[ExI] Michio Kaku makes 3 predictions about the future

[spike at rainier66.com]

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat



 

>…BTW, elsewhere you wrote that we would need to cover the area of Arizona to supply US electricity needs. That sounds suspiciously huge. The estimate I found is 22,000 sq. miles, so an order of magnitude less.

 

>…If we ever defeat our enemies, solar power might become huge in the US.

 

Rafal

 

 

Hi Rafal,

 

That calculation was for replacing all fossil fuels with renewables.  This would include stopping all oil wells and using the solar power to replace falling water, wind, and all combustion energy.  Regarding this last, we could still have liquid fuel propulsion (and would still need it for some applications) but it would be made from solar power using coal as a carbon source.  In that energy cycle, we really aren’t burning coal exactly, but rather only using the coal as a carbon source.  It would still use some coal, but not much.

 

Here's how to estimate that if you wish.  Octane (and Diesel fuel (and jet fuel)) is nearly all carbon by weight.  You wouldn’t be that far off if you estimate that a ton of coal produces a ton of octane (given that the process is driven by externally-generated solar energy rather than burning coal.)  but we can sharpen it down a bit if we recognize that a mole of octane is about 96 grams of carbon and 18 grams of hydrogen.  Before we conclude that a ton of coal could produce 1.2 tons of octane, recall that coal has impurities in it.

 

OK then.  Given enough energy, a ton of coal could produce about a ton of octane, well how much is that?  It is about 160 gallons, enough to fill my V8 Detroit’s tank ten times, or my truck’s tank 5 times, or about 1000 bucks worth of liquid fuel by today’s prices.

 

Google tells me the USA burns about 450 million tons of coal each year currently in generating power.  We burn about 780 million tons of gasoline and Diesel.  Imagine we generated enough solar power to replace the 450 million tons of coal.  We would still need 780 million tons of coal to make the liquid fuels.  Consider however that the 780 million tons of liquid fuel is coming from oil.  If that came from coal instead, it is at least a breakeven environmentally, but really it is a lot better than that: we have plenty of coal right here.

 

It has been 20 years since I did the calculation, so I don’t recall what efficiency I was assuming on the solar power conversion.  Good chance I was using all conservative estimates.  Reasoning: if we are not hard-pressed for space, it is more cost effective to use the lower efficiency solar cells.  If we have Arizona at our disposal, we are not hard-pressed for space.  If the Chinese buy the entire territory of West Sahara from… Morocco and Mauritania and Algeria and Sahrawi Republic simultaneously, giving each of those four outfits about a buck per hectare… the Chinese would have plenty of land to work with, defensible with access to the sea.  At a latitude of about 18 degrees north and less than 5 cm of rain a year, they would have plenty of solar energy to convert.  They could haul coal up from South Africa where there are plenty of mines and plenty of eager coal salesmen.

 

I can envision a place like Western Saraha becoming the world’s solar panel factory, lithium battery factory, coal-importing liquid fuel exporting hotspot, way the hell out where it wouldn’t bother anyone, not even the few thousand people who currently live there.  They would scarcely be aware that most of the territory had been purchased and was being converted to an energy factory.

 

Where this all started: I predict that such a development will happen before (and may even be prerequisite to) any Mars colony.

 

spike

 

 

 

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20220326/cf15f21a/attachment.htm>