My point was we need a reliable grid for a very long time and that any
wholesale removal of grid load will destroy the companies that maintain
the grid and generate the energy that 30,000,000 Australian connection
points need virtually 24/7. Unless you limit those going off the grid to
no more than 2 or 3 % per year and charge them the grid fees maintenance
fees for that privileged, there is no way governments will allow mass
movement off any of the supply and / or waste disposal grids. In
Australia we pay water access fees even if we use no water as the water
mains is available at the property boundary. Likewise for electricity,
there is a min payment that must be made even if you consume no
electricity. Soon small solar generators will be charged a grid
maintenance fee for the use of the grid to store, in a economic sense,
excess solar generation over consumption on a real time basic as a
credit on their account. All need to pay for the availability and
maintenance of the electricity, water, gas, sewage, and storm water
handling systems as they were funded as a long term infrastructure
investment and need long term income to keep them operational.
I repeat, as someone who works inside the system, there is no way mass
movement can be made away from using / or paying for established
electricity, gas, potable water supply and waste disposal of sewage and
storm water without destroying those systems. This infrastructure is not
something to be played with or tossed aside as if it will have no effect
on our lives.
Sure we all want to see LENR technology be used deep inside all the
infrastructure we depend. Doing this wrongly or with little regard to
the secondary effects (sure it may save you money on a personal basis,
but what happens to that saved money that is no longer flowing into the
various grid support system to maintain them?) may result in the biggest
mistake the human race has ever made. Was there real reason to sit on
LENR going commercial? I suggest there was a really big reason and it
was not just about profit with no value.
All that said, we are working to bring LENR technology to a market that
will not threaten the self destruction of the systems we depend on. IE,
back ending LENR thermal generators into existing coal based thermal
power plants that will not be able to compete in the carbon taxed future
of the Australian power generation industry (there are $ billions in
potential stranded assets involved) and in building new LENR based
peaking plants to support both load growth and load profile changes.
AG
On 12/1/2011 2:22 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote:
Aussie Guy E-Cat <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
First point: Without mains electricity there is no sewage or water
supply system. With-in days most high rise building would not be
fit to inhabit as the toilets would no longer flush and there
would be no running water.
Well of course. We all know that. What is your point? No one is
suggesting the change over would occur in months or even years.
This is a bit like saying in 1920: "Without railroads people in towns
and cities will not have food to eat, and commuters everywhere will
not be able to get to work." That was true in 1920, less true in 1930,
and by 1950 it was not true at all. A 30-year transition away from
power companies is reasonable. In some places they might last longer,
or they might last indefinitely. People in New York City still commute
by trains to Long Island and Connecticut. As Arthur Clarke said, once
we invent a tool we never completely abandon it.
Fifty years from now people in New York City may still use electricity
from power mains. The mains are underground. It is unlikely people in
suburban Atlanta will, because our power is unreliable, above ground,
ugly, dangerous and expensive to maintain. Every time we get freezing
rain it goes out, sometimes for hours or days. Home generators will be
as reliable as today's gas fired water heaters, which in Atlanta are
_much_ more reliable than electricity.
People will only install cold fusion powered equipment gradually, as
their HVAC and plumbing equipment gets old and has to be replaced. No
one would buy a home generator just to save on the cost of power. You
would do it when you need to buy a new heater and airconditioner
anyway. Domestic HVAC stuff lasts 15 or 20 years, occasionally 25 to
30. I just had an old airconditioner replaced today. The guy said he
hasn't seen one like that in 10 years, but there are a lot of them
around this part of Atlanta, which was built in the 1940s and 50s.
The same rule applies to cars. Unless you commute 100 miles a day (as
some people do) you are not going to trade in a 3-year-old car just to
get one runs for free on hydrogen and nickel. However, when your car
wears out and you go to the dealer to buy a new one, given a choice
between one that costs $0.20 per mile to drive, and one that costs
nothing per mile, only an idiot would buy the former. Once the base
price of cold fusion cars falls to a level near gasoline models,
dealers will not sell a single gasoline car, ever again. The base
price is likely to fall a lot lower after that. Cold fusion cars
should be substantially cheaper once the technology matures.
- Jed
