Scale up is frequently a bad idea IMHO Take fission nuclear power business (a model for fusion nuclear power business. )
CONS: * It takes a long time to manufacture big reactor equipment and complex systems on-site away from labor forces. * Up front costs are high and returns on those capital costs may not materialize as time goes by. * Safety considerations are often neglected or margins reduced to save existing capital. * Future decommissioning costs and hazards are frequently ignored at substantial cost and environmental degradation for the affected society. * Competition is lost since big equipment limits the manufacturing entities available to do the required manufacturing. This issue alone did-in fission power in the United States IMHO. * Expensive grid distribution of energy is necessary, with loss in reliability as population density increases. * Fosters’ fraud and abuse in an ever evolving political/nuclear power industrial complex (including cost accounting authorities giving a green light for accounting loopholes associated with excessive overhead. PROS: * Creates economic benefits for nuclear engineers, utility personnel and even politicians. The “nuclear village” in Japan is a good example of this Pro which, ironically, seems to be causing the demise of fission nuclear power in that country following the Fukushima disaster, stemming from reactor plant design and cost cutting regarding safety and environmental issues . Bob Cook From: JonesBeene<mailto:[email protected]>. Sent: Friday, May 17, 2019 10:51 AM To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Subject: RE: [Vo]:Article on Dennis Danzik - Inventor of EarthEngine (magmo) Well… Actually there is some logic behind scaleup in many endeavors. The iron and steel industry were built on economies of scale – for instance, so we know it works in situations where the rationale is not completely clear. ITER is an example of having a false rationale due to a muddled understanding of parameters, and represents another extreme in the spectrum of self-delusion. At least Danzik has not yet wasted billions. The gravity machine - RAR – from Brazil, undoubtedly cost millions to supersize – and the expense was incurred by people who had operated a successful ongoing business so they were self-delusional but likely had more of a rational basis than we realize. Inventors are often charismatic beyond all rationality - as the Rossi fiasco has shown. Plus there were reports that the RAR machine did self-rotate for extended periods with no load. Same with a few magmo efforts. If the magnetic field – in general - could be boosted by gravity then there is some reason to try to scale up a magmo in mass in order to use gravity - and these French researchers are not ignorant of the implications of their findings - but Catch-22, the benefit of gravity to magnetism is slight – parts per thousand. https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2814-earths-magnetic-field-boosts-gravity/ Plus, the Danzik device does not appear to be going in that direction other than he indicates the 90 degree PTO is needed. In the end, experiment rules. I would love to see a clear exception to the LoT. Consequently, I hope the Danzik thing is not another scam, but as of now – he has not been able to convince many skeptics. From: Jed Rothwell<mailto:[email protected]> JonesBeene wrote: Nevertheless, I predict that humans will keep on trying to “supersize it” – even as Dennis Danzik adds his name to a long list of failures… It is odd how people like this think "it will work if only I try it on a large scale." Like . . . I don't know, the ITER tokamak reactor? (Ha, ha. They have technical reasons for scaling up. Maybe not good ones, but technical.) There have been many gratuitously scaled up experiments, such as Maxim's airplane (https://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1738.htm), and that giant machine that is supposedly powered by gravity. In South America? I can't remember where.
