<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><head><meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=us-ascii"><meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 14 (filtered medium)"><style><!--
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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'> extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Kelly Anderson<br><b>Sent:</b> Wednesday, November 13, 2013 10:57 AM<br><b>To:</b> ExI chat list<br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [ExI] Dark Matter<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal>On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 11:09 AM, spike <<a href="mailto:spike66@att.net" target="_blank">spike66@att.net</a>> wrote:<o:p></o:p></p><div><div><blockquote style='border:none;border-left:solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0in'><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'> </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Note how empty and how vast and how sunny it is out there. Note the stark desert beauty everywhere. Go across Highway 50 in Nevada is a great example. Stop somewhere</span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>..</span><o:p></o:p></p></div></blockquote><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>While highway 50 is a breathtaking example of loneliness, it's also a great example of why the government shouldn't be in charge of deciding where roads go. What a tremendous waste of taxpayer dollars! Any private company that would have built it as a toll road would have LONG AGO gone out of business.<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>I hate that highways are the example people always bring up of why we need large government projects. They do it so poorly.<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>-Kelly<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Kelly I totally agree, so don’t interpret the next bit as refuting it in any way. Here’s our chance to redeem a mistake of the past, to turn a stumbling block into a stepping stone.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Highway 50 had enormous potential as a showcase location for ground based solar. It’s about 600 km of paved two-lane with a good solid base under it and very little rain, little cloud cover ever out there in that big old desert. What we could do is use all those Chinese PV factories’ output, install ground based PV a km or more either side of the road, collect the power every km or so, use the power to convert low-grade bituminous coal from Wyoming and Utah or biomass from California’s Central Valley to liquid hydrocarbon fuel. Autonomous trucks would haul in water and feedstock, then haul out Diesel oil. Since the trucks are autonomous, we could use smaller trucks to preserve the road, or even do stuff like taking standard tanker trucks and retrofitting the big Diesel engines with smaller ones so that the trucks cruise at 80 kph instead of the usual 110-130, so that alone would nearly double the fuel economy in hauling out synfuel. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>The road already exists, and isn’t being used for anything, snaking all the way out thru that lonely desert. The PV factories in China already exist, and they are filled with workers who will rise up and kill if they don’t have something to do. We could use Chinese PVs, American sunshine and coal, synthesize the fuel in Nevada and ship it all the way back to China if we wanted. Time to fire up the old spreadsheet! <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>There is so much empty land out there, it would be interesting to estimate what could be done with 1000 square km of ground based PV used for biomass or coal conversion to liquids. Highway 50 was built for the wrong reasons, but if we used that as a showcase for a huge GBPV installation, it would be an example of using cheap energy now to create an energy source for expensive energy times in the future. A successful demonstration of that would give the world new hope.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>spike<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>