[extropy-chat] A Grim Vision ...?

[codehead at readysetsurf.com]

On 15 Apr 2007 at 14:10, Keith Henson wrote:

> You could also look up the power bills for cooling Biosphere II.

When Biosphere II was put up for sale in 2005, the total power bill 
averaged $150,000 a month.  (One of the reasons why it was put up for 
sale is that sales of tours didn't even cover the power bill, much 
less the other operational costs.)

Of course, there's a great deal of machinery in Biosphere II that has 
nothing to do with cooling.  However, the management from Columbia 
University (which oversaw Biosphere II operations from 1995 to 2003) 
believed that if necessary, Biosphere II could run on a third of the 
power that it normally used.  Many of the non-cooling functions could 
be shut down (which would certainly alter the ecology inside), and 
the mean temperature would have to rise.

So it's likely that ballpark figure for the  cooling portion of the 
bill averages less than $75,000 per month, but probably more than 
$30,000.

E. Sandblade