[ExI] EP and Peak oil.

[Gary Miller]

Keith and John were discussing:
At 10:34 AM 4/5/2008, John K Clark wrote:
(keith)

> > Nanotube cable probably won't be much of a conductor.
>
>At the very least some nanotubes are better conductors of electricity 
>than silver and better conductors of heat than diamond. There is even 
>some indication that multi walled nanotubes may be ballistic 
>conductors, that means their resistance is only weakly coupled to their 
>length; at least that's how short ones seem to act, nobody knows how 
>one 22000 miles long would behave except to say it would be better than any
metal.
>Maybe much much better.
>
> > how you are going to restrain the magnetic forces pushing the cables 
> > apart?
>
>Magnetism is produced by current, high voltage power lines don't carry 
>a lot of current.
>
>Please put numbers on this statement.  I think you will be astounded.

My Response:

What about superconducting cables for the current?

We can't expect the same material to be strong enough for the main weight
bearing cable, but...

This would seem to solve the problem of current leakage.

This company Ultraconductors thinks they have the patented answer.

http://www.ultraconductors.com/patent_1.html

They claim to have the first ambient temperature superconductors based on
polymer materials.

http://www.ultraconductors.com/products.html

Lest anyone think this is crackpot technology and too good to be true "the
research was funded in part by the Department of Defense, which invested
$600,000 in the project. The technology also has been replicated elsewhere.
Matt Aldissi, who runs a Florida research firm called Fractal Systems,
reproduced Goldes' UltraConductor as part of work on conductivity he was
performing for the U.S. Air Force."

http://www.zpenergy.com/modules.php?name=News&file=comments&op=showreply&tid
=7661&sid=2560&pid=7658&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

The question is how much current could a large diameter cable of this
material carry without losing it's super conductive properties.  If we
divided our total energy needs by the maximum capacity of a superconducting
cable would the magnetic fields of these cables destroy each other if they
were bundled side by side.

My biggest fear of such a technology is that it would be to easy to knock
totally out of operation in war time.  And would be devastating to any
economy depending on that energy source. Maybe by making such a system the
property of the world or a large group of developed nations it would prevent
any nation at war with one of the countries depending on that energy source
from making it a target and risking the wrath of the other nations.