When will we be able to afford space settlement?

(John Ordover) wrote in
om:

Take heart, spacefans: it may be a long time before SPS are *cheap*,
but within our lifetimes they will become necessary, and so they will
be built.

They will not become necessary. Manure-to-oil and garbage-to-oil
conversion is far more likely than SPS, involves less invesment and
fewer new technologies. Check out today's Science Times for more on
this.


Both manure-to-oil and garbage-to-oil are, in effect, a recycling of solar-
biological energy sources. These sources are severely limited by biological
conversion efficiency and maximum collection area. We are *already* using
some 5-6 times more energy than could be collected by these methods, even
assuming all possible extremes in expanding agriculture.

If you wish to limit your energy needs to that which can be met by such
methods, you need to cut away some 80 percent of your energy use. This
means: No personal transport of any sort, only public bulk transport. No
long-range travel, ever. Minimal processed metals. Minimal synthetic
materials.

Using the junk-to-oil vector makes perfect sense, *as a way to get rid of
junk*. It is not a viable source of either energy or raw materials.

On 21 Apr 2004 19:49:47 +0200, in a place far, far away, Marvin
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

(John Ordover) wrote in
. com:

Take heart, spacefans: it may be a long time before SPS are *cheap*,
but within our lifetimes they will become necessary, and so they will
be built.

They will not become necessary. Manure-to-oil and garbage-to-oil
conversion is far more likely than SPS, involves less invesment and
fewer new technologies. Check out today's Science Times for more on
this.


Both manure-to-oil and garbage-to-oil are, in effect, a recycling of solar-
biological energy sources. These sources are severely limited by biological
conversion efficiency and maximum collection area. We are *already* using
some 5-6 times more energy than could be collected by these methods, even
assuming all possible extremes in expanding agriculture.

If you wish to limit your energy needs to that which can be met by such
methods, you need to cut away some 80 percent of your energy use. This
means: No personal transport of any sort, only public bulk transport. No
long-range travel, ever. Minimal processed metals. Minimal synthetic
materials.

Using the junk-to-oil vector makes perfect sense, *as a way to get rid of
junk*. It is not a viable source of either energy or raw materials.

Maybe he just had in mind the manure and garbage he personally seems
to generate, which might supply at least half the planet.

"Rand Simberg" wrote in message
...
....
On the road?

Yes, that's called "gas stations."

Ever drive the interstate? The gas stations are often 2-300 miles apart, and
you better know where the next one is and how empty your tank, or it is a
long - cold - lonely wait. Well connected to the energy infrastructure does
not mean 3 hours and 500 miles from your next refill at some station that
itself only exists because our gas can be trucked hundreds of miles to the
site. No pipelines. No superconducting high power transmission lines,
nothing but empty sage brush covered slopes, one gas station, one beer bar,
and a lone house or two. There are a lot of us who regularly drive far from
the infrastructure and depend on readily transportable and low cost fuel.

"Eric Gisin" wrote in message
...
....
Once you start a hydrogen economy based on natural gas, it will stay that
way
until natural gas becomes more expensive than electricity. That's probably
50
years or more.

Not sure this is the way it would turn out. With electricity pegged against
bulk natural gas, and hydrogen against electricity, the consumption for H2
production would rapidly drive electricity costs up. That's today. In 5-10
years a bunch of new nukes could come on line to ameliorate that, or perhaps
a lot of new coal plants? What did you expect in 50 years?

On Wed, 21 Apr 2004 18:10:28 GMT, in a place far, far away, "Fred B.
McGalliard" made the phosphor on
my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

"Rand Simberg" wrote in message
.. .
...
On the road?

Yes, that's called "gas stations."

Ever drive the interstate? The gas stations are often 2-300 miles apart, and
you better know where the next one is and how empty your tank, or it is a
long - cold - lonely wait. Well connected to the energy infrastructure does
not mean 3 hours and 500 miles from your next refill at some station that
itself only exists because our gas can be trucked hundreds of miles to the
site.

It does if it works. It does work, for the most part, for anyone
capable of basic planning.

No pipelines. No superconducting high power transmission lines,
nothing but empty sage brush covered slopes, one gas station, one beer bar,
and a lone house or two. There are a lot of us who regularly drive far from
the infrastructure and depend on readily transportable and low cost fuel.

That's called fuel tanks. The infrastructure is there, for anyone
minimally competent.

"Fred B. McGalliard" writes:
Not sure this is the way it would turn out. With electricity pegged against
bulk natural gas, and hydrogen against electricity, the consumption for H2
production would rapidly drive electricity costs up. That's today. In 5-10
years a bunch of new nukes could come on line to ameliorate that, or perhaps
a lot of new coal plants? What did you expect in 50 years?

It seems like a crime against nature to generate electricity from coal
then turn around and use that electricity to produce hydrogen.

Why not crack the coal and use that to produce hydrogen (or at least a
shorter hydrocarbon you could easily convert into hydrogen). I recall
research was, at one time, being done into ways to convert coal into
oil. This would be similar, since hydrogen is currently produced from
cracking hydrocarbons, not from water and electricity.

Jeff
--
Remove "no" and "spam" from email address to reply.
If it says "This is not spam!", it's surely a lie.

"Dan Bloomquist" wrote in message
...


Ian St. John wrote:

And you ignore economics which is silly. Erratic power supplies like
wind,
solar, and tidal generation can be used nicely to provide hydrogen by
electrolysis that creates it's own 'power storage' to level output. That
is,
the hydrogen is the power storage that is needed so conversion losses
are
just subsumed under 'storage costs' that would have to be paid for the
power
source anyway..

There are 20,000Mw of pumped storage in this country, 0 hydrogen. I
think it is you that is ignoring the economics.

Rather it is you who ignore the fact that current demand for hydrogen is
near zero. Supply and demand. Provide the supply and demand will go up. We
did it with gasoline. It will happen as the need develops. And this is not
an argument against my point of errratic power sources being easiest to
convert to hydrogen for which you can CREATE a local demand such as to warm
houses, produce electricity on demand ( thus the storage paradigm ) or as
chemical feedstock.


Best, Dan.

--
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http://ReserveAnalyst.com
No EXTRA stuff for email.

"jeff findley" wrote in message
...
"Fred B. McGalliard" writes:
Not sure this is the way it would turn out. With electricity pegged
against
bulk natural gas, and hydrogen against electricity, the consumption for
H2
production would rapidly drive electricity costs up. That's today. In
5-10
years a bunch of new nukes could come on line to ameliorate that, or
perhaps
a lot of new coal plants? What did you expect in 50 years?

It seems like a crime against nature to generate electricity from coal
then turn around and use that electricity to produce hydrogen.

It is. It is called a 'red herring argument. Hydrogen can be produced in a
dozen ways, from chemical, to electrolysis to biological processes,etc. That
is why it is a useful 'common carrier' of energy.

In the case of coal, combined electrciity and hydrogen production can
producee hydrogen from coal free of the coal emissions, and at high
efficiencies.
http://www.es.anl.gov/Biodefense/Hyd...ecovery%20.htm
http://tinyurl.com/2lyje


Why not crack the coal and use that to produce hydrogen (or at least a
shorter hydrocarbon you could easily convert into hydrogen). I recall
research was, at one time, being done into ways to convert coal into
oil. This would be similar, since hydrogen is currently produced from
cracking hydrocarbons, not from water and electricity.

That makes sense for creating hydrogen from coal with sequestration of the
CO2 production. The exhaust from the process is H2 + CO2 where the H2 can be
drawn off by semipermeable ceramics that pass only the light hydrogen
molecules. This allows the hot compressed CO2 to be reacted with magnesium
silicates to produce a useful mineral product or just for permanent
sequestration. The lack of ash, particulates, SOx, or NOx is just a bonus.
http://www.ees.lanl.gov/pdfs/6_zeroemission_52.pdf
http://www.netl.doe.gov/publications...McCormick2.PDF


Jeff
--
Remove "no" and "spam" from email address to reply.
If it says "This is not spam!", it's surely a lie.

"jeff findley" wrote in message
...
"Fred B. McGalliard" writes:
Not sure this is the way it would turn out. With electricity pegged
against
bulk natural gas, and hydrogen against electricity,
....
Why not crack the coal and use that to produce hydrogen

Sorry. I meant hydrogen is also pegged against natural gas (slip of the
keyboard there), so both E and H2 will rise proportionately, and, as you
say, it makes no sense to turn perfectly good CH4 into a lesser amount of
energy in H2 when in general one can just burn the CH4 directly for about
the same damage. The H2 conversion makes some sense with very good fuel
cells and a strong need to reduce local pollution from combustion
byproducts, but that is really a marginal case I think.

In article ,
says...

"Richard Schumacher" wrote in message
...
...
Take heart, spacefans: it may be a long time before SPS are *cheap*, but
within our lifetimes they will become necessary, and so they will be
built.

But Richard, they only become necessary if they also become cheap.

No, that's not an accurate premise. Whether they are cheap or not there
may be no alternative. Take things like medicine, for example. It's
not cheap, but it is necessary and people pay for it. Present usage of
fossil fuels is unsustainable regardless of the price. All that higher
prices might do is ration the fuels over a longer period of time. But
fundamentally, fossil fuels still are dangerous to our health and the
health of our planet.
Look at CFC use as another example. They were cheap and effective. But
even arch conservatives like Maggie Thatcher became convinced that they
had the potential to create an environmental disaster and lead the
charge to ban them. Now we use other refrigerants that are more
expensive and don't work as well. But those refrigerants aren't as
harmful to the environment. Just because an alternative exists which
might be cheaper and even more efficient doesn't mean that it's
impossible to transition away from it for other legitimate reasons.


The
current high price implies that they, and the power they might generate, are
the exclusive property of the absurdly rich.

No, many renewables are not nearly as expensive as people make them out
to be. There are all kinds of cases where they can be quite cost
competitive. Passive solar thermal heating of ones home, for example,
usually only adds a small fraction to the price of the house and can
easily pay for itself in a short perioed of time when compared to using
a conventional source like natural gas.

--
Quibbler (quibbler247atyahoo.com)
"It is fashionable to wax apocalyptic about the
threat to humanity posed by the AIDS virus, 'mad cow'
disease, and many others, but I think a case can be
made that faith is one of the world's great evils,
comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to
eradicate." -- Richard Dawkins