Caveat: ... just finished watching the fabulous BBC series "State of Play" which is fiction, of course, but so close to perceived reality that the oil-tainted message "resistance is futile" comes through loud and clear ... U-EX is the Borg. Get used to it and submit. AYBABTU !
Looking at the 'big picture' geopolitically, and starting with the assumption that in 2012 a person or group, but probably not Rossi or DGT, will introduce an independently validated, robust and replicable version of Ni-H in prototype form (none of which criteria are met thus far, despite hints and claims).... here is the utopian/dystopian tradeoff that is emerging from looking at the implications of this development. First - the belief that this technology is not fully compatible with oil is completely misguided, if not ironic. In fact, it is very likely that the biggest early users of LENR, possibly the exclusive early users, will be the oil-shale and tar sands industry in the USA and Canada, and especially in the Orinoco tar belt of Venezuela. BTW - Together these previously out-of-reach petroleum resource offer triple the capacity of ALL of the World's present day conventional oil reserves !!!! All you need to get 4 trillion barrels of thick, gooey gunk to market is ... ta da... cheap heat. Otherwise, it is tar. Sure, if LENR were to come out of the gates as a safe, mature and ready source of electrical power, with zero radiation threat and at a net cost lower than oil, then the new technology would supplant petroleum eventually, but not quickly. That will take decades, even if prototype LENR does happen this year. It always takes many years to go from prototype to mass market, and "sunk costs" and inertia are a huge issue for supplanting any old technology. In the meantime there could be a nasty compromise. It takes capital to get to market, and it is no secret who has most of the available investment capital as well as the largest potential need for thermal energy (if that energy can be placed in a deep hole to make tar pumpable) ... not to mention the political connections. Now, who would that be? If you guessed the shale, heavy oil and tar-sands industry, then move to the head of the geopolitical class. Plus, they do not mind if it is slightly radioactive since it is going in a well. Many LENR advocates, naively seem to think that Big Oil wants to kill the new technology, when on the contrary they will embrace it, invest heavily in it, and become the biggest customer for decades. A more careful appraisal of the future situation, based on probabilities and economic realities, would include the following facts and assumptions, all of which are defensible. 1) The cheapest old oil can be produced for very little cost, but is declining in availability. It provides lots of cash flow which ideally would go into replacement resources, if there were any. 2) Most new oil (from shale, tar or offshore wells, etc) has a high production cost, often a factor of 20 times more than the old, onshore wells. Only one segment of high cost oil can employ LENR to expedite its production, creating an internal problem for OPEC. 3) The cheap heat from LENR should make new oil from tar extremely competitive, and could destroy the offshore oil business. Being able to drop a small reactor into a hole and use copious heat to soften the tar so that it can be pumped - wow - this turns the tables on all prior economic assumptions. 4) This is a new paradigm, which segments of the industry will embrace and others will ignore. There could a future internal schism of major proportions in Big Oil - based on the availability of LENR to expedite tar and shale. 5) Fossil fuel production from well-to-road produces massive tax revenue. This is true even if the industry also receives lots of tax breaks. Politicians always favor proved tax revenue flow over alternatives. No help there for LENR. 6) There are possibly half a billion motor vehicles burning fossil fuel, world-wide, with at least ten years of useful life remaining. This is a sunk cost. 7) Most consumers with $20k to $30k of value invested in a vehicle will not abandon that vehicle, or abandon oil, to save a thousand per year in fuel cost - even if the comparative fuel cost for LENR was zero. The overhead of LENR will be substantial. The tree-hugger market is insufficient. 8) The unholy combination of the supply and profit cushion of low cost old oil, the sunk cost of half a billion oil-burners, and the high tax revenue, means that LENR cannot penetrate that market effectively, no matter how clean it is. Thus anyone with this technology will be primed for takeover by oil companies, but NOT to suppress it: instead to embrace it. 9) With the advent of LENR, Venezuela can become the next Saudi Arabia, or even a mini-OPEC. That may not be a good thing. Venezuela has way over a trillion barrels of tar near the surface, and the reserves are close to ocean transport, and are said to be understated to keep out foreign interference. Athabasca Oil Sands are larger, but deeper and harder to pump and more costly to get to market. 10) In conclusion, the biggest initial market for LENR should be for heavy oil production and it could revolutionize the industry. Cheap thermal output and small reactor size to heat and pump heavy oil and tar from wells, that otherwise are of low value make this almost inevitable. There will be no problem with regulations, as in consumer markets. 11) However, how many observers really appreciate this dynamic in its full implications? Are we courting Venezuela the way we should? 12) LOL - just the opposite. Is Big Oil pushing for a South American Iraq War based on eliminating Chavismo? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chavismo) All in all, despite the non-sensible claims of there being a large consumer market for LENR, this will most likely not materialize in the coming decade, at least not as long as tar-sands and oil shale can be tapped to supply the huge sunk cost of oil burners. As you might imagine - this scenario is turning into a horrible nightmare for ecology and idealists who want to see the end of fossil fuel. Unfortunately, the only solution is political - but that makes it even more frightening. AYBABTU !
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