Hope fully I mostly agree with you, and I agree I exaggerated the speed of change.
For flooding the market, it is possible if you make big share of the planet factories work for you, and China is a good place for that. About the comparison with internet infrastructure, my metaphor were not so good. as you explain, Internet itself was a commodity build painfully by military and academics, for their own use, like HTTP/HTML was by CERN. Telcos used the technology to organise concrete infrastructure and provide IP bandwidth, the provide Internet access to company then people. The open nature of the protocol, and liberalization of the telco's market prevented them to build cash cows. But this is only the first level of innovation... like technology is for LENR. The second and most important change, was the revolution of usage. Internet did not build Amazon, but it enabled it. government got back his money because the economy goes better that way, because it can change it's organisation, simplify and fluidify procedures... maybe not as fast as possible, but it benefit from it's creation, indirectly. A government benefit from the wealth of it's industry, especially USA who have the strategic control on most Internet/Web giants, and technology. Multinational however show that the natural scale for getting back your benefits is not the Nation-State, as GAFAs company escape taxes... anyway they stay US in their research core, and US in their strategic obedience (Thanks you Snowden). Now you say, mostly right, that the revolution will not bring Western economy belly-up... we agree that it may happen for stock exchange, because markets think in future... but business will continue. only pension funds and saving may be impacted... what will happen for incumbent industries, and operators. Slowly they will lose market, slowly but surely like Kodak and Fujifilm. Kodak nearly died because they tried to exploit their old business too long. Fujifilm pivoted to new direction exploiting their competences... but there is something important, they all had access to digital camera technology. It was not protected widely, even if a little. We sure need that LENR technology be available to anyone who pay a reasonable price. But LENR research, need money, so there is a need for a price. In fact you cannot pay for the technology, there is still none (none available for you), you need to pay so that a constellations of lab is built that will create the technologies, that you will use, like many other who paid for the labs. this is not far from the crowdfunding model of some music artist... fund my Album, (I will pay the studios, the choristers, the musicians, me), and I send you my CD when it is done. Maybe states could pay for it, as they did during the 50-60s but recent investment of governments in technology, except when they are the users (eg: military), seems not optimal, too fashion, and more volatile than some visionary industrialists.(this is a point where we probably disagree) Maybe also the Nation-state borders are today without any meaning? However I don't predict a great success if someone organise a LENR21 international conference... 2015-11-12 17:42 GMT+01:00 Jed Rothwell <jedrothw...@gmail.com>: > Alain Sepeda <alain.sep...@gmail.com> wrote: > > >> #1 the naive one. Developing a small device, and sell it in small >> quantity to make money. The problem is as soon as it will be understood it >> is a LENR working device, that there is a HUGE demand, and immediately big >> players will develop an alternative technology and kill your little >> business. >> > > This would not work for 2 reasons. First, as you say big players will > definitely develop cold fusion. Nothing can stop them from doing this. > Second, as I said, regulators will never allow people to sell nuclear > fusion reactors until they have been thoroughly vetted and until the > physics establishment believes it can explain them by theory. > > > >> #2 resonates like Rossi's vision is to develop discretely a technology, >> then in few weeks, show that you can flood the market with your "V1.0", at >> low cost... >> > > You cannot possibly flood the market in a few weeks. The market is 7 > billion people. It will take decades before demand levels off with market > saturation. > > > >> No competitor will develop any alternative technology (V2.0), but you >> will have disrupted all business on earth, even LENR startups... >> > > No company is large enough to do that. Even if you have a patent, the US > government will not allow a patent holder to withhold vital technology from > competition. The government will force you to license the technology. > > If you do not have a patent every industrial company on earth will simply > take the technology and many of them will soon produce far better version > than you can. > > >> > >> Shell,,Exxon,,Toyota,,Peugeot will be belly up in 15 days, and the >> pension fund will be ruined, if not negative equity. >> > > That is completely unrealistic. It would take far longer than 15 days! > More like 15 years. It is true that their stock value might plummet once it > becomes generally known that cold fusion is real. But just because a > company's stock falls in value that does not mean the company goes out of > business right away. > > If Toyota, GM and most other automobile manufacturers came out with a cold > fusion car, and only Ford did not, Ford would be in deep trouble. Perhaps > after 2 or 3 years it would be forced into bankruptcy. But it will take a > very long time for any automobile company to develop a cold fusion car, and > by the time they come out with one everyone will know they are going to do > it. I doubt that the managers at Ford would sit on their hands and not > develop a cold fusion car when everyone else is doing it. > > They might sit on their hands. After personal computers came out in the > early 1980s, many minicomputer manufacturers such as DEC and Data General > sat and did nothing in response. They all went out of business. > > > >> In modern economy you cannot behave like Edison and kill just the >> gas-lighting in New York, then Philadelphia, then Paris... >> > > Edison did not kill the gaslighting business. It continued well into the > 20th century, 50 years after the introduction of incandescent lights. It > died gradually. > > > >> If you start doing that today, immediately, despite all logic (of course >> oil, old cars, old boilers, will still have a value for a decade, and >> companies can adapt in that decade), trillion$ of business go belly up all >> over the planet. 1929 crisis is a joke compared to what might happen. >> > > There is no indication that the 1929 crisis was caused by changes in > technology. I will grant, one person did say this. An economics professor > at Cornell claimed that the transition from horses to automobiles caused > the crisis, according to my mother. However most people blamed other > economic trends. > > I do not think there are any cases in history in which a rapid change in > technology caused an economic crisis. It is possible we are facing one now > with the increase in robotics and artificial intelligence, but it is not > happening swiftly. It will take decades. > > Trillions of dollars in business do not go belly up overnight. It is not > possible to replace the entire energy generating infrastructure overnight. > I predict that it will happen faster than some other people have predicted, > because cold fusion does not need an infrastructure. However it will still > take years because people have to design new products, regulators have to > ensure they are safe, and in nearly every case the old machine has to wear > out before people will replace it. No one is going to buy a cold fusion car > or space heater when they have a new fossil fuel machine. They will wait > for it to wear out. In any case, new machines could not be manufactured > fast enough to replace all the old ones quickly. There are 286 million cars > in the U.S. alone. It takes 11 years to manufacture that many (the fleet > replacement time). > > Even if you could abruptly stop manufacturing gasoline cars, to make only > cold fusion ones instead, it would still take 11 years to replace every > car. And you cannot abruptly turn off a factory and transition overnight. > It takes months or years to refit an automobile manufacturing plant. You > could not close down every one of them for 6 months. > > The US actually did close down every single automobile manufacturing > plant, in December 1941. Not a single car was made for civilian use until > the end of World War II, and only a few thousand conventional models were > assembled for the military. The production lines were used instead to make > 600,000 jeeps, thousands of tanks, airplane engines and so on. After the > factories were closed down, it took months refit them to make things like > tanks instead of cars. > > They also built new factories in WWII. One of the most famous was Fort's > Willow Run, in Michigan. I do not know how long the planning took, but > clearing the land and construction began in March 1941. It opened that > year, but it took a long time for production to ramp up to expected levels, > which I think happened in 1943. In other words, it took two years during > the most frantic, 24-hour per day intense efforts in the history of > technology. Modern factories are much more complicated, with robots instead > of people. I think they take even longer to bring up to full production. > > Two of the fastest transitions in modern history were from North Atlantic > ocean liners to airplanes in the 1940s and 50s, and from minicomputers to > microcomputers in the 1980s. They were swift, but not that swift. Many > people saw them coming. Many companies adapted to the new technology in > time. There was an orderly liquidation of assets. It did not cause a crisis. > > > >> But at the same time in China, India, people will decide to embrace LENR, >> invest trillion$, to take supremacy over the West. >> > > Given the military applications for cold fusion, this scenario seems > unrealistic to me. > > > >> Imagine that Internet does not yet exist, but sure some guy in >> California, or in Lannion in France will develop one version. >> > > It would never happen. The Internet was made by the U.S. government and > later the telephone companies. It took 20 years. It was slow moving and not > expensive year to year, but overall it was one the biggest, most expensive, > complex, large scale high tech projects in history. Some guy in California > could not do it alone any more than he could launch a robot explorer to > Mars, or build a transcontinental railroad in 1865. > > > >> If it is closed protocol like was IBM-SNA, few people will use it, and >> Uber or Amazon will not exist. >> > > I disagree. Telephone company technology was closed before the Internet, > but it was widely used. The Internet is just another telephone technology. > If AT&T had invented it, and patented it, it would still have come into > widespread use eventually. It was not patented (much) because it was > invented people working for Uncle Sam, and the U.S. government usually > gives away its inventions, because the taxpayers already paid for them. > > AT&T was effectively subsidized by the government because it was given a > monopoly for decades. The government forced telephone users to pay extra > for service. > > > >> Big Margin, but small market. To be open, the big luck was that it was >> developed for military and academic usage, in an open way... >> > > All big technology is developed for the military or for major industrial > use. The Internet did not grow until the telephone companies expanded it. > It could not possibly have come about any other way. Neither can cold > fusion. > > People have the notion that computers were developed Apple, software by > Bill Gates, and the Internet was developed by dot-com entrepreneurs. That > is nonsense. People such as Gates and I developed practically nothing. We > took software developed in the 1960s mainly by the U.S. government, and > nearly all of it paid for by the government. Except for the IBM 360 project. > > We moved this technology on microcomputers, which were also developed at > the expense of the U.S. government, in the military and at NASA. All modern > computer technology -- software and hardware -- was developed by or paid > for by governments. People like Gates, Jobs and I did the last 1% of the > work. Nearly every program and application written up through 1990 was > derived from earlier versions, and nearly all of those early versions were > developed by Uncle Sam. Google is the first company to make major > innovations not paid for already by the taxpayers. > > The taxpayers footed the bill, and Gates got the profit. The same thing is > happening with robotics now. > > The same thing will happen with cold fusion. Unless Rossi succeeds on his > own, you paid for it. Nearly every researcher was a government employee, > including Fleischmann, Pons, Mizuno, Storms, Srinivasan, Miles etc. More > recently, the development was paid by DARPA grants to SRI and places like > that. Every scrap of it should belong to the taxpayers, but I expect > industry will suck up the intellectual property and profits instead. The 1% > will then use *our* technology that *we paid for* to enrich itself, just > as it has done with computers and robots. > > - Jed > >
