Robert Leguillon <robert.leguil...@hotmail.com> wrote: I believe that it was Jed that first made the comparison: > > In the past ice (simple, frozen H2O) was delivered to businesses and > homes. Centralized production, then distribution made sense due to the > technological limitations of the time. >
The limitation was they used ammonia refrigerant, which was toxic. Before that they cut ice from ponds in winter. People stored that on farms, in ice houses, covered in sawdust. They would sell ice to people in town, and send it by ship to Florida. Technology often goes in circles, from centralized systems, to decentralized, back to centralized systems. A vivid modern example: isolated mainframe computer => timeshare (shared) => isolated mini-computers => isolated PCs => LAN-PCs => Internet => cloud computing (more shared than any previous model) The distinction is somewhat artificial. People think of automobiles as decentralized but look at fuel delivery, road building and traffic control it seems almost as centralized as a railroad. In some ways. No doubt many competing cold fusion systems will be developed. The market will decide. It may be that centralized systems work bbest for large cities with high population density, but in suburbs and rural areas, decentralized systems will prevail. The market distribution may fall in about the same areas as central sewer systems versus septic tanks. - Jed
