Guenter Wildgruber <gwildgru...@ymail.com> wrote:
> Now my question is: > In what way will/could LENR change the course of the future? > > Jed has done some significant work on that, but all-in-all this is a > question of system-dynamics, i.e. how could LENR actually change the course > we are on, IN A TIMELY MANNER? > To answer that, let us look at Japan. It is a conservative society. Often very slow to change. Government budget percentages to different departments has been stuck to with 1% for decades. The LDP was the ruling party for decades, until recently. So, when the public suddenly decided it does not want the nation to use nuclear power, how long did it take them to close down all of their reactors? One year. Even though nuclear power supplies 30% of their electricity, and even though turning the nukes off will cause wrenching dislocations, power shortages, and huge sums of money . . . they did it practically overnight. No other nation in post-WWII history has made such a large change to its industrial base so quickly. The only thing comparable would be the U.S. transition to war production during 2 weeks in 1942, when we abruptly shut down the entire automobile industry. You might argue that the Japanese public has overreacted. It is possible the decision will be partly reversed. That is beside the point. The point is, when a society feels something is necessary, it can act decisively and more rapidly than most people imagine possible. I quoted Freeman Dyson on this subject: ". . . [The] experiences of World War II made an indelible impression on people of my generation. At the bottom of our hearts we still believe you can have anything you want in five years if you need it badly enough and if you are prepared to slog your way through the barriers of confusion and incompetence to get it . . . The accepted wisdom says that, no matter what we decide to do about economic problems, we cannot expect to see any substantial results [for 15 years]. The accepted wisdom is no doubt correct, if we continue to play the game by the rules of today. But anyone who lived through World War II knows that the rules can be changed very fast when the necessity arises." http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJcomparison.pdf - Jed
