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Britain on course for fusion future
Posted: 05 Sep 2007, 06:11
by Aurora
http://www.bnp.org.uk/reg_showarticle.p ... entID=2664
The 'Dreaded' BNP - 04/09/07
Britain could take the lead, yet again, in a revolutionary technological development which could transform the way the world?s economies are powered.
The BNP has been commenting on the issue of Peak Oil for nigh on five years which, in summary, is the issue of the first 50% of the world?s oil supplies having been extracted and used. That was the 50% which was comparatively easier to access and consequently the cheapest 50%. As supplies become harder to find and extract, costs will rise and increase to the level where everyday tasks we take for granted will become prohibitively expensive. Add to this supply issue the increased demand for fossil fuels from rapidly developing nations such as China and India and there is a real crisis looming.
Alternatives such as wind power, solar electricity generation and wave and tidal power have been studied and some schemes implemented. All have their unique advantages and disadvantages but none of these offer anything like the energy density found in a barrel of oil.
Holy Grail
Scientists have long dreamed about harnessing an entirely new and virtually limitless energy source: nuclear fusion, the process that drives the Sun and other stars. Fusion takes place only at temperatures of tens of millions of degrees and this has been the main obstacle to developing this technology.
There have been many false starts but this Holy Grail may soon be within reach. Scientists at the Oxfordshire based Rutherford Appleton Research Laboratory have developed lasers that generate the required extreme temperatures, and a prototype for Hiper (high energy laser fusion research) may be built in Britain in the next five years. A team of British scientists had to wait for European Union approval, which has now been given and a civilian programme, building on work done by a US military laboratory, could develop a network of fusion generators that may provide an alternative source to conventional energy supplies.
Unlike nuclear power stations such as those as Bradwell, Sizewell and Torness which make use of nuclear fission, the process of nuclear fusion does not produce any harmful waste products.
There are, of course, enormous technological hurdles still to be overcome but this could be a potential winner for Britain. It would revolutionise transport and travel and allow electric vehicles to become a commercial reality rather than a quirky and unstable item of fashion; it would reduce atmospheric pollution in our towns and cities. A whole new industry designing and developing electric powered agricultural machinery and industrial vehicles such as cranes and earth movers would be spawned.
The financial rewards of piloting and selling the technology would be vast, liberating nations from the insecurity of oil supply from the Middle East and the muscle-flexing Russians with their enormous gas supplies.
If the researchers are given the moral encouragement, and the financial resources to make this a commercial reality it could be another revolutionary achievement in a long line of British firsts extending back through the jet engine of Sir Frank Whittle, the steam engine of George Stephenson, the blast furnace of Abraham Darby and scores of other inventions which transformed societies across the planet but which has their origins in laboratories and workshops in Britain.
Nuclear fusion? I can't wait!
Trust the white trash at the BNP to raise the spectre of PO and then blot their already grubby copybook by promoting nuclear fusion.
Posted: 05 Sep 2007, 13:22
by Andy Hunt
Erm . . . what will power the lasers?
Posted: 05 Sep 2007, 13:56
by stumuz
''white trash ''
A tadge bigoted and racist?
Posted: 05 Sep 2007, 15:43
by Aurora
stumuz wrote:''white trash ''
A tadge bigoted and racist?
How would you best describe the BNP? Fun loving conservatives?
Posted: 05 Sep 2007, 18:02
by stumuz
If I had posted on this forum 'Paki Scum' I would be rebuked for being a bigot and a racist.
I expect the same treatment for anyone who posts ' White trash'
Posted: 10 Sep 2007, 14:38
by mkwin
'White trash' is an American term, which is quite racist in its implication anyway. It implies general 'trash' people are ethnic and it has to differentiate between the general ?trash? and white members of the same low socio-economic ladder. So it isn?t really applicable in the same context as ?paki scum?, which is just generally racist.
Posted: 10 Sep 2007, 17:33
by kenneal - lagger
I have known a local organiser for the BNP for 35 years and he definitely insn't "White Trash". He is a very intelligent, middle class person who runs his own business, but he is very angry. He is not in any way racist, he is just angry.
He is angry about political correctness: about the ease with which people can come to this country: about the ease with which immigrants can get social security: about the ease with which they can get housed: about the loss of jobs to immigrants of all persuasions: about the loss of sovereignty to the EU and about 101 other things. The way he sees forward is through political action with the BNP.
Others choose other political parties. The BNP may do some good by prompting action in some of these areas because the main political parties are frightened of losing votes in working class areas, where the BNP's main support is. Us educated middle class people look on at a distance. It is working class, blue collar workers who, at the moment, are having their wages cut because immigrants will work for the minimum wage or less and are happy to live 10 or 12 to a house and work long hours because they don't have families or are supporting families at home in countries where the living standards and cost of living are a fraction of what they are here.
How would us IT people, factory managers, bankers, builders, farmers, office workers (to name a few on this site) react if our jobs were taken at a lower wage by people who didn't have a mortgage to pay, a car to run or a wife and children who expect a certain standard of living? The Powers That Be are happily turning a blind eye to immigration because it means lower costs to business and is a break on wage inflation. The fact that it could cause a breakdown in the housing market and a credit crisis as people fall short on mortgage payments doesn't seem to have occurred to them.
Posted: 10 Sep 2007, 17:51
by Adam1
kenneal wrote:How would us IT people, factory managers, bankers, builders, farmers, office workers (to name a few on this site) react if our jobs were taken at a lower wage by people who didn't have a mortgage to pay, a car to run or a wife and children who expect a certain standard of living?
Lot's of workers have lost their jobs due to automation and rationalisation facilitated by IT and the internet.
Now, lot's of IT workers are losing their jobs to people willing to do the same work for far less. The competition in the IT jobs market is just as strong as in the building and agricultural sector. However, the workers don't have to emigrate to compete as they are all based in cities like Bangalore.
That said, the well-to-do middle class are, of course, relatively more insulated than the poor and the poorly educated.
Posted: 10 Sep 2007, 18:02
by clv101
kenneal wrote: The fact that it could cause a breakdown in the housing market and a credit crisis as people fall short on mortgage payments doesn't seem to have occurred to them.
Don't follow you here. How is immigration responsible for house price crash and credit crisis - these are symptoms of globally increased money supply following the rate cuts of 2001.
Posted: 10 Sep 2007, 18:26
by Adam1
clv101 wrote:kenneal wrote: The fact that it could cause a breakdown in the housing market and a credit crisis as people fall short on mortgage payments doesn't seem to have occurred to them.
Don't follow you here. How is immigration responsible for house price crash and credit crisis - these are symptoms of globally increased money supply following the rate cuts of 2001.
I would say that very few of the people whose wages are being undercut by immigrants are on the housing ladder. The wage-suppressing effect and any knock-on in terms of mortgage defaults that Ken is referring to must be inconsequential compared with the effects of property price inflation and interest rate rises.
Posted: 09 Oct 2007, 14:28
by RenewableCandy
It's my impression that the housing affordability problem is caused by city-types and other assorted extremely-rich people buying up properties that they then only use once or twice a year (to impress their mates eg by throwing a party) 'as an investment'. Not by immigrants, who as you correctly point out tend to crowd themselves in to the minimum room.
What leads me to this conclusion is the linear relationship between city Christmas bonuses and the following year's house-price rises!
If our economy takes a dive, it's my impression that a lot of these immigrants would simply leave and move on (or 'back' to where their families came from), as easily as they came. Like anyone who works (rather than owns) for a living, probably including most of us, they follow the money.
Posted: 21 Dec 2007, 12:02
by fifthcolumn
kenneal wrote:The fact that it could cause a breakdown in the housing market and a credit crisis as people fall short on mortgage payments doesn't seem to have occurred to them.
Of course it's occurred to them.
That's why you have to pay mortgage insurance and give them a big downpayment etc.
The banks don't lose, they take your money and if things go bad, they go bad for you. The banks still get paid.
That's what the sub-prime crisis is all about - the banks don't want to take the hit for the retarded decisions they have made and want to pass the buck to us, the sheeple.
The people in government don't lose either as they have access to printing presses and will be given cushy numbers as consultants to large corporations when they retire.
It's just the schmoes like us that take it on the chin.
Posted: 30 Dec 2007, 11:24
by amused_dude
I have several problems with the idea that we can power our economy with fusion power.
Firstly, how long will it take to develop fusion power? After peak oil, will scientists still be able to pursue the research and development of fusion? Bear in mind that after peak oil, the prices of metals etc essential for industrial processes will soar (they are already nearing depletion). If they managed to develop fusion power, would it be too late to deploy it?
Secondly, how is fusion power going to help us during the PO famine? (I am, of course, making the assumption that there will be a global famine- what do you think?) Is fusion going to help us grow more crops? Well, it might help run machinery, but it's not going to help us make fertilisers.
I personally don't give a shit about running electric cars or supplying factories with power- this is all unsustainable no matter how you power it.
Thirdly, even we had fusion technologies right now and could magically create a distribution infrastructure, how are you going to keep the factory open without unsustainable processes? You still have to mine and process everything that goes into the factory. If you want to make the trucks and factories run on electricity then you have to build the batteries etc.
I think it's unviable, but give me your thoughts
Posted: 30 Dec 2007, 16:17
by Vortex
Fusion power has been a boondoggle for unemployable physicists, their managers & other no hopers since around 1954.
We will only get fusion power via a Manhattan style project when the doofry really is about to hit the fan - or possibly via the private sector.
Even then, we will have a decade or two of energy black hole before fusion power is widely available.
Once cheap fusion is up and running we will then experience global Heat Death as the whole concept of efficiency will be irrelevant.
Fusion may or may not save us LONG TERM ... but short term we are going to suffer ....
Posted: 30 Dec 2007, 16:29
by clv101
amused_dude wrote:Is fusion going to help us grow more crops? Well, it might help run machinery, but it's not going to help us make fertilisers.
If fusion is able to displace gas for electricity and heating we'll enough gas for centauries of fertiliser production.