Terry Blanton wrote:
Based on this (gross) assumption, some really good feedback controls are going to be required on a commercial product.
Whether that is true or not, one thing seems certain to me: it would lunacy to install thousands of these machines without regulations, and without first spending billions of dollars to ensure safety. Our modern, high-tech industrial civilization simply will not allow people to install these things on their own, without oversight, approval by Underwriter's Laboratory, regulations covering the disposal of the tritium and other radioactive byproducts, and so on, and so forth. The red tape is onerous, but I doubt anyone would want to go back to life as it was before we had all this red tape, and people could do what they wanted. Libertarians wax nostalgic about the past, but I doubt they would want people in their neighborhood installing nuclear fusion reactors that work for unknown reasons, and that the inventor (Rossi) says can be dangerous.
Rossi's plan is to start selling these things and make a lot of money. I just don't see that happening. After he sells a few hundred, regulators are bound to take notice, and they will step in. I do not know if this falls in the bailiwick of the NRC or Consumer Product Safety Commission or what. I expect the regulators themselves will not know, and they will end up fighting over who gets to regulate it. He deserves any amount of money, but I fear he will not get it by won't get it by this method. He'll be stopped by the regulators, and then swindled by the big industrial corporations.
- Jed
