Morning Summary, 6/19

The numbers are shrinking badly now.  I regret that very much. But there's nothing that can be done about it, unless I want to come back here and blog full time again.  Even if I did that, there is no guarantee that the people would come back.

It may even be possible that I could come back, but for different reasons.  For the last couple of years, I have had a health problem that causes me to miss work.  It so happens that it flared up again yesterday. I've read somewhere that bloggers are a sickly bunch.  Maybe you have nothing else to do with your time, so you come here and do this.  If that happens to me, I suspect that it won't be a long career.

As I wrote yesterday, I went back and read Mallove's book.  The first time through was mostly a skim reading, not a careful reading.  Not only that, I didn't cover all the chapters.  It so happens that Huizenga's book doesn't cover some of the areas that Mallove's book covers.  Mallove gives it more of a human touch, whereas Huizenga is a bit remote.

I think it was a mistake to rely too much upon Huizenga, yet that is what the DOE report did.  The public accepted the report as the last word, but not everybody accepted it.  Work continued and it may be close to fruition, as a useful product could be in the pipeline with the Rossi Focardi device.

I set up another category to show my reactions to both books.  Anyone interested can click on "Cold Fusion Debate- Mallove v Huizenga" in order to see all of the posts in response to the books.  I'll include this post as a sidebar entry so that those of you who are interested can follow that thread more easily.  There are now over 1300 posts on this blog. It has to have some sort of organization, you know.

Before I leave, which will be necessary, because I have other things to do, I want to write something brief about a phenomenon that I have noticed before.  That phenomenon goes something like a question that was posed to me by another driver this past week.  I think the question was, because I didn't hear it all that well, which can be paraphrased thusly: "Why do you suppose that things don't get built even though the capability exists to build it, and the benefits from building it are definite and clear?"  The question was asked to me and my brother who was with me.  Since he heard the question better than I did, he answered something along the lines that it has to be an idea whose time has come.  I didn't have an answer there, but the answer has already been given in this blog.

The answer is this: the powers that be do not permit it.  An example is thorium power.  This is no exotic nor unproven method of generating energy.  It is an abundant element, takes less effort to prepare it for generating energy, leaves less radioactive waste, and would be cheaper than all forms of energy now available.  So, why wasn't it built?  Because it wasn't wanted, that's why.  Another example was the NERVA rocket, which was built in the Apollo days of the space program, was tested and found space worthy, but never got off the ground.  Why not?  Such a rocket could have taken a crew to Mars, and that is why it was built. But the powers that be didn't want it anymore.  The USA won the race to the Moon and that's is all that mattered at that time.  A third example could be "cold fusion".  Imagine what it could have meant today if this was widely available now.  It would be a different world.

An idea whose time has come?  How might that come about in these cases mentioned above?  A revolution? A suddenly enlightened leader who takes power?  I believe that none of these things happen automatically. Somebody has to make them happen.  It won't happen unless it gets strong support from someone who knows that it can work and will marshall the support needed in order to make it happen.  This requires leadership, which is currently lacking in Washington, D.C.