Guys,
Without getting too philosophical "Cost" is almost a relative thing. When the demand is there, the cost will come down to some reasonable level. When the politicians favor it, the cost will be even lower. Aluminum was more expensive than gold when it was first put into production. Zirconium was like platinum until a certain Admiral Rickover demanded that he get it for a thousand times cheaper - and he did within a year. I have checked with half a dozen suppliers and the present cost of Ni-62 is at least $10,000 per gram - which is much higher than palladium, but that is not the end of story. We can look at U235 for an example of a rare isotope - which "Government" has decided ought to be available cheaply. This is as the model for Ni-62 future pricing. However, that on that decision about nickel - it could be years away, and involves political interference from Big Oil. But it is safe to hazard a guess. Based upon the cost of natural nickel being around $10 per pound, and the sunk cost of large gas centrifuges owned by Sam, the cost of this isotope could be as low as a dollar a gram, if "they" wanted it to be. That is a factor of 10,000 less than now. That is about what Rossi is paying. The big problem is how do inventors and developers get hold of some for experiments? I have been told recently (very recently) that Rossi may be getting his - not from ENEA but from DoE - remember the Amp-Enerco connection? Yup - that DoE and those former high officials now with Amp-Enerco - who have the right to the ECat in the USA - and that is essentially why Rossi builds them in Florida and ships them to Italy. And it is why he says cost is no problem. Indeed Cost is no problem when the rare Ni-62 comes free from the NRC/DoE via Amp-Enerco. What a deal. Jones From: DJ Cravens Ni 62 has zero spin but the others have a nuclear spin component. So I should be relatively easy to come up with a way to separate them. D2 _____ Date: Tue, 21 May 2013 16:15:20 -0400 From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: [Vo]:Isotope separation technology can be improved Somewhere in all these recent comments, Jones Beene made interesting observations about the cost of nickel isotopes. I cannot find the comments. The gist of it was that if Rossi device requires an unusual metal isotope the cost may not be much cheaper than conventional energy. I believe that is incorrect. When I was researching the book I read some books and online resources about isotope separation, especially heavy water but also zinc and other elements. Perhaps my information is out of date, but what I learned then was that isotope separation technology has not been pursued much since World War II, when it was first developed for nuclear weapons. There has not been much practical use for isotopes. If a mass-market for a particular nickel isotope emerged, I believe that rapid progress would be made and the cost would soon fall. I also learned that much of the cost of isotope separation is for energy. Most of the techniques are energy intensive. Therefore, a cold fusion economy that called for isotope separation would bootstrap itself to lower costs. I illustrated this with the projected cost of heavy water, but that would apply to nickel as well, I think. I believe the quoted costs for isotopes are for highly pure monoisotopic samples. I do not think that Rossi would need a pure sample. If he only increased the concentration of one rare isotope, without eliminating the others, I assume that would work. - Jed
