[ExI] Michio Kaku makes 3 predictions about the future

[William Flynn Wallace]

I am a little surprised.  I thought we were trying to get away from all
uses of coal because it is dirty.  Does turning it into liquid fuel solve
that problem?   bill w

On Sat, Mar 26, 2022 at 3:45 PM spike jones via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
> ...> On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Michio Kaku makes 3 predictions about the future
>
> On Sat, 26 Mar 2022 at 19:03, spike jones via extropy-chat
> <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> >
> ...
> >
> > Conclusion: massive Saharan power stations will predate (and may even be
> prerequisite to) any Mars colony.
> >
> > spike
> > _______________________________________________
>
>
> Hi Spike
>
> >...The idea of covering the Sahara desert with solar panels has been well
> studied and is not recommended. Small installations near the cities would
> be
> OK, but not massive projects. Cover more than about 20% of the desert and
> you run into big problems. Heat, climate change, transmission costs, etc.
> Solar power is best sited near to where it will be used.
>
>
> BillK
>
> _______________________________________________
>
>
> BillK, the conclusion above assumes the generated power is used as electric
> power.  Problem: there is insufficient market for electric power in that
> area.  Note this is a persistent problem: areas well suited for wind and
> solar power generation are generally not densely populated.
>
> All is not lost however, for there are power-hungry processes which can be
> performed on-site, then the refined products sold.
>
> Consider a process used by South Africa in World War 2.  They had little
> oil
> but plenty of coal, so they used the coal to make fuel.  Problem: the
> process uses up most of the coal, for it burns coal to get the energy to
> convert the remaining coal to fuel.  The process is very inefficient.
> However... with sufficiently abundant supplies of electrical energy,
> supplied by solar panels, coal can be converted to liquid fuels, then the
> liquid fuels shipped to anywhere on the planet.  All that South African
> coal
> could be shipped to the Sahara, converted there using solar power, then off
> it goes to fuel vehicles or whatever else we need.
>
> spike
>
>
>
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