[ExI] The L5 Society ( was: EP and Peak oil.)

[hkhenson]

At 10:17 AM 4/11/2008, you wrote:

snip

>Oh well, I'm not giving up, there must be a way for a power line to pass
>through those critical 50 miles or so;

"This should be contrasted with a vacuum 
interrupter suffering a leak, where the voltage 
strength of the gap falls to a minimum level of a 
few hundred volts in the glow discharge region of 
0.1–10 torr (13.3–133.2 pascals), recovering to 
around 30 kV/cm at atmospheric pressure."

Fault Current Management Guidebook
1010680
Technical Update, March 2006
EPRI Project Manager
R. Adapa

Hmm  http://www.luizmonteiro.com/StdAtm.aspx

63621 m for 0.1 torr
45888.6 m for 10 torr

17.7 km.

Knowing that aircraft electronics is pressurized 
for 10,000 meters, I think you might have more 
like 50 km to insulate on the low end.   The 
consequences of a pinhole in the insulation are 
that the conductor sputters away.  That's what 
happened to the failed shuttle experiment.

>Or maybe you should just separate the conductors from the standard one
>meter to 100 meters, or even a thousand for that short interval, or step
>down the voltage. I refuse to believe the ionosphere is impenetrable.

You don't get as much effect out of spacing as 
you would think.  It's the effect of more material in parallel.

snip

>Me:
> > the early design estimates of the weight of the finished product usually
> > proves to be far too optimistic
>
>You:
> > Do you have a cite for this statement?
>
>Nope, nor do I think I need one. I think some things are in the category of
>"generally recognized as true", things like the conservation of energy or
>momentum or the optimistic spin promoters give their projects. In a few
>very rare instances something in this category may turn out to be false,
>but it is your job to prove it false not mine to prove it true.

If this were the case for Boeing, their aircraft 
would never get off the ground.

In my experience as an engineer, my designs have 
always worked about as expected.  In any case, 
the consequences of not doing something really 
big in the light of energy problems are really 
awful to consider.  Even if power sats are 
recognized as a way out of the carbon and energy 
problems there are going to be some dire times 
before they can be brought on line.

Keith