Re: .. What if Tom Hanks filmed the...Future...of NASA instead of it's past?

Hippies and tree huggers are not the problem facing nuclear. We have
had the technology since the 1950s to create high temp nuclear
reactors that produce energy at less cost than coal fired plants.
This was pointed out to Eisenhower and Kennedy by Brookhaven National
Labs as early as 1960. Cost per watt of a nuclear power plant scales
at (1/temp)^4 - so by doubling the temp in Kelvins, you reduce cost
per watt by 1/16th - This relationship and the knowledge that
Project Pluto (nuclear jet) and Project Rover (nuclear rocket) had
already demonstrated temperatures in excess of a tungsten filament in
a light bulb (nuclear light bulb) by 1950s - prompted then AEC
chairman Lewis Strauss - a nuclear engineer - to pronounce in 1954
that by 1970 energy would be too cheap to meter.

While tree huggers and oil company execs alike love to say this
statement was an ignorant one based on sheer exurberance, a brief look
at the scaling laws of cost versus temperature - and the temperatures
achieved in the 1950s - in advanced propulsion programs - indicate
this is a rather tame statement.

What we must ask ourselves is why has the DOE failed to get any money
to commercialize so called high temp reactors that produce power at
1/4 the cost of coal fired plants? Why do we stay with core temps
precisely equal to coal fired plants over 50 year period?

It isn't the tree huggers.

The BNL study came out late in the Eisenhower administration, and was
reviewed by Kennedy. Eisenhower wanted to see the military
applications fully develeoped first before commercializing these sorts
of reators. Kennedy was pushing Apollo - and was assasinated before
he could follow through on his plans. In fact, internal memos to the
Kennedy White House discuss the positive spin off of NERVA/ROVER
program to high temperature reactors - along with AEC documents as
well.

LBJ and McNamara cut the space program, including ROVER/NERVA days
after the assasination - and increased involvement in Vietnam.
Vietnam absorbed lots of LBJs attention.

Nixon, put the oil companies in charge of energy policy - since they
knew most about energy, and could deliver the most value to the nation
at the least cost in taxes - that was his theory. They abandoned
energy independence and sowed the seeds for our current situation.

Carter- following Nixon in the wake of the first energy crisis -
engineered by Nixon's advisors - vowed to do something about energy.
A nuclear engineer he was cognizant of what was needed, and aware of
the BNL study done in 1959-60. The very week Carter presented his
plans to Congress, a meltdown occurred at Three Mile Island, and the
movie China Syndrome came out. Over $40 billion was spent on energy
research - very little was spent on nuclear research - and no high
temp reactors were commercialized at that time.

Do you really think its the tree huggers and hippies that are stopping
nuclear? Its the Hippies that marginalized Lewis' statements about
energy being too cheap to meter?

That is utter bull***.

DOE announced last year that they plan to introduce what they call a
GENERATION IV nuclear reactor - basically the old BNL high temp
nuclear reactor - by 2040 - that's about the time the marginal cost of
oil will equal its marginal value.

Look at it from the oil company's perspective.

Enforced competition following the break up of the 7 sisters in 1911
by the US Supreme Court, created a situation where there was an
oversupply of oil. As a result, energy costs, like computer costs in
the last half of the 20th centuyr, declined. The rate of decrease
from 1850 to 1960 was about 5% per year. Oil was about $2 per barrel
at the end of this period. Oil companies were in a bad situation.
They had a fixed asset and they were in a market place where they
needed to increase production to increase revenue, but increased
production decreased cost.

This was alright as long as economic expansion could be counted on to
increase demand. bigger cars, bigger homes, more appliances, faster
business and delivery cycles, and so forth.

But, we were reaching limits to growth - in a handful of strategic
materials, and barring easy access to those materials from off world -
it would not be possible to sustain unlimited economic growth beyond
the 1970s.

In this situation, ultra-low-cost energy from high temperature nuclear
light bulbs - operating at TPV generators - delivering ultra-low-cost
hydrogen -safely and reliably - in 1965-68 time frame - (called for in
the BNL study) would mean that they would be left with about 1,200
billion barrels of stranded reserves - valued at less than $0.10 per
barrel - the age of oil would be over.by then -since the cost of
extraction would exceed this value.

Better to end all discussion of ultra-low-cost energy - by engineering
a supply restriction - and doing what Rockerfellar tried to do before
1911 - restrict output so that the marginal value received for a
barrel of oil was a large percentage of the marginal value created by
using a barrel of oil.

After all, why sell a barrel of oil to a fertilizer producer for $2
when they create $4,500 worth of fertilizer with it? Why sell a
barrel of oil to a plastics manufacturer for $2 when they create
$15,000 of plastic with it?

Better to analyze the needs of each party, and figure out the value
created - and rape = I mean bargain - with that party - to get most of
the value created by the oil. After all, supplies are limited, and
once they're gone, their poor stockholders won't have anything else to
sell. Besides, with all that cash, they'll easily be able to come up
with some alternative. The alternative already exists - its just in
the wrong hands. It needs to be in the hands of the oil companies -
and they need to have the freedom to charge whatever they can to
users.

The present supply difficulties are causing the problem. Congress is
looking into it. They'll give the oil companies the right to vary
pricing based on use as a result. This will be explained as very
much like selling tickets at a movie theater. A theater owner sells
matinee tickets, student tickets, senior tickes. Why? Because the
value to each of those is different, and he maximizes revenue by doing
this.

So, oil companies will want the DOE to develop data they already have
to determine the marginal value of a barrel of oil to particular SIC
businesses. They will then set prices based on the value created.
This will radically increase the revenue of oil companies. Then, the
oil companies will make huge hay by giving credits to consumers -
which will help car manufacturers - they'll guarantee $4 per gallon
for new car buyers say. Old car owners - well they're less efficient
and polluting and are less safe anyway - they'll be phased out and pay
$10 per gallon (which will be reached by November in the USA) They'll
also solemnly swear to research the energy problem and come up with a
solution - after all they're in the same boat they'll explain -
because their oil is running out too. They'll then spend far less
money than its worth, to take control of the high temp nuclear reactor
program - and introduce it at a rate that maintains energy prices - by
the time energy is too cheap to meter - that will just mean that the
internal cost to the energy companies will be low - and 'market
conditions' established by regulatory oversight extended from the
present day crisis - will rule the day.

This wasn't engineered by the tree huggers - ***.

But by someone else - who has their eyes firmly affixed on your wallet
- telling themselves its their oil that made you rich, and by God
they're going to get the piece of it they deserve.

Of course there IS an alternative.

That alternative is to publicly fund research to commercialize IN
COMPETITION WITH PRESENT SUPPLIERS - ultra low cost methods of primary
energy production - and let the COMPETITIVE market figure it out. Of
course, tree huggers ARE against this - which explains why oil
companies are one of the major supporters of tree hugger
organizations.
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