[ExI] Sell your Bitcoins!

[Keith Henson]

Spike, concentrated solar will not do it. I looked into that while
trying to think of what might be done with Ivanpah. Maybe you have an
idea of how to use concentrated solar to make syngas, but I failed. I
considered falling coal in steam behind a window, but the problems
defeated me.

Keith

On Fri, Jun 5, 2026 at 10:48 AM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com>
> Sent: Friday, 5 June, 2026 9:21 AM
> To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Cc: John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com>; spike at rainier66.com
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Sell your Bitcoins!
>
> >...I guess you have not been watching my proposal that makes intermittent power into steady power. BTW, there is a more efficient way to use coal with solar or wind. Burning coal gets around 2 MWh/ton.
> Vaporizing it in steam with 4 MWh of intermittent power produces 12.1 MWh of syngas, which can be burned in a combined cycle turbine to get about 7.5 MWh anytime you want it.
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> Best wishes,
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> Keith
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> Keith I have been watching that and I wish you all the best with it.  I fully agree with the notion of using concentrated solar energy to gasify trash and biomass, including coal.  We need ways to store energy while the sun shines and the wind blows.  Gasifying coal, biomass and trash is a great way to do that.  I didn't comment much because I have been away.  I still haven't commented on my experience in Germany, but I might later.  They are experiencing something analogous to California's unfortunate experience with solar and wind: the power is very expensive if you go much abouve about 20% renewable.  This causes their heavy industry to be uncompetitive.  Now they want their nukes back.
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> spike
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