Future of transportation on Earth - Electric airplanes or Vactrains?

[einsteiner]

I vote for synthetic fuels. The technology to create them is already well developed, it's just that natural fuels aren't expensive enough yet. They also don't require any modifications to engines to be used, so they can be used in the existing vehicles. Even if they live up to K^2's promises, nuclear isomer batteries aren't going to be cheap enough for Belarus airlines for a long time (not picking on them, I just saw World War Z).

[K^2]

I don't know where you live, but where I live we can't get tens of megawatts from the grid without some heavy power lines.

Any neighborhood transformer will handle up to a few MW of power. Yes, a single house/apartment is usually closer to a small general aviation aircraft than an airliner. But you'll still have multi-MW power lines within your immediate neighborhood and within easy access.

How do you know it's impossible?

Because triggering it is extremely complex. So much so, in fact, that only a handful of successful trigger experiments have been conducted so far. It can't happen by accident, and you can't force an existing trigger to release more energy than it is designed for.

Up until this point in human history, every single technology that can store large amounts of energy and release it reliably at a high rate has been successfully weaponized.

And the principle of operation can, certainly, be weaponized. DARPA didn't keep TRIP experiment classified for nothing. But you will have to build your own trigger. Which is the hard part. If you can build the trigger, you don't need the actual battery. You can build your own completely from scratch.

[cpast]

Why would high energy density be an inherent problem? It's not that planes would have more total energy; higher energy density can be offset with less weight devoted to power.

[Jouni]

Any neighborhood transformer will handle up to a few MW of power. Yes, a single house/apartment is usually closer to a small general aviation aircraft than an airliner. But you'll still have multi-MW power lines within your immediate neighborhood and within easy access.

Now increase the power output by an order of magnitude, and make the power source portable, and things start getting more dangerous.

Because triggering it is extremely complex. So much so, in fact, that only a handful of successful trigger experiments have been conducted so far. It can't happen by accident, and you can't force an existing trigger to release more energy than it is designed for.

You're thinking about safety, not security. Safety is about defending against mindless adversaries: random failures, accidents, and forces of nature. In security, the enemy already knows your defenses, and is actively trying to subvert them in order to hurt you. To defend against that kind of adversary, you should concentrate on how things really work, instead of making assumptions about how they're supposed to work. Every assumption you make may be an obvious vulnerability you fail to see.

It may be better to start by assuming that your battery is really a weapon of mass destruction (or some other nasty thing), and you just have to figure out how it works. If you can't do it in a decade, and a thousand other experts can't either, then you have reasons to believe that the battery isn't a weapon of mass destruction after all.

And the principle of operation can, certainly, be weaponized. DARPA didn't keep TRIP experiment classified for nothing. But you will have to build your own trigger. Which is the hard part. If you can build the trigger, you don't need the actual battery. You can build your own completely from scratch.

Knowledge is cheap. Every university in the world can already build a nuke, given suitable resources. If an institution doesn't have the expertise, it's not worth the title "university". The only reason everyone doesn't already have nukes are worldwide restrictions on the trade of nuclear materials and certain machinery.

As technology progresses, the world generally becomes safer but less secure.

[K^2]

Now increase the power output by an order of magnitude, and make the power source portable, and things start getting more dangerous.

Or I can light up a consumer firework and get a few more orders of magnitude of power output from an even more portable package. So what's your point? How exactly to you expect it to be misused? I bet I can replicate anything you come up with using things that are already perfectly legal.

You're thinking about safety, not security. Safety is about defending against mindless adversaries: random failures, accidents, and forces of nature. In security, the enemy already knows your defenses, and is actively trying to subvert them in order to hurt you. To defend against that kind of adversary, you should concentrate on how things really work, instead of making assumptions about how they're supposed to work. Every assumption you make may be an obvious vulnerability you fail to see.

It's not defenses. It's physically impossible to release energy without appropriate trigger. Not because of some fail-safes, or some security device. It is physically impossible. To release that energy all in one go, you will need a custom trigger, and that's the only part of the battery that's actually hard to obtain. If you can build a trigger, you can build a bomb. There are no special materials from the battery that you can obtain that you can't get elsewhere.

It may be better to start by assuming that your battery is really a weapon of mass destruction

Assuming things out of ignorance is never a good idea. It's safe. We know it to be safe. You want to invent some sort of potential problem, because it's something you don't understand, so you imagine that people who do this sort of stuff don't understand it fully either. We do. That's our job.

Every university in the world can already build a nuke, given suitable resources.

That gave me a good laugh. Thank you. I've spent several years doing particle physics research at the university, so yeah, I can tell you right now that this is a complete fantasy.

[WestAir]

Every University can build a nuke? It's a good thing Iran doesn't have any Universities, then.

(That was a joke. They've got about 90)

[K^2]

Not bad ones, either. We have an Iranian girl studying particle physics in our department.

To be fair, Iran's main obstacle is purifying Uranium and/or breeding Plutonium. That said, if someone just gave you a chunk of either, constructing a bomb is still an extremely complicated affair. Your best bet is a gun type built with enriched uranium. But you have to know its properties extremely well. If you weren't the one to enrich it yourself, you'd need to do a lot of experimentation on it. Failing that, instead of a nuclear explosion, you'll get an ordinary thermal explosion, resulting in no destruction, and merely mild contamination of the area. And that's the simplest type of a-bomb with all of the required materials simply handed over to you.

[magnemoe]

magnemoe, you just refuse to read on principle, don't you?

Sorry I read about it after posting, my post was regarding normal high performance batteries.

You are right Nuclear Isomer Batteries will not blow up, they are basically RTG who produce electricity directly and not only heat.

Downside is that they like RTG have a fixed energy production, they can not produce more power or shut down, they would hardly be useful for cars or planes who need high peak output.

[K^2]

Downside is that they like RTG have a fixed energy production, they can not produce more power or shut down, they would hardly be useful for cars or planes who need high peak output.

Not entirely correct. While you can make a nuclear battery that relies on spontaneous decay, this is boring, and not the focus of research. The whole point of using nuclear isomers is that they have stimulated emission modes, in which they release energy at a far greater rate. We are talking hours instead of decades. This lets you control the rate of power output, or even turn it off almost completely. This is also what makes them far, far safer than RTGs.

[shynung]

Are these nuclear isomer batteries rechargeable, or are they one-time-use?

^{Yes, I am oblivious. Please tell us more.}

Edited August 23, 2014 by shynung

[Jouni]

Or I can light up a consumer firework and get a few more orders of magnitude of power output from an even more portable package. So what's your point? How exactly to you expect it to be misused? I bet I can replicate anything you come up with using things that are already perfectly legal.

Ok. Give me something substantially smaller than 100 tonnes of jet fuel that can output tens of megawatts of power for several hours.

It's not defenses. It's physically impossible to release energy without appropriate trigger. Not because of some fail-safes, or some security device. It is physically impossible. To release that energy all in one go, you will need a custom trigger, and that's the only part of the battery that's actually hard to obtain. If you can build a trigger, you can build a bomb. There are no special materials from the battery that you can obtain that you can't get elsewhere.

You concentrate on known threat models, when you should think about unknown threats. If releasing all the power at once turns out to be impossible, there are surely countless other ways to use them for nefarious purposes. Stop thinking like an engineer, and start thinking like a hacker. Think outside the box.

A battery is just an abstract concept. There are no batteries in the real world. There are only devices that resemble our mental models of batteries closely enough under certain conditions, that we find it useful to call them batteries. Those devices can be something completely different, if we use them in a different way or under different conditions.

Assuming things out of ignorance is never a good idea. It's safe. We know it to be safe. You want to invent some sort of potential problem, because it's something you don't understand, so you imagine that people who do this sort of stuff don't understand it fully either. We do. That's our job.

I didn't know we knew how to build large-scale nuclear isomer batteries, or that they would even be practical. Now you claim we have not only built them, but we also have decades of experience with them that we can decree them safe and secure.

That gave me a good laugh. Thank you. I've spent several years doing particle physics research at the university, so yeah, I can tell you right now that this is a complete fantasy.

The US managed to build nuclear weapons with primitive WW2 era science and technology. Sweden almost built them in the 50s. South Africa, Israel, and North Korea built them later. It's not really that hard to build nuclear weapons, if you have the expertise of a good university and the resources of a small state or a major corporation. The hard part is making them small enough, reliable enough, and predictable enough that they're actually useful as weapons. If you only need a device that can be delivered in a standard shipping container, things become much easier.

[K^2]

Ok. Give me something substantially smaller than 100 tonnes of jet fuel that can output tens of megawatts of power for several hours.

First, give me a nefarious task that requires it. You insist that a lot of damage can be done with this. And it simply isn't true. You can do damage with high power output, but you don't need long duration, and I can give you tens of MW for a few seconds with a hand-held device. Including electrical power, if you need it. So any criminal act you can come up with, can already be pulled off with easy to obtain tech.

You concentrate on known threat models, when you should think about unknown threats. If releasing all the power at once turns out to be impossible, there are surely countless other ways to use them for nefarious purposes. Stop thinking like an engineer, and start thinking like a hacker. Think outside the box.

Rice should be banned. It can be used to commit terrible crimes. I don't know how, but you need to start thinking outside the box!

Give me an example where you can actually use it to do harm, or you don't have a case.

I didn't know we knew how to build large-scale nuclear isomer batteries, or that they would even be practical. Now you claim we have not only built them, but we also have decades of experience with them that we can decree them safe and secure.

These aren't unicorns. The physics behind them has been understood for well over half a century. We have been doing experiments on stimulated emission for at least a couple of decades. We don't have anything practical yet, but all of the physics is completely known. Again, you are arguing from ignorance, and nothing more.

The US managed to build nuclear weapons with primitive WW2 era science and technology.

The entirety of United States has managed to build three devices in the 40s. And the technology has not changed much since then. Every single process that was used back then is still used now. The only advantage you get in modern times is better computers, which means that it will be slightly easier to design the shaped charges and lenses. It is still a monumental effort.

Sweden almost built them in the 50s. South Africa, Israel, and North Korea built them later.

Israel got a lot of help from United States. They are speculated to have assisted South Africa. North Korea practically had their nukes made by Russians. They certainly got a lot of raw materials for it from Russia.

So none of these countries actually managed to build a nuke without help of either United States or Soviet Union nuclear program.

It's not really that hard to build nuclear weapons, if you have the expertise of a good university and the resources of a small state or a major corporation.

Seriously, I'm a particle physicist. Up until May, I was doing research at Center for Nuclear Research at a major State-funded university. I am one of the people you are claiming has capability to build a nuke, or at least, have been presumably working with them. I'm glad to hear that you have so much faith in our capabilities, but it is totally misplaced. I've gone to conferences, spent some time studying theory at Jefferson National Laboratory, and my advisor collaborates with a team from Argon National Laboratory. I can tell you with absolute confidence that no public University has capability to build a nuclear bomb. There are a handful of teams at National Laboratories that can, because it's their job.

[Jouni]

First, give me a nefarious task that requires it. You insist that a lot of damage can be done with this. And it simply isn't true. You can do damage with high power output, but you don't need long duration, and I can give you tens of MW for a few seconds with a hand-held device. Including electrical power, if you need it. So any criminal act you can come up with, can already be pulled off with easy to obtain tech.

It doesn't work that way. First you give me some new technology that can do something good significantly better than existing technology. Then you give me a thousand experts for a decade. Then we'll see whether one of the experts can figure out a way to use the new technology to do something bad significantly better than before.

Security is asymmetric by its nature. As a defender, you have to be prepared for anything, while the attacker only needs to find one hole in your defenses. When you see something new, you don't assume that it's harmless, until there's evidence to the contrary. You should be suspicious of anything new. If it's a significant piece of new technology, your enemy is going to put those thousand experts to investigate its applications for a decade. You can only trust it, if nobody can subvert it in a significant way, despite a major effort to do so.

These aren't unicorns. The physics behind them has been understood for well over half a century. We have been doing experiments on stimulated emission for at least a couple of decades. We don't have anything practical yet, but all of the physics is completely known. Again, you are arguing from ignorance, and nothing more.

If we have a set of axioms, we don't know immediately everything that can be proven from those axioms. If we have the specifications of a programming language, we don't know immediately the absolutely best algorithm for every task. If we know the physics of some phenomenon, we don't know immediately all of its possible applications.

Seriously, I'm a particle physicist. Up until May, I was doing research at Center for Nuclear Research at a major State-funded university. I am one of the people you are claiming has capability to build a nuke, or at least, have been presumably working with them. I'm glad to hear that you have so much faith in our capabilities, but it is totally misplaced. I've gone to conferences, spent some time studying theory at Jefferson National Laboratory, and my advisor collaborates with a team from Argon National Laboratory. I can tell you with absolute confidence that no public University has capability to build a nuclear bomb. There are a handful of teams at National Laboratories that can, because it's their job.

I'm not talking about some academic research project. I'm talking about the real world. You have the resources of a small state or a major corporation to acquire what you don't have or don't know. You can spy, you can bribe, you can blackmail, you can kidnap, you can steal, you can do whatever is necessary to achieve your goals. That's how everybody else obtained their nuclear weapons. Fair play is for games where the bets are small.

[K^2]

It doesn't work that way. First you give me some new technology that can do something good significantly better than existing technology. Then you give me a thousand experts for a decade. Then we'll see whether one of the experts can figure out a way to use the new technology to do something bad significantly better than before.

Security is asymmetric by its nature. As a defender, you have to be prepared for anything, while the attacker only needs to find one hole in your defenses. When you see something new, you don't assume that it's harmless, until there's evidence to the contrary. You should be suspicious of anything new. If it's a significant piece of new technology, your enemy is going to put those thousand experts to investigate its applications for a decade. You can only trust it, if nobody can subvert it in a significant way, despite a major effort to do so.

First of all, this applies to absolutely every piece of new technology, software, or even idea. By your logic, absolutely all of it should be kept out of public hands. And we'd still be arguing on whether or not that "bow" thing is safe to hand out to our hunters.

Secondly, we have had hundreds of experts trying to figure out how to misuse nuclear isomers for at least a couple of decades. Most of it, sponsored by DARPA, but there are a lot of general research projects there as well. A problem that's new to you isn't a problem that's new to scientific community. Limitations are known.

If we have a set of axioms, we don't know immediately everything that can be proven from those axioms. If we have the specifications of a programming language, we don't know immediately the absolutely best algorithm for every task. If we know the physics of some phenomenon, we don't know immediately all of its possible applications.

And it might be possible to read just the right incantations to open up a portal into another world. But you're talking unicorns again. There is absolutely no plausible way for the system to work differently than expected. If you have a metastable nuclear isomer, it will either decay on its own with predictable probability, or you need to excite it to a higher energy state, which is unstable, so that it decays significantly faster. These are the possibilities. Oh, it could also lase, but also only under very specific, well known conditions.

Anything else happening violates basic principles. So we're back to the battery being either a) inert, or releasing energy at the rate governed by the trigger.

Could something else happen at all, in principle, with some probability? Sure. Could nucleons in led be rearranged to turn into gold? Of course! But I'm not going to recommend restricting general public's access to led out of fear that someone will ruin economy by floodding world markets with cheap gold. This is the level of paranoia you have to admit to in order to claim a possibility for a misuse.

I'm not talking about some academic research project. I'm talking about the real world. You have the resources of a small state or a major corporation to acquire what you don't have or don't know. You can spy, you can bribe, you can blackmail, you can kidnap, you can steal, you can do whatever is necessary to achieve your goals. That's how everybody else obtained their nuclear weapons. Fair play is for games where the bets are small.

You said a university could do it. Now it needs to be a small country. But the answer is still no. Because you can't move these sort of resources covertly. And if a large corporation or a country will try to develop nukes, they'll be stopped by other world powers. Look at Iran. They really, really want nukes. And they are investing more money than any world's corporation could afford to. And they still don't have a nuke. But if only they knew the secrets that you posses!

[Jouni]

First of all, this applies to absolutely every piece of new technology, software, or even idea. By your logic, absolutely all of it should be kept out of public hands. And we'd still be arguing on whether or not that "bow" thing is safe to hand out to our hunters.

The use of all technologies that feel especially dangerous should initially be restricted, until there is enough evidence to determine whether it's dangerous or not. Anything that involves packing a lot of energy into a small package is by definition suspicious, as it sounds like weapon technology.

Secondly, we have had hundreds of experts trying to figure out how to misuse nuclear isomers for at least a couple of decades. Most of it, sponsored by DARPA, but there are a lot of general research projects there as well. A problem that's new to you isn't a problem that's new to scientific community. Limitations are known.

How many of those experts have been working on actual applications, instead of basic or applied research? In theory, theory and practice are the same, but the practice is quite different.

And it might be possible to read just the right incantations to open up a portal into another world. But you're talking unicorns again. There is absolutely no plausible way for the system to work differently than expected.

Let's assume that the battery is precisely as it's supposed to work, but it's used for some other purpose than powering an aircraft. How sure you can be that this other activity doesn't represent a significant danger to the society, especially when it can be something that nobody has thought about so far?

You said a university could do it. Now it needs to be a small country. But the answer is still no. Because you can't move these sort of resources covertly. And if a large corporation or a country will try to develop nukes, they'll be stopped by other world powers. Look at Iran. They really, really want nukes. And they are investing more money than any world's corporation could afford to. And they still don't have a nuke. But if only they knew the secrets that you posses

Let's see what I said:

Every university in the world can already build a nuke, given suitable resources. If an institution doesn't have the expertise, it's not worth the title "university". The only reason everyone doesn't already have nukes are worldwide restrictions on the trade of nuclear materials and certain machinery.

Basically you need three things: expertise, resources, and markets. Expertise is not a problem, as the world is full of people with much better understanding of nuclear weapons than anyone had before the Manhattan Project. Resources are not really a problem either. The Manhattan Project cost about $26 billion (present value) over several years, which is barely enough to enter the list of top 20 companies by R&D spending. The real problem, as we have both stated, is that it's hard to acquire some of the things needed to make nukes.

[K^2]

The use of all technologies that feel especially dangerous should initially be restricted, until there is enough evidence to determine whether it's dangerous or not. Anything that involves packing a lot of energy into a small package is by definition suspicious, as it sounds like weapon technology.

Key word here is feel. Are you an expert in high energy? Weapons technology? Nuclear physics? Any field related to this at all? I actually understand how the trigger works. And I know quite a few things about high energy physics, because that's the other name for my field of work. So I can tell you, as someone with some degree of expertiese both in particular technology and in terms of applications, that it is safe. Certainly far safer than technologies it's going to replace.

What you put against that is that you feel that it's dangerous. And know what? Someone will always feel that some piece of new tech is dangerous. Take a look at the vaccinations topic. There will always be people who will object to new technology without having any idea how it works, because it feels wrong. And if we start listening to people like that, we will have zero progress. So please, stop being part of the problem.

Either study the subject, and come up with an actual, plausible security concern, which we can either address or find it to be serious enough to change policy. Or step aside. Don't be one of the ludites.

How many of those experts have been working on actual applications, instead of basic or applied research?

On DARPA budget? Most of them. The most extensive research project was the TRIP experiment. It included questions of production, triggering, and applications of the Hf178m2 isomer for power storage. The research is still partially classified, because it contains potential military applications. They've concluded that it's too expensive to be worth it at the moment.

So yeah, we know exactly what dangers are present, and I can tell you that general public has nothing to worry about from the batteries. When this is weaponized, it will be a completely separate, government funded project. It's not something that a band of terrorists can simply built on top of an existing battery.

Let's assume that the battery is precisely as it's supposed to work, but it's used for some other purpose than powering an aircraft. How sure you can be that this other activity doesn't represent a significant danger to the society, especially when it can be something that nobody has thought about so far?

Again, this argument can be made to turn any advance into a potentially dangerous one. In fact, it doesn't even have to be an advance. This argument can be used to label any existing technology as dangerous.

But more importantly, we have had ability to produce that sort of power output from portable device for many decades. This is nothing new. Only the sustainability of power output is a new feature, and sustainable power is a mark of peaceful applications.

Basically you need three things: expertise, resources, and markets. Expertise is not a problem, as the world is full of people with much better understanding of nuclear weapons than anyone had before the Manhattan Project. Resources are not really a problem either. The Manhattan Project cost about $26 billion (present value) over several years, which is barely enough to enter the list of top 20 companies by R&D spending. The real problem, as we have both stated, is that it's hard to acquire some of the things needed to make nukes.

Oh, so a University can do this, so long as it has resources it never can get? Sure. In that case, a bunch of bums off the street can build a nuke. You just have to give them technology, man power, budget, and classified materials access.

So again, lets make something clear. Iran can't build a nuke. Despite trying really hard. Despite having fantastic research facilities. Despite sinking enormous amounts of money into it. They can't build one.

As a matter of fact, we've seen that in practice, this requires so much resources, that only countries that can do this unopposed and are therefore acting sufficiently responsibly, have managed to build nuclear weapons. Even the most questionable on the list, is still a government that has not risked using these nukes for any military purpose.

The scale at which terrorist acts are committed and scale of resoruces required for nuclear weapons manufacturing aren't of the same order of magnitude.

[Jouni]

Key word here is feel. Are you an expert in high energy? Weapons technology? Nuclear physics? Any field related to this at all? I actually understand how the trigger works. And I know quite a few things about high energy physics, because that's the other name for my field of work. So I can tell you, as someone with some degree of expertiese both in particular technology and in terms of applications, that it is safe. Certainly far safer than technologies it's going to replace.

That expertise is mostly irrelevant here. The real threat could be someone using a device that's working exactly as it's supposed to work. We're talking about whether a battery like that would open new possibilities in any field of human activity, including those that don't exist yet.

What you put against that is that you feel that it's dangerous. And know what? Someone will always feel that some piece of new tech is dangerous. Take a look at the vaccinations topic. There will always be people who will object to new technology without having any idea how it works, because it feels wrong. And if we start listening to people like that, we will have zero progress. So please, stop being part of the problem.

This isn't a binary decision. There are other alternatives than just assuming that everything is completely safe or everything is so dangerous that it can't be allowed to be used.

Either study the subject, and come up with an actual, plausible security concern, which we can either address or find it to be serious enough to change policy. Or step aside. Don't be one of the ludites.

Maybe you should study security instead. In that field, the burden of proof is on those who claim that something is secure. And because it's impossible to prove a negative, they can never prove that something is secure. They can only provide evidence that no major risks have been identified so far, despite significant efforts to find them.

Security is all about dealing with uncertainties. Nothing is ever completely secure, and claims to the contrary usually signal ignorance or scam. The best you can hope for is a justified feeling of security: you feel that you've made a good trade-off between security and other concerns, and you feel that you have enough evidence to support that feeling.

On DARPA budget? Most of them. The most extensive research project was the TRIP experiment. It included questions of production, triggering, and applications of the Hf178m2 isomer for power storage. The research is still partially classified, because it contains potential military applications. They've concluded that it's too expensive to be worth it at the moment.

So basically those people have been working on applied research with potential applications, instead of the applications themselves.

But more importantly, we have had ability to produce that sort of power output from portable device for many decades. This is nothing new. Only the sustainability of power output is a new feature, and sustainable power is a mark of peaceful applications.

Sustainable power is a mark of different applications. We don't know in advance what those applications will be, and whether they will be peaceful or not.

The scale at which terrorist acts are committed and scale of resoruces required for nuclear weapons manufacturing aren't of the same order of magnitude.

This branch of the discussion wasn't about terrorism. It was about my claim that the lack of expertise is not something that keeps dangerous technologies from falling into wrong hands. Technical details can be classified, but if somebody already managed to develop something, the world is full of people who could do the same thing independently. Political and economical restrictions are much more effective in restricting access to technology.

[K^2]

That expertise is mostly irrelevant here. The real threat could be someone using a device that's working exactly as it's supposed to work. We're talking about whether a battery like that would open new possibilities in any field of human activity, including those that don't exist yet.

By this logic, general population should not have access to cell phones, internet, and probably computers in general.

There is rational caution, and then there is paranoya that prevents technological progress. You are firmly in the land of the later.

This isn't a binary decision. There are other alternatives than just assuming that everything is completely safe or everything is so dangerous that it can't be allowed to be used.

You said that this tech should not be allowed on civilian aircraft. That's pretty binary.

Maybe you should study security instead. In that field, the burden of proof is on those who claim that something is secure. And because it's impossible to prove a negative, they can never prove that something is secure. They can only provide evidence that no major risks have been identified so far, despite significant efforts to find them.

The burden of proof is on people who can never prove it? Fantastic. Logic isn't your strong side either.

I have studied security. I've worked tech support for content management system, and I do IT consulting on the side. I'm far from an expert, certainly. But the most fundamental principle of security is "sufficient security". Because no security is absolute.

Question is, how much resources it would take to misuse the technology, vs how much resource it would take to carry out a similar attack without it.

And building a nuke is easier than causing a nuclear isomer battery to do any significant damage. Still want to continue discussion from perspective of security?

So basically those people have been working on applied research with potential applications, instead of the applications themselves.

Yeah, go on, keep splitting hairs and invent unicorns. It's been working so well for you.

You are still arguing denying access to revolutionary technology over a phantom threat. One that you refuse to actually support, and one that you have no expertise to support.

And your strongest argument is that top researchesrs who were payed to come up with ways to weaponize it were working with theoretical framework. I did not think you can make a weaker argument than you started out with, but you keep surprising me.

Sustainable power is a mark of different applications. We don't know in advance what those applications will be, and whether they will be peaceful or not.

Another argument from ignorance. Lack of understanding doesn't make your argument stronger. "I don't know" is never a good argument. And that's what you keep falling back on.

Never have we had an attack based on sustained power output. And we have nuclear power plants around, power from which could have been rerouted for something like this. Sure, it's not portable, but it is hundreds of GWs of sustainable power. You'd think someone would find a way around portability.

But no, it's just enough for you to claim that you don't know any better, right?

This branch of the discussion wasn't about terrorism. It was about my claim that the lack of expertise is not something that keeps dangerous technologies from falling into wrong hands. Technical details can be classified, but if somebody already managed to develop something, the world is full of people who could do the same thing independently. Political and economical restrictions are much more effective in restricting access to technology.

Except that you are being proven wrong again and again on this point. Why doesn't Iran have nukes, if you claim it is possible to replicate given only the access to information, resources, funding, and general knowledge of technology?

Maybe this is about the point where you finally realize that you simply don't understand the complexities of the task involved, and start listening to people who have a somewhat better understanding?

[Jouni]

You said that this tech should not be allowed on civilian aircraft. That's pretty binary.

That may have been a bad choice of words. What I meant was that the technology sounds dangerous, and we should proceed with caution, without making too optimistic predictions.

The burden of proof is on people who can never prove it? Fantastic. Logic isn't your strong side either.

That's the rational approach. When we look at security at a large scale, it's basically certain that there are threats that we have no idea of. Similarly, it's almost certain that there are people trying to figure out those threats, in order to hurt us in a way we didn't expect.

The problem is that we don't know how serious those threats are, how much effort it takes to use them against us, how much effort it takes to defend against them, and how many people are working against us. There's no way to make meaningful a priori estimates on what level of security is sufficient. What we can do is proceed cautiously, collect empirical data, and base our estimates on that data. The longer we have used some technology without encountering any major risks we can't defend against, the more likely it becomes that any remaining unknown risks aren't cost-effective for the attacker.

We don't really have to worry about the threats we know of, because we can prepare for them. The real risks are always the unknown unknowns.

Except that you are being proven wrong again and again on this point. Why doesn't Iran have nukes, if you claim it is possible to replicate given only the access to information, resources, funding, and general knowledge of technology?

I think we're both arguing for the same thing here.

[K^2]

What I meant was that the technology sounds dangerous, and we should proceed with caution, without making too optimistic predictions.

I've never argued against caution. If this is your entire point, we can move on from this discussion.

[WestAir]

As someone who regularly flies civilian aircraft, I can say with certainty that absolutely nothing [literally nothing] will go into an aircraft without years of way over the top testing. Something as simple as adding tv screens to the back of seats probably went through a committee and had to undergo sixteen months of rigorous testing before being approved. Don't even get me started on a new type of fuel or propulsion system.

My point is in the aviation field, there's no such thing as an acceptable risk. They don't play around. Either it's safe, or it doesn't go. No ifs, no buts, no "Only 0.2% chance of failure," either it works or it doesn't. Even the type of kerosine jets use is scrutinized per route per flight. As an example, some jet fuels freeze at lower temperatures than others, and it would behoove you not to be the guy who fills his Alaska-based fleet with Jet A-1 instead of the naphtha based Jet B. (EDIT: Unless Jet B is prohibited, of course. It was just an example.)

Edited August 24, 2014 by WestAir

[K^2]

All of these problems are fixed with an "Experimental" sticker.

(Yes, I know that won't apply to commercial aviation.)

[shynung]

That could apply to military drones, though.

Super Silent Stealth Electric Killer Drones!

[WestAir]

That could apply to military drones, though.

Super Silent Stealth Electric Killer Drones!

I laughed out loud at that. The drone you never hear coming! Not that you hear any of them coming, but... anyways we're off topic.

All of these problems are fixed with an "Experimental" sticker.

This must be how SpaceX launches rockets. (Too soon?)

[peadar1987]

As far as I understand it, modern concepts for nuclear isomer batteries work by "turning on" radioactive decay of an otherwise stable or metastable isomer. Once you stimulate decay, you're still constrained by the half life of the isomer, so it's next to impossible to release all of the energy at once (unless you can build a trigger based on completely different physics from the one you use for the controlled release of energy).

If that's true, then building the trigger will indeed be the hardest part of building this device. You might as well forbid people from owning hydrogen in case they find out a way to cause fusion.

That said, from my layman's understanding, such batteries might not be "rechargeable", and therefore would be extremely expensive for civilian use.

For the short- to medium- term, my money's still on hydrogen fuel cells.