I largely agree with Jed's comments. However, I am an emotional optimist and an intellectual pessimist.
The first page of my Aesop website may be of interest. It reads: NASA officials see a likely barrage of solar storms striking Earth’s geomagnetic field. Solar storms large enough to destroy energy grids around the world for months, or even years, have been predicted to occur up to 14 times within the next 3 years. After just a few days without grid or standby power, many nuclear plants might become meltdown candidates! 400 Chernobyls is the title of the lead article in DIRE WARNINGS on the Aesop Institute website. Author Matthew Stein claims an “Apocalyptic scenario is not only possible, but probable” - as a result of solar storms causing multiple meltdowns at nuclear plants worldwide. Evacuation costs near a US nuclear plant could easily exceed one trillion dollars and contaminated land would be uninhabitable for generations. Such storms may become commonplace for the foreseeable future. Space physicist Pete Riley, senior scientist at Predictive Science, has calculated there is a shockingly likely - 1 in 8, or 12.5% - chance of a catastrophic solar storm striking between now and 2020. Millions, or even hundreds of millions, of lives - might be saved by rapid, wise, action! A few Black Swans, highly improbable innovations with positive implications, appear able to protect critical power grids and provide long-term standby power capability at all nuclear facilities. Other encouraging Black Swans, to the surprise of many, will soon begin to create CHEAP GREEN power (see that title on the Aesop Institute site). If produced as fast as is humanly possible, cost-competitive renewable systems can accelerate very much needed changes - such as permanently lower fuel prices - even in the absence of solar storms - and sharply boost the economy, generating large numbers of jobs. The interest in lower gasoline and oil prices may help move cost-competitive renewable energy forward. Mark Mark Goldes Co-founder, Chava Energy CEO, Aesop Institute 301A North Main Street Sebastopol, CA 95472 www.chavaenergy.com www.aesopinstitute.org 707 861-9070 707 497-3551 fax ________________________________________ From: Jed Rothwell [[email protected]] Sent: Friday, March 30, 2012 2:04 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [Vo]:Are oil companies suppressing cold fusion? Probably not, but I am sure they will. Jarold McWilliams <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Are you saying that oil companies would rather try to hide cold fusion than adapt to it? Yes, I am certain they would. They are trying to hide global warming with the help of the Republican party, with considerable success. Did they pay off MIT and other mainstream scientists to cover up cold fusion? Not as far as I know. The MIT people are in the plasma fusion program. They attacked cold fusion to preserve their own funding. That's what they said, and I believe them. I doubt U.S. the oil companies have played any role in the opposition to cold fusion. As far as I know, no one in any major oil company believes that cold fusion might be real, so they have no incentive to oppose it. in Japan, the fossil fuel energy cartels and the nuclear power industry did get together to prevent funding for cold fusion, a few years ago. (Before the Fukishima disaster.) The Minister of Energy told some cold fusion researchers I know that the government will not support this research because it would disrupt the energy market. I have no doubt that when the oil companies, coal companies, wind turbine manufacturers and other conventional energy companies realize that cold fusion is real, they will pull out the stops and do everything they can to prevent it from being developed. They will spend millions on Washington lobbyists trying to crush the research. Some human behavior is mysterious. Other behavior can be predicted with confidence. This behavior is as certain as the fact that if you open a window in a tall building and drop a few thousand dollars in loose bills onto Wall Street, people passing by will take the money. The coal industry is presently at war with wind power, trying to make it illegal in the U.S., because it has taken 4% of their business, and it threatens to take half. Wind power and big coal would gladly strangle one another by any means. Their favorite method is to have Congress do it by passing laws. They will not hesitate to cooperate with one another to strangle cold fusion. This is business. It is about money. Money is more important to most people than the survival of the planet, or the survival of their own children and grandchildren. Fortunately, cold fusion will be worth trillions of dollars to powerful industrial corporations and investors. So even though Exxon and others will do all they can to prevent it, others will probably see to it that the research is funded, and that the government allows the technology to be deployed in the U.S. The US military is in favor of cold fusion and it has a great deal of political and economic power. Most cold fusion research in the US for the last 20 years has been funded by the military. During this time, plasma fusion researchers and some mainstream physicists have repeatedly taken steps to prevent this funding and fire the military decision-makers who allowed the research. Sometimes they have succeeded. They have done this in various incidents several times a year. They are still at it. I gather they are getting somewhat frantic -- pulling wires and cashing in chits to stop the research and destroy the reputations of anyone associated with it. That is how these people operate. That is why they have so much power and money in the first place. Not because they are nice people. Fortunately, military officers put national security ahead of academic politics and greed. The major establishment opponents probably do not believe cold fusion is real. But even if they thought it was, I doubt this would affect their behavior. I suppose they resemble the 1970s tobacco executives, who all knew that cigarettes kill hundreds of thousands of people. They did not give a damn how many people they killed. They lied brazenly to Congress and to the public, saying they did not think cigarettes are dangerous. When you offer a high salary and no legal restraints, you can always find hoards of intelligent, skilled, educated people eager to commit mass murder or destroy the planet. Executives will set up concentration camps or torture people as long as there is a large profit and no police to stop them. We know they will, because they did, in WWII Germany and the Iraq war. - Jed
