete practically overnight. Such things cannot be kept secret, and they cannot be stymied by the NRC. The NRC could no more stop this -- or even slow it down -- than the Surgeon General could enforce a 1-year ban on adults having sex in the U.S. The notion that you can stop corporations, banks and venture capitalists from developing something that will soon earn them a trillion dollars a year is preposterous. Such organizations have a great deal of influence on government policy, to say the least. The only reason we do not see hundreds of thousands of experts frantically trying to replicate now is because most people do not believe it exists. As far as I know, the US military has never try to keep secret any major technology with civilian applications. I do not think it would be possible for them to do that even if they wanted to. The Chinese military and other rivals would soon find out about it, and they would be building it too. As Arthur C. Clarke said, no secret is more fleeting than military technology. He knew about that since he worked on radar during WWII. Of course there are countless minor secrets and highly specialized technologies such as encryption and exploding tank armor that remain either secret or confidential. The details of how US aircraft carrier nuclear reactors work is kept confidential. But the fact that US aircraft carriers use fission reactors is not secret, and never has been. Fission reactors are widely used around the world. The U.S. Navy developed them first but this did not slow down civilian development. - Jed
