I wrote:
> Soon there will be no such thing as AC, and no power company. I meant there will be no external power sources outside the building (no power company or distribution network), and I also meant that all power will be DC, not AC, to reduce the danger of electrocution. When I say "soon" I mean in 30 years most places, 50 years everywhere. Not overnight. Some things will happen overnight after the general public and the mass media become aware of the existence of cold fusion. For example, the cost of gasoline and coal will probably fall. The stock value of electric power companies will soon decline. Revenues may actually increase for a while as they use up their equipment without having to build more. They have a glut of capacity, and no overhead cost of building new generating plants. Oil companies will also stop building refineries and oil tankers, so they may have a brief period of high profits. In the 1980s I saw some mainframe computers sitting around still in use. They had been paid for long ago. They were used until the maintenance costs became unreasonable. There was no good reason to replace them with personal computers, because personal computer software was still pretty lousy. In the 1970s mainframe computers were replaced with minicomputers, that were functionally equivalent, running COBOL. By the 1980s most of the minicomputer companies were on the rocks and headed for extinction. Power companies will resemble those mainframe computers. They will be cost effective only because they are already in place and all paid for. There will be no point to making new equipment for them or building a new power company from scratch. Most sunk costs for conventional generators and gasoline transportation will soon be sunk forever, to the bottom of the fiscal sea. All sunk costs for weapons system will be sunk, because every weapon bigger than a handgun will be made obsolete by cold fusion. Using non-cold fusion weapons will be like fighting modern weapons with U.S. Civil War era equipment. - Jed
