<[email protected]> wrote:
> >The only part I do not get is: Why 1 MW? 10 kW is just as persuasive. > There > >is probably a ~$500 billion marketplace for small reactors, say from 1 to > 50 > >kW. > > Current world population is about 7 billion. Divided by 3 gives roughly 2 > billion households. 2 billion home power units @ $2000 each is 4 trillion > dollars + maintenance income. > I meant presently. At this moment the sales of small reactors and heat engines is very roughly ~$500 billion, I estimate. Mostly automobile engines, but also <70 kW generators ($6 billion -- for some reason industry sources quote it as less than 70 kW), small gasoline motors for pumps, blowers, farm equipment and so on, and -- I guess you can add -- water heaters, furnaces, kilns, drying equipment and so on. The present market is gigantic. The future market will be far larger, partly at the expense of the megawatt-scale reactors. By the way, $4 trillion is inaccurate. To get annual sales, you have to divide by 20 because your 2 billion households do not have to buy a new reactor every year. They buy one every ~20 years, so that's 100 million home power units sold per year, for $200 billion. Automobiles do not last 20 years. It is reasonable to suppose sales will remain at 77 million per year. Assuming automotive cold fusion cells can be sold at a premium, for around $2000 each for a long time, that's another $154 billion. Add in water heaters, ovens, kilns, air conditioners, refrigerators and pretty soon you are talking real money. Back up to the trillions. I'll tell what irks me. People such Patterson used to fight over imaginary fractions of this future market share. Patterson and Reding wanted to make sure they got 100%, instead of 65% or 10%. We are talking about the royalties from a trillion dollars in sales, and they were arguing about what percent they got, and scheming to keep others from getting interested in the technology and entering the market. That's why they put on a half-assed, unconvincing demo for Motorola. They *told* me that was the reason! I could hardly believe my ears. I told them that was about the dumbest thing I ever heard, and to this day, it still is. Here they were looking at the biggest opportunity in the history of commerce. During the life of the intellectual property they would have earned billions, and perhaps even become the first trillionairs in history. They both went to the grave without a penny of income from it because they were so greedy, so short-sighted, and so blind to opportunity. And the rest of us lost any chance of using the technology, probably despite Miley's best efforts. Rossi has done some stupid things, but nothing 0.001% as stupid as that. - Jed
