I do not think this message went through . . .
Axil Axil <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
LENR will kill jobs by the millions. The LENR production factory
will be completely automated. Only robots will populate these places.
True.
The sales of products will be done on Amazon.com.
I doubt that. I think most cold fusion devices will be built into other
products, such as automobiles. Others will be distributed by HVAC
installers and electricians. Decades later, when the technology is
miniaturized, I predict it will be built into things like laptop
computers, washing machines or toasters. I do not think there will be a
large market for stand-alone cold fusion devices in the first world.
Perhaps in the third world heaters and generators may sell, but in the
first world you need to tie a generator into the house wiring, so you
need an electrician.
In my book, chapter 20, I look at total U.S. employment in the energy
sector. It is not as big as you might think. It is mostly people in gas
stations. As I point out, many of them are likely to go to other retail
employment because gas stations function as convenience stores, which we
will still need. There are roughly 250,000 people directly employed in
oil extraction and coal mining. There are many others these days
employed in the wind and solar energy business. They will all lose their
jobs within a few years after cold fusion commercialization begins.
The B.L.S. quotes the industry group AWEA saying there are 85,000 people
employed in wind power:
http://www.bls.gov/green/wind_energy/
This is an interesting essay. I estimate we will need at most few
thousand people in the factories that make cold fusion devices, but for
the first few decades we will need an army of researchers to develop the
technology and rapidly improve it. Possibly 50,000 to 100,000 highly
paid people. Billions of dollars.
Semiconductor R&D and fabrication plant construction runs around $50
billion a year worldwide. That is a lot of high-paid employment. Cold
fusion will require similar levels of R&D starting now, continuing for
as long as we use cold fusion as a source of energy. Whether that is
hundreds of years or thousands of years, I am sure there will still be
plenty of research needed as far into the future as imagination can
reach. After all, combustion and other conventional sources still demand
billion-dollar levels of R&D. They will until we shut down the last
combustion generator and internal combustion engine.
Alain Sepeda <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
LENR will not kill jobs by itself, and robots will be even more
needed for more expensive energy sources like wind turbines... that
is not specific to LENR.
There will be no market for wind turbines once cold fusion is developed.
It will immediately bankrupt all alternatives sources such as wind and
solar. Following that it will bankrupt conventional sources such as coal
and oil, and finally hydroelectric (the cheapest present source).
The more expensive it is, the more the automation is needed.
Cold fusion will be orders of magnitude cheaper than any other source of
energy. However, it can only be manufactured by high tech, robotic
production lines. It resembles a Ni-Cad battery or a solar PV cell in
that respect.
- Jed
