LENR's impact on society and global economy

1st Official Post
    • Official Post

    Hello,


    I would like to discuss how the employment of the Ni-LiAlH4-reactor will change the global economy in particular and our society in general.


    What are your thoughts about it?


    I think that the fact that energy is in principle free or almost free will relativise the meaning of money itself.


    Of course all industrial products will still require other resources, but the chemical synthetisation/production of these resources will also become a lot cheaper if energy is for free.


    The mechanical work that is done by robots and machines will also be a lot cheaper.


    I think money will not completely lose it's meaning but it will lose a lot of it's meaning. And I am looking forward to this.

    • Official Post

    As you say, energy will not be free, but much cheaper. A x10 factor seems a first step... Heat to power conversion is quite expensive however...


    It is like computers. They are not free, but you can put an Apollo computer inside your watch. it cost the price of a meal with the brace, instead of the price of the Empire State building.


    Money will have value, but like it happened when people could afford a car, a computer, a TV, the value of old-world things (food, water) will decrease compared to the value of leisure, telecommunication, tourism.
    People will for example value more the care of a nurse, a sport coach, a tourism guide, compared to the one of a botcar service, or a cleaner bot.


    I don't think we will have the "no work" society.
    Imagine that you have free housing, telecom, game, and all gadget you want... in fact it will never be free, just cheap like a Casio watch...
    You will like to meet a tourism guide to tel you the history of New York or Versailles... If you have no money, why not be the guide in Rocky mountain for urban people, who will pay you with money they earned being guide in New York ? that is how an economy appear...


    can you imagine all your need are satisfied ?
    can you imagine that you will agree to fullfil someone else need so someone else fullfil your needs ?
    if yes you will make commercial transaction... maybe throyugh a service trading platform like Uber, AirBnb, Blablacar, ...


    and I don't talk of the work of those who design robots, create innovations, ...

    • Official Post
    Quote from AlainCo

    It is like computers. They are not free, but you can put an Apollo computer inside your watch. it cost the price of a meal with the brace, instead of the price of the Empire State building.


    Money will have value, but like it happened when people could afford a car, a computer, a TV, the value of old-world things (food, water) will decrease compared to the value of leisure, telecommunication, tourism.
    People will for example value more the care of a nurse, a sport coach, a tourism guide, compared to the one of a botcar service, or a cleaner bot...


    The focus of appreciation will be relocated, I agree.


    One deciding point could be that the operation of green houses will become much more economical.In fact energy costs are the only costs that arise once the glass walls and the roof etc. has been amortized. The cost of manure is almost completely determined by the cost of energy.


    Green houses could than just as well be operated in siberia, russia and the northeastern region of russia where there is a vast almost uninhabited area due to the cold.


    Transport costs are also determined by energy costs so do you think food could become so cheap that everyone also people in very poor countries can feed ourselves ffora couple of cents per month instead of hundreds of euro?


    It would be great because it would mean we can work less.


    But somehow I think this will not happen easily.


    The few richest people and organizations on the world that concentrate almost the entire power of the world will try to prevent this.


    Their power is based on our Fear. It is based on our fear to be unable to exist, if we lose our job. We are deceived by the system, deceived by ourselves.

    • Official Post

    yes greenhouse could develop. today eating local tomatoes in winter cost much more energy than importing them from Chile with a cargo (one of the least consuming transport).


    LENR cargo could allow to produce food where it is the cheapest and transport it cheaper.
    or it could allow to produce locally, near the demand....
    Who know how it will evolve.

    Relevent if slightly off-topic, a few miles from me (in UK) is about to be built a large greenhouse (about 5 hectares I think), this is going to be mostly heated by the waste incineration plant across the road. When fully operational they expect to produce 15-20% of all the UK's tomatoes. This would seem to indicate all of the UK's tomato consumption could be grown in a mere 30 hectares! what about other fruits with LENR providing light as well as heat? Greenhouses need not exist in Siberia, instead they could have heavily insulated warehouse heated and lit growing crops normally only grown in southern Meditereanean countries, and all year round!

    • Official Post

    The analogy with the casio watch and the price drop of it's internal microprocessor is actually quite a good one.


    But I think in the case of LENR and a potential price drop of food, there is a qualitative difference. Having a casio watch or not having one will not make you afraid of dying. Therefore the moment in the 70's, 80's when suddenly everyone was able to afford this nice piece of electronic this did not change the economic order.


    But if you supply food to everybody nearly for free this means that you take the fear from people not to be able to feed their families and themselves.


    Qualitatively, this is a new dimension of change.


    Therefore some people might come up with the wish to lead a modest life with not as much work as before or even no employment at all.


    However, one problem that would remain are the rents for flats. I do not think LENR will make the rents drop, in contrary the growth of the global population will probably increase them.


    Can anyone think of a mechanism by which LENR would influence rents? (I am not speaking about the costs of heating of course)

    One thing that has to be considered is that changing over from fossil fuels to LENR and renewables will not be enough to save the planet in the long term, in fact free energy could exacerbate the problem in other areas. The change will allow petroleum to be used more readily in other ares, synthetics and fertilizers come to mind. Chemical based fertilizers are destroying our farmlands causing huge runoffs and polluting our oceans. I hope that LENR will allow the world to move to a more de-centralized based farming system and reverse the growth of large scale industrial factory farming. An organic based system is not only renewable but actually is a growth enabler for more organic system...life begets more life...chemicals beget death of the the soils. An organic permaculture system controls water, which is crucial for preventing runoff and polluting of the oceans, and provides chemical free food. I hope to use LENR in my industry of water and wastewater to provide a sustainable resource harvest system by utilizing the nutrients in wastewater to grow algae for use in numerous products.

    • Official Post

    question of the rent is one I have analysed. I interpret rent today as a "license to sleep".
    It is limited by the income of the population.
    the cost of building and maintaining housing determine the surface and comfort of people.
    The ratio of rent over income is cultural, and it grow with global income. I have observed that poor countries have low rent compared to income (10%), while richer place ask for greater share (40% in france today).


    so I expect that since productivity of people will increase with LENR, so rent (and building) will grows.
    if like in france the surface is limited by malthusian regulation to maintain a city museum, this mean that the price of surface will explode (license to sleep). if there is free space (less regulation, good traffic and transport), people will increase comfort and the cost will be limited by building cost and not by surface.


    LENr will help cheaper transportation, and botcars too, so it will allow bigger but farther houses, if the government/democracy allow it. It can also push to install companies farther from urban zone, to use remote work. platform like uber or airbnb could also allow companies to be farther from the city, or to stay at home... making surburban housing more easy.
    if like in france we refuse to occupy more space, to improve transportation for suburbs, to allow remote working, if jobs are concentrated in urban zone, the rent will explode and surface diminish.

    • Official Post

    by the way for our discussion I advice to read that article
    http://coldfusion3.com/blog/how-a-technology-develops


    Quote


    How a Technology Develops



    The best way to predict how the commercialization and adoption of low energy nuclear reaction (LENR) could occur is to examine how other technologies were adopted in the past. Then to identify the patterns by which they were adopted it. In other words we need to take a look at history.
    ...


    This blog contain many other good article about future and applications.

    • Official Post

    A french expert in innovation, Philippe Silberzahn have produced many interesting article (It should be readable via google translate).


    The latest explain how the time factor is important. It talk of Kodak whic invented digotal photography, and perceived rightly that it would take off by 2000. but the sales of filsm were still growing and they did not find much incentive to adapt, despite they planned to and were totally aware.


    one key is that there was no D-Day to understand the argentic film was dead.


    http://philippesilberzahn.com/…nce-dimension-temporelle/


    We can predic that most utilities and oil companies, too comfortably exploiting oil and grid rent, will miss their opportunity to change.

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