What will the UK look like in 10-20 years time?

vivatifosi

ninky wrote: »

thankyou for your post vivatifosi. for me this proves the point that free market economics do not necessarily drive forward technological advances or allow the talents and good ideas of individuals to prosper. in fact, they can stifle them.

My DH and I are both from working class backgrounds and were both the first in our families to get a degree. In the case of my DH's PhD, if it wasn't for the sponsorship of the company involved, which was a paltry sum, he may not have been able to afford to get a PhD at all. As it was he also had to work every weekend to make ends meet - that's 6 and a half days a week - for 3 years. Since then, the introduction of fees has made getting higher level qualifications even more expensive, as you yourself have said. I'm not sure what the role of companies should be, but without them in the PhD model you'd probably have even fewer good ideas coming into the public domain because good students can't afford to fund themselves.

harryhound

I used to work for big business.
Of course it fought to protect its existing investments, perhaps to the point of getting bright new graduates to rubbish new ideas.
But on the other side of the coin, even I was always running up against "nutty" inventors, in love with their "clever" idea; but with no concept of the need for it to show a profit.
A patent only lasts something like 15 years, so if there really is a better technology out there, it will out.
Life is full of choices, opportunity costs.
For example there is currently a huge fuss about putting Photovoltaics (PV) on school roofs. I think such an idea is just "grandstanding" with other peoples' money at the moment.
How would PV rack up against smart meters and intelligent fridges in our climate?
Not to mention something really boring like putting a foot of insulation in everyone's roof space?

SamIAm_3-2

ad9898 wrote: »

Hydrogen has to be produced (i.e electrolysis) which consumes more energy than is released when used as a fuel, not a good start.

Hydrogen isotopes used for the most promising Nuclear Fusion reactions are deuterium and tritium, not hydrogen (H1) itself. The generation of deuterium is usually not through the electrolysis process used to extract hydrogen for fuel cells. It is contained in abundance in sea water and extraction, I believe, is usually obtained through condensation towers.

Tritium is normally obtained through a reaction with lithium-6.

Whilst the methods of tritium and deuterium extraction in quantities required present their own problems, it is very different from the electrolysis process you describe. The major concerns associated with fusion are not obtaining the fuel source but rather the technical difficulties in creating a sustainable controlled exothermic reaction.

ninky_2

vivatifosi wrote: »

My DH and I are both from working class backgrounds and were both the first in our families to get a degree. In the case of my DH's PhD, if it wasn't for the sponsorship of the company involved, which was a paltry sum, he may not have been able to afford to get a PhD at all. As it was he also had to work every weekend to make ends meet - that's 6 and a half days a week - for 3 years. Since then, the introduction of fees has made getting higher level qualifications even more expensive, as you yourself have said. I'm not sure what the role of companies should be, but without them in the PhD model you'd probably have even fewer good ideas coming into the public domain because good students can't afford to fund themselves.

well instead of relying on companies how about going back to maintenance grants and state paid tuition fees at university? like you, i was the first in my family to go to university. i benefitted from a free comprehensive educaton, which although flawed, allowed me the choice to work hard and get qualifications. i also benefitted from going to university at a time when you weren't expected to pay fees for tuition and i got part time work to supplement my living costs.

SamIAm_3-2

vivatifosi wrote: »

The company was sold, the plants shut... I doubt that anyone there now would even know that they had sponsored the research. My DH doesn't trust them as far as he can throw them so he has no wish to contact them.

Does he have to contact them? I assume that he has a copy of his PhD, so would it not be possible to present this to other institutions/companies?

vivatifosi

SamIAm wrote: »

Does he have to contact them? I assume that he has a copy of his PhD, so would it not be possible to present this to other institutions/companies?

To get his little bit of sponsorship, he had to sign a contract. Given that he is reasonably ok off in a different field, I don't know that he'd want to rock the boat like that. If he did want to go back into science, his name is all over that field of research because his PhD has been quoted so many times, in many respected journals, so I think he would use that to get in the door. It is something we talk about from time to time but he's quite happy out of science. Sorry, I wasn't trying to make this thread about us, just trying to make the case that there's a lot of good science in the back of cupboards!

SamIAm_3-2

vivatifosi wrote: »

To get his little bit of sponsorship, he had to sign a contract. Given that he is reasonably ok off in a different field, I don't know that he'd want to rock the boat like that. If he did want to go back into science, his name is all over that field of research because his PhD has been quoted so many times, in many respected journals, so I think he would use that to get in the door. It is something we talk about from time to time but he's quite happy out of science.

I wasn't suggesting that he should go back into science. I was thinking that, as it sounds like a promising field for alternative energy sources, it perhaps could continue to be researched, and not necessarily by himself.

vivatifosi wrote: »

Sorry, I wasn't trying to make this thread about us, just trying to make the case that there's a lot of good science in the back of cupboards!

As far as I am concerned there's no need to apologise as energy is very relevant to this thread. Discussing your DH's PhD is therefore also very relevant.

vivatifosi

Thanks Sam,

It is a promising field and to that end it is much quoted, however as I sense you know (you seem pretty knowledgeable in this area), people will only have read the extract, not the full PhD which would show what he did and how. It has certainly formed the basis of a great deal of additional research as people have built on his work, how far they've got I don't know, because I'd have to pay $30 per paper to find out and I'm too MSE to do that! I just hope that those who are using it as a base for their own research go to the shelf in the library at his Uni and read the full version, unlikely as some of the research is in Japan!

phil1873football

Personally, I think there will be another huge war...bigger than anything before. Britain will be caught in the middle as they try and stick up for the Americans against the Russian/Chinese etc. and we will be obliterated.

So we dont really need to worry about the future, as it will be out of our hands.

Job Done!!

SamIAm_3-2

vivatifosi wrote: »

Thanks Sam,

It is a promising field and to that end it is much quoted, however as I sense you know (you seem pretty knowledgeable in this area), people will only have read the extract, not the full PhD which would show what he did and how. It has certainly formed the basis of a great deal of additional research as people have built on his work, how far they've got I don't know, because I'd have to pay $30 per paper to find out and I'm too MSE to do that! I just hope that those who are using it as a base for their own research go to the shelf in the library at his Uni and read the full version, unlikely as some of the research is in Japan!

Knowledgable? No, not really. I just have an amateur interest in physics since I studied it at college.

It's good that it is still being developed and researched. I really hope that something good comes of it. There are a lot of areas for research in alternative energy that simply aren't getting the funding. The companies that this research mostly concerns are the energy companies who are making a nice tidy profit from fossil fuels. Something has to change in this regard IMO.