Harry Veeder wrote:Ok, ok... I under estimated hot fusion costs by a factor of 100. :-)
I explained to him that such a device would cost billions of dollars . . .
If it will cost billions of dollars, then cold fusion is no better or worse than hot fusion.
I meant the first one would cost billions of dollars. The R&D would cost billions. Setting up new production lines would cost additional billions, but of course you do not have to pay for all production lines before you get any payback. Once actual commercial devices are mass-produced they will cost less than today's gasoline powered motors.
As I told Randi, I base this estimate on the cost of developing the Prius hybrid engine, which came in at ~$1 billion as I recall. Compared to cold fusion that was a minor incremental improvement over existing technology.
Actually, hot fusion has cost about $100 billion so far it would cost at least that much again to make the first prototype. Cold fusion would probably cost less than 5% of that right through to the first production lines.
To put things in perspective, in 2005 US consumers paid $8.6 billion for "data applications" on their cell phones, mainly downloading songs and ring tones. See:
http://www.wired.com/news/wireservice/0,71016-0.html?tw=wn_index_10
<http://www.wired.com/news/wireservice/0,71016-0.html?tw=wn_index_10> - Jed
Harry
