[ExI] EP and Peak oil.

[John K Clark]

"hkhenson" <hkhenson at rogers.com>

> Shut off the power and the wires are going to move
> toward each other. Unless you do have close spacers
> that also work in compression to keep them apart

As I said one wooden toothpick every meter would work just fine, ever
hundred meters probably but I was trying to be conservative.

>high vacuum and air good insulators, but low
>pressure gas is not, and these wires transit a
>lot of low pressure gas.  Any ideas for really
>lightweight solution?

Rubber, and you'd only need to use it for a few hundred miles of its 22000
mile length.

Me:
>>That's [7.14 million Newtons] tiny!

You:
> It's 1/5 the lift off thrust of a Saturn 5

For heavens sake! Every day designers who got a C in engineering school
design dull drab apartment buildings that tame forces much greater than
7.14 million Newtons. And this is supposed to be a show stopper for a
boiling water IQ civil engineer with Nanotechnology at his command?
I don't think so.

> If a space elevator/tether is cut it falls along the equator. Not a
> hazard on the ground since the terminal velocity of the cables is no
> higher than rope of a similar low density.  But it's a major problem in
> space because it whacks at high speed into other elevators/tethers if
> there are any.  Bringing down hundreds of power leads from GEO
> is just inviting a catastrophe.

On the other hand the above could very well be a show stopper, but that's
true of all space elevators not just the ones that have power lines in them.

> If you *really* have something against microwaves

I have nothing against microwaves, nothing except that the beam you're
talking about would be several billion times as powerful as any made
before and when you try to make something even ten times as large as
ever existed before in just one jump something almost always goes wrong,
and except that it would take many thousands of square miles to receive
the power, and except for the fact that nobody has a clue how such a
beam would effect the environment, and except for the fact that
environmentalists would tie you up in court for CENTURIES, except for that
I have nothing against microwaves.

Having said all this I must admit that Power Satellites may nevertheless
have a future, it's just that I think the power they produce could best
be consumed in space, perhaps in something like Gerald O'Neal's space
colonies.

Most people on this list would be delighted if the human race expanded
into space, but individuals will never be willing to make that move unless
they thought it would bring them a better life. I can't see how a Mars or
Moon colony could do that, anything Mars or the Moon can provide the
Earth can do better. However an type O'Neal space colony might offer
something Earth cannot, cheap energy. It is not at all obvious that the
surface of a planet is the best place for a rapidly evolving technological
civilization.

  John K Clark