Merged Cold Fusion Claims

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attaboy said:
What's fun about those who like to talk about conspiracy theorists is that they don't get the big picture.
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"The big picture" in this case usually means that there's some greater truth that's independant of the details. Unfortunately this is just a ploy by CTers to ignore the fact that the details, which make up this big picture, don't add up the way they think they do. In order to make a picture, you need the right pixels.

Here's the big money crowd with these elaborate enterprises in place. They are making billions. Do you think they want some new technology to come along and replace those elaborate enterprises?
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Yes. You seem to think that, for instance, oil companies care about nothing but oil. They care about money. If they can market some other technology to pump their sales, they will. So what makes you think that this cheap form of energy, if it worked, would not be sold for billions -- nay, trillions -- in profit ?

And since when did big money care about becoming saviors of humanity?
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When it makes them richer. Perhaps you didn't follow the sequence of events I outlined for you.

I believe its you who needs the reality check. Better not rest your case just yet.
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So far we're just exchanging hypotheticals. So where's your evidence that this technology is being suppressed, as opposed to simply not working ?
 
Belz... said:
Yes. You seem to think that, for instance, oil companies care about nothing but oil. They care about money. If they can market some other technology to pump their sales, they will. So what makes you think that this cheap form of energy, if it worked, would not be sold for billions -- nay, trillions -- in profit ?
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Because that rational line of thought would immediately destroy all these conspiracy theories. And what would be the imaginary enemy then? And i'm pretty sure that admitting to be at fault is an absolute no-go for these conspiracy nutters.

Greetings,

Chris
 
ben m said:
Hot Fusion:
  • $1000 to show reaction exists. (Done, 1932, Oliphant)
  • ~ $1,000,000 to build a stable, scaleable reaction vessel (Done, 1950s, Artsimovich)
  • ~$6,000,000,000 to build a commercial-scale reaction vessel (under construction)
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Not sure where you got your numbers.

http://www.economist.com/node/1234632

July 18th 2002

... snip ... Since 1951, America alone has devoted more than $17 billion (see chart) to working out how to fuse atomic nuclei so as to generate an inexhaustible supply of clean, safe power.
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Never mind how many more billions the EU countries, Russia, Japan and China devoted to the problem during the same timespan.

And since 2002, we've spent even more. So if Rossi's invention pans out, there sure is going to be a lot of egg on a lot of faces. :D
 
What's unfortunate about cold fusion is that it's gotten to be on the same level as the JFK assassination and 9/11... it'll always be there. It doesn't matter if it doesn't work. People use it as part of their identity. Believing in it is part of who they are, and as Klippel said, admitting that you're wrong is a big no-no, and not just for nutters.

I haven't checked, but I'm sure Lamarckism still has its supporters...
 
Belz... said:
What's unfortunate about cold fusion is that it's gotten to be on the same level as the JFK assassination and 9/11... it'll always be there. It doesn't matter if it doesn't work. People use it as part of their identity. Believing in it is part of who they are, and as Klippel said, admitting that you're wrong is a big no-no, and not just for nutters.

I haven't checked, but I'm sure Lamarckism still has its supporters...
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Another important point is that if any of these "cold fusion" or "LENR" schemes worked as claimed, putting the apparatus into a pressure vessel to boil water and generate electricity would be ridiculously simple. Yet, three decades after Pons and Fleishman, for some reason nobody's managed to do it. All we have is a bunch of bad calorimetry and sooper seekrit schemes that will be producing energy real soon now.
 
CORed said:
Another important point is that if any of these "cold fusion" or "LENR" schemes worked as claimed, putting the apparatus into a pressure vessel to boil water and generate electricity would be ridiculously simple. Yet, three decades after Pons and Fleishman, for some reason nobody's managed to do it. All we have is a bunch of bad calorimetry and sooper seekrit schemes that will be producing energy real soon now.
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I honestly don't understand the thinking process that brings them to this conclusion. I mean, once it's been shown not to work, shouldn't they just say "well, let's just assume it doesn't work until such a time at which more evidence is presented, if ever." ? Why maintain this belief at all costs. At least with this one, their eternal soul doesn't depend on it.
 
BeAChooser said:
Not sure where you got your numbers.
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I'm not talking about the entire fusion research program. I'm talking about one experiment. I was quoting $6B from memory for ITER. (Wikipedia tells me that number is a factor of 2.5 out of date.)

And you seem to have missed the point of my post. Why can't cold fusion, in 2011, complete the basic physics experiments that hot fusion did in the 1930s? "We don't have hot fusion's billions" is no excuse---that was my point. The basic physics experiments shouldn't cost billions.

And since 2002, we've spent even more. So if Rossi's invention pans out, there sure is going to be a lot of egg on a lot of faces. :D
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I'm not seeing it. Compare: "Oh no! I spent the years 1950-2011 trying to scale up the well-known DD and DT fusion processes. What a fool! I should have sat on my bum that whole time instead, on the off chance that some other, utterly-nonsensical-sounding technology would be emerge in Italy in 2012."

"Oh no! I spent my whole life looking for drugs to cure cancer. I should have known that in 2023, a captured alien spaceship would give us the quantum nucleic acid refumbulator technology that cures everything. I was a fool!"

"Oh no! I spent thirty years trying to turn algal biomass into clean methane fuel. It sounded like a good idea at the time, but what I really should have done was wait for the invention of thin-film organic solar cells in 2017, that solved the problem in a much better way! I sure have egg on my face now!"
 
attaboy said:
C'mon now David, I don't want to get into it with you again, but really. If your statement were true that would mean that anyone in the world could make an argument on anything at all, and according to you it would be valid. Do you really believe that?? Of course maybe it comes down what you mean by valid.
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No. The validity of an argument does not depend on the identity of the person making the argument. The mistake of arguing that it does is so old that it has a Latin name: Ad Hominem.
Many people seem to believe that this means insulting someone during an argument. It doesn't. (Which is not to say that you can't throw in an insult or two while making an ad hominem argument.)
 
attaboy said:
What's fun about those who like to talk about conspiracy theorists is that they don't get the big picture.
Here's the big money crowd with these elaborate enterprises in place. They are making billions. Do you think they want some new technology to come along and replace those elaborate enterprises? And since when did big money care about becoming saviors of humanity? I believe its you who needs the reality check. Better not rest your case just yet.
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You think they WANT to pour millions a year into construction, operation, fuel & supplies, maintenance, and replacement of these enormous, unsightly, and bad-for-PR monstrosities that "conventional" production needs?
When the could buy up the rights and replace (over time) all that with cheap, small, clean, efficient plantlets and get the public relations boon to boot?

Man, what COLOR is the sky in YOUR world?:rolleyes:

Cheers,

Dave
 
BeAChooser said:
Not sure where you got your numbers.

http://www.economist.com/node/1234632



Never mind how many more billions the EU countries, Russia, Japan and China devoted to the problem during the same timespan.

And since 2002, we've spent even more. So if Rossi's invention pans out, there sure is going to be a lot of egg on a lot of faces. :D
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That theres a pretty big IF word your slingin' around there, Pilgrim.
Best you be puttin' that away an' toddlin' home before ya HURT yerself with it!

[/TheDuke]

Dave
 
attaboy said:
You make it all sound so simple. Can anyone be sure there wasn't a period where, their inventions were looked upon much as Rossi's is now, and they opted to avoid the big money crowd?
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Well, Edison certainly never was -- the phonograph captured people's imaginations -- though he spent a fair amount of money on publicity both for his own brand and trying to discredit George Westinghouse's commericialization of Nikola Tesla's AC power distribution scheme. The thing is, no one, not even Edison, ever said AC power distribution didn't work. It did, and this was easily shown.
Still, while Edison by that time could be said to be big money himself, and spent money to discredit AC, George Westinghouse could be said to be big money, too. The issue was decided by the technical superiority of AC for electrical distribution.

The original research done for Google was done on a National Science Foundation grant. The U.S. government is pretty big money, and they've probably made it back in taxes.
Google the company started up financed by venture capitalists. That's another name for big money.

Apple borrowed a lot from venture capitalists, and those Big Money guys made billions in capital gains at the initial public offering.

Now, of course, those companies are publicly traded, and Big Money owns a lot of the shares because they're stable, profitable companies.
 
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