Hugh,
According to Wikipedia, “The normalcy bias, or normality bias, is a belief people hold when facing a disaster. It causes people to underestimate both the likelihood of a disaster and its possible effects, because people believe that things will always function the way things normally have functioned.” It may refer to a disaster, but surely it has a cousin that causes people not to see or consider a “sea change” in technology and its impact on life and politics.
Impact of Computers on Life
Consider how people viewed the impact of computers on life, say 30 years ago. Few people thought computers would have any impact beyond the occasional absurd bill in the mail “some computer generated”.
I think we may be on the verge of another “sea change” in technology. It might be well to consider its impact, if it happens.
Compact Fusion Generator
Recently the Russians have bragged about a cruise missile with nuclear power and “unlimited range.” Absurd? Then consider that Lockheed Martin received patents in February 2018 for a “compact fusion generator” which would provide vast amounts of energy, based in large part on Russian Tokomak technology. Lockheed Martin is a company of proven technological superiority (from the U2 to the SR-71 and its rumored successor), and they are not given to making wild boasts. In 2014 they predicted a demonstration of this technology in five years. Then, last month they again stated a demonstration by late 2019.
Consider the Impacts
Consider the impacts of such technology on society, investing, and politics. Massive amounts of energy could be available at minimum costs. Electric vehicles could rule the market. Aircraft manufactured containing a powerplant with sufficient fuel for the life of the vehicle! Energy standards for products would have no purpose. Life in climates now limited by energy costs would be available to those who seek it.
Investments in old energy– coal, gas, and oil, would plummet in value. They would have use only as feedstock for manufacturing. Investment in compact fusion and related technical developments would soar. The original developers would certainly do well, but other unheard of companies will do better. Imagine in 1988 if you knew computers would be a huge development. You would have thought “IBM” and maybe “Intel”. Oracle, Google, and Facebook would have been unheard of. Land values will shift too. Ownership of an oil patch may become a liability because of cleanup costs, not an asset. Land marginal now for living may boom, with easy access and comfort provided by cheap energy, and rich farmlands may have more value for food production rather than as next year’s new housing development. Compact fusion may be initially expensive but will crumble in costs due to scale of manufacture. Again, consider computers.
Old alliances would crumble. Middle Eastern despots would no longer be valuable allies. Indeed, the importance of the entire region may fade, as the old saw about “see if you can eat your oil” plays out. The new technology will initially benefit the inventor countries, but it never stays bottled up. China could not keep silk and gunpowder to themselves. The U.S. invented integrated circuits and modern computing, but you can see smartphones even in impoverished African villages. It’s possible vast remote regions may become new political power centers, as cheap energy makes them accessible and livable, and their remoteness and low population density makes them desirable. “Climate change” and “global warming” will no longer be issues.
A Huge Impact on Life on Earth
Of course, it may not happen. But if it does, compact fusion will have a huge impact on life on Earth. It might be worth considering the possibility for some contingency planning. For most, though, normalcy bias and the thought that life will never change that much will pretty much preclude such thoughts. The prepared person will give it due thought over the next couple of years. – C.S.
Big oil won’t let this happen, they have bought and shelved so many patents you never heard of, example the carborator that ran on peanut oil and it got 50 miles to the gallon! in the 80s, when news got out back then everyone started growing peanuts, like the the corn for fuel, anyway he did not want to sell his peanut carborator to ” big oil” so he died in a freak one car accident and his mom sold the patent to Exxon, and it’s locked away in a vault. True story .
Interesting, places like eastern Washington’s land values would go through the roof.
R. Gorton – I’m curious to know: why eastern Washington?
A buddy of mine from high school in the 70’s went into the nuclear power field. This guy was very smart to say the least. We were talking one day and he told me he could make an atomic generating device the size of a shoe box. This box would create enough energy to heat and power the average home for over 100 years. It was roughly 1978. He was ahead of his time.
Deserts would bloom as the rose……………
No more worries about trash, it would be used as fuel for the fusion generator.
In two generations, trash may become a valuable commodity, such as oil is now.
One additional thought…………even a fusion generator makes “trash”, or an unwanted, unusable (at this time) byproduct, even at the molecular level.
What is it? What can be done with it? Where can it be stored?
More education is needed before we all get over excited.
Fusion reaction is what powers the sun. Most simply, it fuses 2 hydrogen atoms to form a helium atom. Most strategies I have seen are based on electrolysis of water to yield the H, so the waste products are oxygen and helium. I do not know the details of any of the “compact fusion” gizmos, but having lived through the “cold fusion” fuss in the 80’s, I would take this with a grain of salt.
Compact Fusion is likely to be larger than one would hope for the first couple generations. Large enough to require an airplane, locomotive, ship or at least cabin cruiser as the prime mover. Eighteen wheelers would likely be large enough. Cars, not so much. At least at first.
Re: Big Peanut Oil: Back during the 1970’s gas shortage I saw an add for a $12 devise that that would double mileage when installed in your fuel line. That add was in the back of a comic book next to the one for Clark Kent X-ray vision glasses. Maybe that guy died in a freak accident too – because I never did get those glasses!
I think farmers started growing lots of peanuts in the 80’s because the U. S. government reduced the requirement to have an “allotment” to grow peanuts for processing. An allotment was a permission to grow a specific number of acres of peanuts. These rules were intended to reduce supply and increase prices to help farmers that had been growing peanuts before the rule. Now that the controls have been eliminated and there is a more free market, more farmers are growing more peanuts and making more money growing peanuts than ever before. Another classic example of “I’m from the government and I’m here to help”!
“Big Oil” and almost any other “Big Money” would try to control such a devise, but Jennies always escape their bottles eventually. Even Exxon could make more with this than they do with oil & gas.
Fascinating and important comments. Refreshing especially when it’s so tempting to wallow in the doom and gloom. Science marches on and there’s no genie that can keep a cork on that bottle. What is the Chinese saying? ” May you have interesting times”.
Thank you for sharing.
Re: Compact Fusion Generator
Don’t make the mistake Russia is making…
Knowing that something CAN be done, doesn’t mean that anyone can do it yet…
P.S. Compact Fusion Generator
It is based on the “TOKAMAK” principle….
No-one has got THAT to work for more than a few seconds!
How much longer to get Fusion to work?
I’ve been hearing about a 50 mpg carburetor since the early 1960’s. Not holding my breath for it or the fusion power plant.
Honda put one inside the 1999 Insight (fuel injection). The magic is a compact car made of aluminum (~1800 pounds wet), with lots of aerodynamic and friction-reduction improvements. Add standard fuel-thrift technology (1L 3-cylinder engine, stop-start based on load, transmission/electric drive and a small battery pack) and you have a 70+ mpg on the highway car that is also equal to the Prius in-town. Not really a family car, but safer than a motorcycle and optimized for the one thing.
Honda Fit is a gas-only car with 1L 3-banger for less money.
if you want a fully-capable car for a lifetime, get a Mercedes-Benz 300TD with the OM617A engine. I cheaped-out and got a 240D sedan 😉
I guess my truck could be powered by one of these units right into my flux-capacitor generating 21 gigawatts of energy.
A most interesting premise.
I have a tuned TD I that gets up to 67mpg imperial
Did the Russians get “cold fusion” to work? Otherwise the temperature and pressure inside a magnetic bottle is Very hard to create with current technology,much less getting useable energy out. If they have accomplished this-Doc Brown is the Delorean ready?
Or everything could go the opposite direction with just one EMP blast in which case most preppers would be Okay.
Puffing on my pipe (a “pipe dream”), I’m thinking how this technology could re-energize space exploration.
Mr. Fusion… now all I need is a Delorean.
Movie references aside, look up the “Farnsworth Fusor”.
Philo T. Farnsworth invented the first fully electronic TV system in 1927. He said he came up with the idea of scanning an electronic image from plowing a field back and forth when he was a kid (lived in Rigby ID). The Fusor is sort of a big high frequency radio tube that generates fusion by electrostatic confinement of a very hot plasma inside a wire cage. They’re fairly small (desk top sized), but they do generate neutrons. Magnetic confinement that the tokomak uses is very hard to achieve, (its sort of like trying to squeeze a balloon and not have it pop out somewhere else) …but that’s where all the ‘Big Science” government money was directed. They’ve been promising to make fusion work for the last 60 years… its always ’10 years away.’
Hah, me? I’m gonna build a wood gasifier so I can keep my internal combustion engines running on available fuel.
Patents are public record. It is a violation to use the IP without an appropriete license. But the idea is visable in the application. What is the patent number for the peanut oil caburator?