Terry Blanton wrote:
I did a calculation based on the known reserves (from placer mines) of
Nd and the claimed efficiency of Steorn. All the Nd in the world
would not do better than 10% of the present consumption. . . .
Sorry for not reading original sources, but can I take this to mean
that only neodymium magnets work with this gadget? Other magnet types
are not strong enough? Electromagnets wouldn't work? (Obviously, the
machine would have be powered externally at first, to turn on the
electromagnets.)
However, others have pointed out that, once Nd can be shown to
provide free energy, more costly sources might be tapped. For
example, Mt. Weather
was once the primary source of Nd in the US until the Chinese reserves
were found. . . .
Right. Drastically lower energy costs plus increased demand would
probably make it economical to extract it from ore that is not used today.
I have only had a quick look at the Los Alamos guide
(http://periodic.lanl.gov/elements/60.html) and a few others, but it
does not seem to be extraordinarily rare. It is widely noted that
"rare earths" are not really very rare; even the rarest are about 200
times more abundant than gold, but they are not found concentrated in
ores, which I suppose amounts to the same thing as being rare. There
is not much Nd in seawater, unfortunately.
My guess is that would not be as much of a limiting factor as
platinum group metals (PGM) would be for cold fusion, if it turns out
cold fusion only works with PGM. PGM are already very expensive and I
expect extraction techniques are already about a good as they can get.
- Jed
