[ExI] Is Mr. Henson somehow involved in this?

[Henrique Moraes Machado]

Spikey> Henrique, it isn't clear to me why the California Public Utilities
> Commission needs to have any input into this.  Any ideas?  If it means the
> commish is putting up some of the money, well, don't count on that:
> Taxifornia is broke, and it isn't going to get any better any time soon.
> Hint: it will get worse sometime soon.  If the Cal PUC is not putting up
> money, I don't see why they have any say in the matter.  It would be 
> between
> Solaren and Pacific Gas & Electric, ja?

No ideas. Maybe it's some legislation issue but I don't live in the 
Taxifornia (or any part of the US of A) and have no idea on how their 
legislation works. The article doesn't say much either. They could be 
fishing for investors, you know -- Hey we have the blessing from Schwarzie, 
now give us some money --

Spike> I see other things in this article that raise red flags.  If they are 
using
> an inflatable mirror and concentrating solar energy on PVs, that looks to 
> me
> right up front to be a loser: the PV life would surely be shortened by a
> concentrator, which is not what you want to do with anything you have paid
> to loft into space.

Indeed. But being the first attempt, this would be more of a proof of 
concept thingy than a commercial one, right? Therefore they can experiment.

Spike> I could imagine on the other hand using a huge inflatable mirror to 
create
> one hell of a Carnot cycle generator, and oh what fun we could have
> designing something like that: plenty of cold space to exhaust the waste
> heat, noooo restrictions at aaaallll on what we could use for working
> fluids, haaa that would be a fun project on which to be a design engineer.

Not being an engineer myself, I had to go to wikipedia to try and have any 
idea of what you're talking about... Ok. It's a Stirling engine. Interesting 
idea. However, correct me if I'm wrong (and I probably am) but isn't heat 
dissipation a big problem in a vacuum?