[ExI] EP and Peak oil.

[hkhenson]

At 09:13 AM 4/6/2008, BillK wrote:

snip

>That is not the only danger. It becomes a single point of failure for
>our civilization.
>That is too big a risk.

How?  It's a serious question.  If you can make a solid case for the 
whole constellation of a thousand or more of them being wiped out in 
a single failure, then perhaps they are too much risk.  The 
consequences of not replacing carbon fuels is a really dire risk as 
well.  Consider that something like 3/4 of humans will die in the collapse.

>It would be like building one huge nuclear power station for the whole
>of the US. Too much centralisation is 'a bad thing'.  You would have
>to shut the country down for weeks to repair a major fault.
>
>Distributed energy sources is the failsafe way to go. Future buildings
>covered with solar cells, etc. become self-sufficient, with power
>stations used to supply factories and big energy consumers.

Work out the numbers for a typical apartment building in NYC.  Then 
tell us how much energy each person gets.  Re putting them on 
buildings, remember that the amount of sunlight you get on earth is a 
small part of what you can get out in space.  If you have a square 
mile of them, no matter how little they cost, where is the best place 
to put them?  If the cells are *free* you get the same answer.

NUMBERS people NUMBERS.  You are engaged in useless flapping without 
at least a rough engineering analysis of what you say.  Ask for help 
if you don't know how to do it, but please don't make statements of 
an engineering nature without doing the damned numbers.

Keith