A provocative question: If we accept Holmlid's research suggesting dense metallic hydrogen can be disintegrated by a laser pulse; and therefore - that this reaction can return mass-energy of about 6x10^23 GeV per mole of hydrogen, then what is the value of this fuel? This amounts to about 10^14 Joules per gram.
Or stated another way, how much value -added to hydrogen gas - will the market allow for the ultimate fuel (which, after all, is the energy equivalent of matter-antimatter)? As the field of "cold spallation" evolves, perhaps we should become prepared for a scenario where hydrogen (from water-splitting) is converted into dense hydrogen using robotics in giant factories - and sold to the highest bidder - which of course is NASA and DoD. Of course, it will heavily taxed and be illegal to produce at the home Lab, due to profits to be reaped by Daddy Warbucks. That will not stop vorticians and assorted alternative-energy scofflaws from making a few nanograms here and there (the new moonshine?). Imagine NASA redesigning the Space Shuttle to burn dense hydrogen. This gives us an idea of its value to the highest bidder. The Space Shuttle weighed 165,000 pounds empty. Its external tank weighed 78,100 pounds and its two solid rocket boosters weighed 185,000 pounds empty, each. If - with the switch to dense hydrogen, the takeoff weight could be reduced to essentially the Shuttle itself plus extra shielding, then a reduction of say 75% in mass happens off the top - making the Shuttle lighter than most passenger planes. Suddenly, it becomes feasible to take off horizontally from an airstrip instead of vertical lift-off, even with the extra weight for gamma shielding. Each solid rocket Shuttle booster held 1.1 million pounds of fuel- LOX mass 1.39 million pounds. LH2 mass: 234,000 pounds. Total fuel mass was almost 3.85 million pounds. Total energy available 3.4x10^12 joules. Cost per launch - don't ask. As you may notice, the shuttle required less energy to reach orbit than can be extracted from that gram of dense hydrogen when fully disintegrated ! Whoa. No wonder there are a few skeptics out there, present company included. Kind of ironic that the first skeptics of cold spallation are the basically the same individuals who complain so loudly about the skepticism of cold fusion. :-) Bottom line, there is a good argument that dense hydrogen (assuming Holmlid is right) will be the most valuable commodity of the next decade. is this the "next big thing" or has yours-truly been sampling moonshine of the retro-variety?
