[ExI] Millions of tons to space

[Eugen Leitl]

On Sun, Apr 03, 2011 at 11:37:30AM -0700, Keith Henson wrote:

> > I just don't understand how the foresight isn't in place already.
> 
> The simple reason is that energy sources are expensive.  Solar and
> wind are particularly so because they are dilute and only there part

If insolation on outer building skin is enough to drive the building
I don't call that dilute, I call that exactly right. A little bit
more than you can cool comfortably, and you've got failure modes
like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corium_%28nuclear_reactor%29 

> time.

When production matches demand peak you can have 2% of total
produce >20% (17 GW of 85 GW peak) and allow you to switch
off nuclear and coal. Another decade of such growht, and
you'd get >100% of peak. Sure, you'd have to cover with gas
turbines and micro co-gen for really dark, windstill days.
 
> If there were a way to get solar energy for less than the cost of
> coal, gas or nuclear, then it would happen, but for the most part

It is already there sometimes and in location. Give it less than
10 years for Mid-Europe. 

> people just don't know how to do it, or in one case, (SBSP) the front
> end cost to get the transportation cost down is in the $100 B range.
> 
> But you won't see a lot of discussion here or any other place I know
> about that gets into the details.  I guess it's just too hard and
> people will not take the effort to understand it even if they are
> able.

This used to surprise me, but no longer does.
 
> The few people of influence who do understand what we are up against
> seem to be expecting a population collapse.

So what? We've done it before, a few times, in fact.

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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