<mix...@bigpond.com> wrote: The point is that they will need to be manufactured at all, where today > they are > not.
They what? I have lost track of what you mean. Do you mean cold fusion cells? They will integrated into generators, the way a combustion heat engine is now. They will not require more materials than, say, the turbine, fuel tank, fuel regulator and ignition system in today's gas fired generator. They will not be more expensive. First gen machines will resemble today's generator, except they will take 1 L of fuel every 10 years, instead of thousands of liters a week. You build that 1 L of fuel into the cell. The overall complexity and component count of the machine should be roughly the same as today's generator. The cold fusion cell replaces the fuel tank and ignition section. This will create some new jobs to replace a portion of those lost, as > happens when any new technology comes along. E.g. we now have people > employed > making iPhone's that didn't exist 50 years ago. > Actually, people do not make iPhones. Robots do. Putting aside that issue, what people made 50 years ago were landline phones, tape recorders, cameras, televisions and many other things that have now been largely replaced with iPhones. Plus iPhones have reduced the need for landlines themselves and central office switching systems. Cell phone towers use far less material and they are much cheaper, which is why third world countries can afford them. Overall, the labor, materials and the physical volume of iPhones are much smaller than the machines they replaced, and that would be true even if we did not have robots. - Jed
