[ExI] EP and Peak oil.

[hkhenson]

At 01:57 PM 4/7/2008, John K Clark wrote:
>"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.

That's not a lightweight solution, plus the fact that atomic oxygen 
will eat the rubber.

>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.

It's more like a million times that high at 1000 GW.

> > 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.

You can build power sats from one elevator.

> > 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.

Do you remember who I am?  There was a reason space colonies were not 
built, that reason is still operative today.

Building power sats from the ground is a possible step into space 
where space industry/colonies are not.

Keith Henson
Founder, L5 Society