Lightning That Can Strike Twice...

[Scots_Nomad]

I have made a few postings under a number of topics regarding the conversations I had with ‘my friends’ which began back in 2004 (you can find all my previous posts by clicking on my name if you want to). In those posts I have mentioned/described how my friends not only forewarned me about bad things to come (such as the 2004 Tsunami and Hurricanes Katrina and Rita), but also gave me a few ‘hints’ on how we could go about solving some of the big problems that we face, such as curing disease and solving our energy/global warming problems.
Today I read a story on Sky News.com which rang a few alarm bells with me as it clearly touched on a very significant part of the early conversations I had back in 2004 which (for reasons which will become obvious later in this posting) I deliberately chose not to write about in the books I have written since those conversations began.
I am making this posting here now because, in view of this latest ‘development’, I am not 100% sure what to do with the info I already have on this subject. As I mentioned in one of my very first posts, one of the key things I learned from my chats with my friends is that life is meant to be a team game so, as I am not sure what I can do here myself, I decided to discuss my dilemma here and see if I get any useful feedback/help /suggestions from any team-mates who may read this.

Before I discuss my conversations with my friends further I need you to read this (slightly edited) copy of the story I read on Sky News:-

Japan is aiming to collect solar power in space and zap it down to Earth using laser beams or microwaves. The island nation's government has picked companies and researchers to turn the multi-billion pound dream of unlimited clean energy into reality by 2030. Japan has few energy resources of its own and is heavily reliant on oil imports. The predicament has forced the country to become a leader in solar and other renewable energies.

This year it set ambitious greenhouse gas reduction targets, but its boldest plan to date is the Space Solar Power System. It involves an array of photovoltaic dishes, reaching across several square miles, that hover in geostationary orbit outside the Earth's atmosphere.

"Since solar power is a clean and inexhaustible energy source, we believe that this system will be able to help solve the problems of energy shortage and global warming," Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, one of the project participants, said. The solar cells would capture the sun's energy, which is at least five times stronger in space than on Earth, and beam it down to the ground through clusters of lasers or microwaves. These would be collected by huge parabolic antennae, likely to be located in restricted areas at sea or on dam reservoirs, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Jaxa) said.

The researchers are trying for a one gigawatt system, equivalent to a medium-sized atomic power plant. It would produce electricity at eight yen (5p) per kilowatt-hour - six times cheaper than its current cost in Japan.

Jaxa said the technology would be safe but conceded it might have to dispel fears of laser beams from above roasting birds or slicing up aircraft in mid-air.

The government-selected consortium, called the Institute for Unmanned Space Experiment Free Flyer, includes Mitsubishi Electric, NEC, Fujitsu and Sharp.

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OK, so now to discuss the conversation I had with my friends on this matter back in 2004:

The first thing to note is that the method of generating the power discussed in this article is completely different from the method I discussed with my friends in 2004 – They suggest using solar power because the sun’s energy is 5 times stronger in space than on Earth, however it seems pretty obvious to me that it would still be much easier and cheaper to build a solar farm on Earth which was five time ‘bigger’, and there are certainly no shortage of very sunny, wide open desert spaces in which such a farm could be built with existing technology, so I would dismiss that part of the article as either an obvious folly or a deliberate red herring.

I won’t go into the details of how the energy would be generated in my alternative method (again, for reasons which I trust will be obvious), however the conversation with my friends (which they told me at the time was ‘something very important’) started of with them asking me to imagine a certain arrangement of things. Then they asked me to imagine what would happen if you did ‘x’, then they asked me to imagine what would happen if you then did ‘y’, and then they asked me to imagine what would happen if you did ‘z’, and so on…there were quite a few steps I had to imagine before my mind reached the final picture they wanted me to see (NB: My friends never just told me the answers to things – “How are your people ever going to learn for themselves if we just give you the answers on a plate?” type thing – Instead they would give me a clue where to start my train of thought and then prod me along with a series of questions/challenges.)

When eventually I had reached ‘the final picture’ my friends asked me what I thought I could be looking at – I will pick up our conversation from there, starting off with my answer to that question:-

“Phhhhh, I dunno. I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
“We know you’ve never seen it before, that’s why we asked you what you thought it could be rather than asking you what it is.”
“Ah! So you want me to guess what it is? Well, I suppose it depends what scale this thing is, coz I’ve no idea how big this thing is supposed to be.”

There was a round of applause and then they asked,

“How big could it be?”
“Well, it could be huge or it could be tiny.”

Another big round of applause,

“OK then, so if it’s small what could it be?”
“I didn’t say small, I said tiny!”

Huge applause!

“OK, if it’s tiny what could it be?”
“Well…I suppose it could be an atom.”

Huge applause!

“Does it look like an atom to you?”
“How the f… do I know what an atom looks like? I know it doesn’t look ANYTHING like atoms are supposed to look according to the experts and the text books down here, but what the f… do the experts know?...”

More huge applause,

“…They’ve had a ‘best guess’ at what atoms look like, but its all based on theory and guesswork, no one’s ever actually seen one. If that is what an atom actually looks like then I guess all our experts are gonna have to go right back to their drawing boards and start again from scratch coz that looks nothing like how we were taught to imagine what an atom looks like, but I can see how that sort of arrangement could work as an atom…Or maybe I should say ‘I can imagine how an atom could work in that sort of shape’”

More huge applause.

(We went on to discuss my theory/speculation or whatever I should call it in a bit more detail but I can’t discuss that without giving away specific details that I want to keep to myself for now…And besides, one of you might nick my Nobel Prize!  I I’ll pick up the conversation again from when we had finished our ‘what if it’s tiny’ conversation…My friends speak first…)

“OK, so now what if it’s big?”
”I didn’t say it could be big, I said it could be huge…But I suppose it might also work if it was just big, so you don’t need to ask again.”

Big applause.

“But we’ll ask again anyway…So what if it’s huge? What could it be now?”
“Mmmmm I suppose it could be a power station…”

Huge applause!

“…And before you ask, I’ve worked on loads of power stations, and ‘No’, that doesn’t look anything like any power station I have ever seen, but with all that (have to edit this bit)… I could imagine that that kind of arrangement could be used to generate electricity…Maybe loads of electricity if it was huge enough.”

Huge applause!

“So, if it is a power station, where would you build a power station like that then?”
“Phhhhhwwh!...Do you mean where would I build it, or do you mean where would I construct it?”

More huge applause!

“Well let’s start with building it, eh? Where would you build it?”
“Well, the precision and the specification you would need to build something like that to means that you couldn’t just build it anywhere…I mean, I would love to build it here in Vietnam but there’s absolutely no chance they could ever build it precisely enough….I mean, for f… sake, that tower block where Thao lives sunk two feet in it’s first six months and that bridge that they built last year has already sunk so much it’s almost un-crossable, so there’s no way they could ever build something that precise…Or maybe ‘never’ is a bit harsh, coz who knows, maybe they could get their act together in future, but at this time there is no way they could build something like that here.”
“So where would you build it if not here?”
“Well, I suppose that there are probably only a few people you could trust to work to that degree of accuracy…It would have to be either in the States, or in Europe…I suppose they could do it in the UK…maybe…if they’ve still got any engineering industry left there now…They could probably do it it Germany, but f… that! Seven years with Siemens is more than enough for me!...Or I suppose maybe a few other European countries might be able to do it….Switzerland are pretty good with cuckoo clocks and stuff!”

Big laugh!

“OK, where else apart from Europe or the States?”
”Phhhhew….Well, South Korea probably have the capability to do it…But I’m just not sure they have the discipline to do it…I mean, I know they build a lot of high tech stuff there as well as a lot of heavy industry, but I’ve had so many problems with South Korean companies trying to cut corners on power stations that I’ve worked on that you’d really need to be looking over their shoulders all the time.”
“OK, so where else then?”
“Well, I guess only Japan…Maybe there are some engineering companies in Australia that could maybe handle it but I doubt it…Not unless you decided to make it out of sheep! Boom-boom!..”

Big laugh!

“…But seriously! I guess the only place outside of the US or Europe where you could build that would be Japan.”
“So where would you build it then?”
”I don’t know! They could build it in any of those places.”
”We know that but we’re not asking ‘them’, we’re asking you! So where would you build it?”
”Me???....Phhhheeew…I suppose if it was completely up to me then I’d need to pick….Japan!”
”Why Japan?”
“Phhhheww…Kinda hard to say…I don’t fancy living in the States, I certainly don’t fancy going back to live in Europe…I’ve never actually been to Japan, but at least it’s still Asia…And maybe it’s time Asia …Mmmm Maybe what I was about to say doesn’t make much sense, coz Asia and Japan in particular have already got loads of high technology stuff…But really what they do is to take Western inventions and make them better…Maybe it’s just time for Asia to take a ‘first big step’…or ‘a big first step’ or whatever…”

Big applause!

“…Anyway! I’m not really sure exactly what I mean, but you asked me where I would build it and if it was completely up to me I’d pick Japan…For a lot of reasons.”

Big applause!

“OK. So you’d build it in Japan, but where would you erect it?”
“Phhewww, that’s easy, coz there’s only one place you could erect it…Or at least, there’s only one place you could erect it and get it to work!”

Big applause!

“Are you sure there is only one place you could erect it?”
“Well…I suppose if you’re being pedantic – as if you would ever be pedantic, boom-boom! -…”

Big laugh!

“…If you’re being pedantic then I guess there are loads of places you could erect it!...But all of those places are in the same place, so you know what I mean!”

Big applause!

“And where is that one place…Just for the record?”
“In space! F… knows how you’d get it all there, but if you could then the only place it would work would be in outer space.”

Huge applause! (which they let go on for quite a while before continuing)

“So how would you get the power back to Earth if you erected your power station in space?”
“Phhhewwww….I guess it would need to be by laser or something like that.”

MASSIVE applause!

“How did you know that?”
“Aw c’mon! I mean, I didn’t actually know, and I have absolutely no idea how you would go about it, but what else could it be?...I mean,…you were hardly gonna tell me that we’d need to make a really, really long extension cable, were you?”

Big laugh!

We went on talking about the laser side of it and some other aspects of the overall arrangement, including discussing how the same ‘arrangement’ could also be used to form a ‘tsunami net’ that could cut tsunami’s into little bits that would then interfere with each other into oblivion (and if it’s possible to paste photo’s on here I have a great painting to ‘remind me’ of that principle which I will paste if someone can tell me how) but then a thought struck me,

“Aw wait a minute! What the f… are you telling me all this for?...We can’t build this!”
“Why don’t you think you can build it? What bit don’t you think you can build?”
“No, I don’t mean we ‘can’t’ build it, I mean we shouldn’t build it…Or at least I mean I don’t want to have anything to do with it!...We got enough fancy ways of killing ourselves down here as it is!”

Huge applause!

“What do you mean Wee Man?”
“Laser guided lightning Big Yin! That’s what I mean!...”

More huge applause!

“…I know this might be an amazing invention…In fact maybe it is exactly what we need down here right now with the way the energy shortage and global warming stuff is…But you know what these people are like Big Yin!...They won’t see it as a power station, they’ll see it as a weapon…And what a f…ing weapon it could be!...”

More applause!

“…All you’d have to do is link it up to a GPS system and you’d have laser guided lightning!...And that type of lightning COULD strike the same place twice, or three times, or as many times as you f…ing wanted!...Man! Why did you have to tell me about this?”
“Why do you think Wee Man?”
“I don’t know!....And I mean that, I really don’t know! If you know me as much as you say you do then you must have known that I could never tell anyone about this coz I’d know what they’d do with it! So why tell me?”
“Because we trust you with it Wee Man.”
“It’s not me I’m worrying about, it’s all those lunatics out there I’m worried about!”
“And so are we Wee Man!”
“Eh? What do you mean?”
“We mean we trust you with it Wee Man, but we don’t trust anyone else…And there’s already some people thinking about it…Or at least, if they haven’t actually thought of it yet, they’ve thought about thinking about it already and it won’t be too long until they actually think about it.”
“Who?”
“Who do you think?”
“Mmmmm,…Uncle Sam?”

Huge applause!

They let me sit quietly for a while before continuing,

“And you know we can’t let that happen Wee Man, don’t you?...Coz it’s just like you said before, you can’t let anyone get big enough to control the whole game.”

(NB: That was a comment I had made hours earlier when we were talking about the best tactics to use when playing the game ‘Risk’)

“So will you stop them from developing it then?”
“We’ll stop them if we have to. It’s a present for you and your people if YOU want to use it, but we won’t let anyone else get it…(long pause)…Even if we need to scrap the whole game and move right on to the next phase!”

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So there you have the basics of it team mates…So what the hell am I supposed to do with ‘all that’ now?

(NB: I am deadly serious about all of this and would welcome any help from anyone in this forum or anyone who you may know outwith the forum)