[ExI] EP and Peak oil.

[hkhenson]

Gary Miller wrote:

 >Keith and John were discussing:
 >At 10:34 AM 4/5/2008, John K Clark wrote:
(keith)

 >> > Nanotube cable probably won't be much of a conductor.
 >
 >>At the very least some nanotubes are better conductors of electricity
 >than silver and better conductors of heat than diamond. There is even
 >some indication that multi walled nanotubes may be ballistic
 >conductors, that means their resistance is only weakly coupled to their
 >length; at least that's how short ones seem to act, nobody knows how
 >one 22000 miles long would behave except to say it would be better than any
metal.
 >Maybe much much better.
 >
 > > how you are going to restrain the magnetic forces pushing the cables
 > > apart?
 >
 >>>Magnetism is produced by current, high voltage power lines don't carry
 >>a lot of current.
 >
 >>Please put numbers on this statement.  I think you will be astounded.

 >My Response:

(no numbers included)

A GW is 1,000,000,000 watts.  The highest 
voltages that work for DC transmission are less 
than a million volts.  So just to get down 1 GW 
by wires would mean 1000 amps, and we are talking 
thousands of GW.  Now ignoring all the other 
problems that (for example) burned out the 
shuttle tether experiment, just consider the force acting on the wires

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amp%C3%A8re%27s_force_law

"Thus, for two parallel wires carrying a current 
of 1 A, and spaced apart by 1 m in 
vacuum,<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amp%C3%A8re%27s_force_law#cite_note-4>[5] 
the force on each wire per unit length is exactly 2 × 10-7 N/m."

It would be .2 N/m for 1000 amps, which is 200 
N/km, or about 7.14 million N going to GEO.  The 
force *does* go down as down as you separate the 
wires, but it also goes up by the *square* of the 
current.  What is going on is that a loop of wire 
carrying a current tends to open up to a hoop in space.

 From the URL you cited

"From an engineering perspective, Ultraconductors 
are a fundamentally new and enabling technology. 
They are lightweight, flexible, transparent, and 
possess magnetic, electric, and electronic 
properties of exceptionally high commercial value."

Does this raise any flags in your mind?  Hint, 
are there any other transparent conductors?  Is that even possible?

snip

 >My biggest fear of such a technology is that it would be to easy to knock
totally out of operation in war time.

Are you talking about using wires for transmission or power sats in general?

There would be thousands of them in GEO and 
thousands of rectennas on earth.  How are you 
proposing either one could be knocked out, and in 
particular how are they more vulnerable than coal or nuclear plants?

 >And would be devastating to any
economy depending on that energy source. Maybe by making such a system the
property of the world or a large group of developed nations it would prevent
any nation at war with one of the countries depending on that energy source
from making it a target and risking the wrath of the other nations.

One point of building these things is to avoid 
wars fought over dwindling resources.

Keith