Re: Re: Summary A

[Brian Mansur <bmansur@oc.edu>]

Brian throwing in more money

>>Actually not is the plant is designed well.  Here in the U.S. we had a 
power
>>plant called three mile Island (bet you heard of it) where the operators 
were
>>runing it at full power with ot coolant, they even overroad all the 
emergency
>>anti-melt down system as they tried to engage.  The plant was designed so
>>well it showed no effects of its melt down.  The operators didn't even 
notice
>>it happening!  Without laboratory equipment you couldn't even detect an
>>effect outside the are. No significat radiation increasde (I.e. it always
>>radiated less than a runing coal plant).  Of course the reactor core was
>>ruined  (anyone for 4 billion $'s worth of radioative slag welded to the
>>insdide of a reactor case imbeddxed in 10 feet of concrete?).

>I didn't know they where thAt save, nice to know though.
>Here in Holland we have some guy who is turning an old nuclear reactor 
plant
>in a recreation palace.

>>You probably meen fusion.  Maybe eventually, but in the present political
>>climate not a chance.  Renewable  produces too little power and has too 
many
>>health and safty problems.  Utilities here are figuring on natural gas 
fueled
>>fuel cells as the next big wave in power plants.  Probably the basic power
>>for the next 40 years or more.

>Yes, I meant fusion. What kind of health problems does renewable energy
>have? Are solar-panels also dangerous?

We all know the answer to that last question.  NOT AT ALL!  I have a bone 
I'm picking a couple of paragraphs ahead if you care to read it.

>I've an idea and wonder if I'm the first one to think of it: Make a deep
>hole (several kilometres) and use the heat difference between down there 
and
>up here to make some energy.

Cool idea!  But as with  the recently lost multi-million dollar experimental 
tethered power satillite demonstrates, developing renewable energy sources 
only sounds easy in principle.  Reality (Murphy's Law) invariably makes you 
pay beaucoup bucks to fully develop new technologies into something usable. 
 Fusion power is another example.

Warning: political opinions incoming!  Its my own "I Have a Dream" speech so 
abort now if you don't want a sermon.


Therefore, I say we invest a $100 billion (100E9 American) dollars into 
developing automated robots that mine their own materials, refine them, and 
build their own factories to make more robots, solar panels, and various 
other widgets.  Then lets have them cover the every desert on the planet 
with solar panels to solve our world power problems.

While we're at it, lets put in a little more cash (you know, what we've 
saved since the robots have now erased our electric bill) into figuring out 
how to make these robots work on the moon and Mercury.  Then we'll have the 
robots cover those hunks of rock with more panels.  Then lets have our 
automated beauties use that power to atmospherically terraform Mars and 
Venus.  To do this they'll beam power to the atmospheric processing stations 
from the moon and Mercury via microwaves, of course.  When that is finished, 
we'll have them build dream homes for settlers to move into as soon as they 
care to develope a space shuttle that doesn't cost a year's tuition per 
pound of payload.

Once we've built a solar system wide civilization, we'll build 1E12 km^2 of 
panels to orbit the sun.  Then, after installing a maser array somewheres 
around that sun of ours, we'll set sail on a maser/ion rocket ship for Tau 
Ceti for a field trip and repeat the processe of space conquest over there. 
 God willing, of course.

Sounds unrealistic and impossible.  (Sound of maniacle laughter throughout 
the computer lab).  Just 500 years ago, no one had ever  traveled around the 
world.  Just three hundred years ago, the word "industrialization" had no 
meaning.  Just two hundred years ago, most people didn't know what 
electricity even was.  Just one hundred years ago, we couldn't fly (except 
like a stone or in balloons).  Just forty years ago (isn't this sentence 
structure getting boring) man could only suck vacuum in a laboratory.  Now 
we have a human in space twenty four hours a day, 90 minutes an orbit. 
 Thirty years ago, man had yet to walk on the moon.  Just last year Michael 
Jackson got married and if that can happen, ANYTHING can.

The point is that very little is impossible given time.  It really amazes me 
how fast humans have advanced as a race in just the last 2000 years.  Up 
till the Roman Empire, we were crawling at the blistering technological pace 
of maybe one really useful discovery a century (perhaps decade but who 
cares).

I'm going to sober up a bit  to reality and no I do not drink let alone get 
drunk.  The $100 billion price tag I mentioned for developing automated 
robot societies (that serve mankind of course) may be way underpriced.  Some 
technological problems are so complex that they simply aren't going to be 
solved no matter how much cash is thrown into working them.  Of course, any 
example that I cite could, at any time, be solved by someone perhaps working 
in their garage.  Still, I'm convinced that it is up to God just how far 
mankind will advance.  Which has turned out to be pretty far.  But that is 
just my opinion.

Okay, I've rambled on enough.  If you've read this far, thanks for your 
time.  All this before is just a dream I have.  But it could happen if we 
care to try to make it happen.  I'll shut up while leaving you with this 
thought that a friend of mine once said, "Dreams are wings for the soul." 
 Have a nice day.