Last Middle East Power Standing - An interesting strategy that exemplified the "go wild" nature of such drills, which serve as important brainstorming technique. This strategy's summary describes "An R&D long shot (in this scenario, Polywell fusion) pays off and the ME region hits the end of the oil age like a DUI hits the median. Turkey picks up the pieces as the biggest regional power that has a diversified society capable of thriving in the new environment"
Clearly, in this scenario, the North Anatolian Fault --Twinned with the San Andreas-- has not yet re-zoned Istambul...
Nervous twitches apart, it's nice to see some 'off the wall' thinking.
IMHO, given the installed value of power conversion and distribution plant, conventional power stations are likely to be retrofitted with Polywell fusion cores, first as auxiliary generation capacity, then as the main provider. I'd expect 'mined' gasoline and diesel to stay vehicular fuels for a long time to come. Given the growing pressure on food raising for human consumption, 'bio-diesel' sources that compete with edible crops are likely to be uneconomic...
The "End of Middle East Oil" will be here before the Polywell arrives.
Not because of any shortage of oil. Rather, Shale Oil will be found everywhere just as Shale Gas is being found everywhere today. Increasing domestic Shale Oil production will start to have an effect in the next few years. Auto conversion to CNG could have an effect now if anyone in the Government could move it along.
The price of oil dropping as well as a reduction in the amount pumped from the Middle East will be lethal to the Middle East.
The cause of the reduction in oil use will be the EESU "Electrical Energy Storage Unit". Why do I say this? EESU's development is a Navy project now. The SECNAV is putting together a $50 million program for EESU type device research. This is a much bigger program than the Polywell program.
The SECNAV is personally publicizing the EESU research, while the Polywell is hidden under misleading acronym's.
Which program do you think is more likely to succeed?
Are you talking about the EEStor EESU? If so, this is a new one on me (and I try to follow EEStor progress at a level).
If true, this would certainly be welcome news. Can you provide sourcess (links) for your assertion that the SecNav is "putting together a $50 million program" for the EESU?
There was a thread discussing this on theeestory about a month ago.
It was generated by a speech of the secretary of the Navy (if I remember correctly) but it was a general speech about EESU, not specifically talking about EEStor.
Anyhow, if you look through their forum you should find the thread easily.
I had actually read this, but had dismissed it as being non-EEStor specific and probably not very near-term. I see now that many others on hte thread agree with that assessment. It is somewhat encouraging, however, that the Navy thinks there is enough promise in the general technology area to warrant the investment.
I fail to see the relevance of EESU "Electrical Energy Storage Unit" to generating fixed or mobile energy production. It is an energy storage system, not a production system. It may have applications as a more efficient battery, but you still have to generate the power. Even if you assume ridiculous storage capacity where a ship could run for several months on a single charge, you would still have to hook the ship up to the power grid to charge it up, just like an electric car. A more realistic application for EESU's would be in missiles, where economizing on battery efficiency and volume/ size/ duration would have benefits. Also if high power outputs are periodically needed, such devices may have benefits over flywheels, routine super capacitors, etc, in delivering a quick intense burst of power to lasers, etc.
From a Polywell perspective, it might store enough power to start up the reactor and thus eliminate the need for an axillary diesel generator, or at least allow for a smaller lighter diesel generator. Once the reactor is running, it would presumably provide all of the power you could want, though again, an EESU might allow for very short high intensity power outputs for feeding energy weapons. It might also serve as a smoothing filter for output from a pulsating BFR or DPF.
PS: Thinking about it, an electrical storage system that approached the efficiency of chemical systems (diesels) would be very useful in non nuclear submarines.
Battery technology (lithium, NiMH, etc) is science based and is the only real electrical energy storage that I know of that is commercially being used for cars. The EEStor scam keeps popping up without a shred of science behind it, and why serious people bring it up is beyond me. The real life all electric land transportation solutions I have seen are short range commute to work or go to the store and battery based, or extra expensive and completely unaffordable, but still battery based. Capital cost of electrical vehicles is the main drawback with no solution today, perhaps sometime in the future the cost will come down where a commute vehicle will be generally justified.
So, I assume the end of the middle east oil imaginary scenario is an electrical to chemical fuel proposal, like hydrogen, or other chemical fuel, which is technically economical with cheap enough electrical power.
If you are going to throw EEStor in there, magic unicorns should be included right along side it.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.
Please tell the Secretary of the Navy before he blows the taxpayers $50 million.
please wait 'till after they've finished considering funding my magic unicorn proposal. i still have my hopes up on that. they said that they're not going to take it to the science department for evaluation because unicorns are strictly the cultural department's area. which means i have a good chance because they wouldn't want to prejudice against religious beliefs. i don't know how it works; i can't make any sense of it, but you won't find me complaining about the results .
I have to dig some, but I think that the Secretary might have been talking about Super Caps. The navy has a reeally strong program in this, and is eyeing them for pulse FEL, Railgun and other apps.
As I recall there is a test installation that has been up and running for a while, above and beyond the bank for the railgun tests.
Ladajo, that makes more sense for super caps, which are very good for super high power, not so good for high energy density, but ships are more accommodating than cars wrt less than super energy density.
The reason for research projects is because there is doubt, that is why it is called research. I can remember when "star wars" tech had many doubters snubbing their noses at it, but there was always real science behind it, realistic projects, with schedules and meaningful milestones. No unicorns proposed there, nor found.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.
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