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Energy problem solved!!!???!!!

Now, there's a surprise, Supinstein... :rolleyes:

Star Trek shields are needed for that project... Otherwise, interesting! :)
 
Wind farms in the upper atmosphere suspended by helium balloons would be good but helium is non renewable. It looks like helium is disappearing as a resource and it amazes me that its still used for kids balloons and not saved for uses such as MRI machines.
 
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gorski said:
Now, there's a surprise, Supinstein... :rolleyes:

Star Trek shields are needed for that project... Otherwise, interesting! :)
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Indeed, the risk register for that project hasn't sufficiently accounted for Klingons.

Nah, orbital solar arrays are cool, with Space X's desire to reduce the cost to orbit by 2/3rds or more they might even start becoming affordable. Sod solar roadways, a reflector in geo-synchronous orbit that focusses more light down onto a conventional array. More power for longer = win.
 
And we could let young lasses bathe in the concentrated sunlight for a few minutes at a time - the ultimate instant tanning booth :cool:
 
Haha, quite! :D

Bob, the problems up there are multiple, from what I can see, even without Klingons and other assorted love bites...
 
Death by thousand (micro) cuts... That's what's not to like up there - seriously dangerous over a prolonged period, for a huge array, enormous investment...

Plus our debris, solar flares....
 
gorski said:
Death by thousand (micro) cuts... That's what's not to like up there - seriously dangerous over a prolonged period, for a huge array, enormous investment...

Plus our debris, solar flares....
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Bollocks, the sensitive control area won't be any larger than a standard satellite and the rest just has to be engineered to survive/tolerate micro meteor impacts. Better the chance of a spec of space dust than the certainty of car crashes for example.
 
As I said, those are very vulnerable, to multiple possible threats... for which some kind of shielding would be good to have... But today we do not have such tech, sadly...
 
gentlegreen said:
I wonder if the chap in Croatia has a gas-powered fridge.
I bet gorski has never encountered those ...
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TBF, probably anyone over 50 has, but thankfully (except for the "camping" types fridges found in campervans and boats) they're not exactly useful anymore, given how massively-inefficient they are, compared to their electric brothers and sisters.
 
I read that lockheed martin recon they've got a working fusion reactor on the drawing board and aim to have a truck sized reactor ready in the next decade.

:hmm:
 
fractionMan said:
Numbers. Facts. Fuck em, DREAM A LITTLE would be fine.

Trying to frame it as anything other than a nice dream is ridiculous.

(fwiw, the numbers are still fucking shit even if you put the road through the Sahara desert and have the glass magically cleaned by invisible desert pixies. not quite as shit, but shit nonetheless)
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I think that the "maintenance" problems with the glass might be over-estimated, but perfecting the glass to offer a decent flawless panel at an affordable price might be difficult, given the fail-rate even world-leaders like Pilkington have on their various techno-glasses and laminates (high fail-rates meaning that costs stay high), and we should be aware that factory-testing, while it simulates the hard wear, very often cannot simulate the multiple concurrent assaults materials get "in the wild".
 
Crispy said:
If the world's most efficient solar panel was also the world's most grippy road surface, it still wouldn't make sense to make roads out of them, because the panels would get dirty, and have cars and buildings casting shadows on them. No amount of magic technology can remove these drawbacks.
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Doesn't (given "the world's most efficient solar panel,,and grippy surface") part of the "for" argument reduce to "there are millions of kilometres of roads, therefore roads are a good venue for solar power capture"?
 
DotCommunist said:
I read that lockheed martin recon they've got a working fusion reactor on the drawing board and aim to have a truck sized reactor ready in the next decade.

:hmm:
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It'd be great if that were true, and a fusion-generation based economy would render cleaner technologies cheaper, but I'm not going to hold my breath for them to have something ready to bring to market in 10 years.
 
ViolentPanda said:
It'd be great if that were true, and a fusion-generation based economy would render cleaner technologies cheaper, but I'm not going to hold my breath for them to have something ready to bring to market in 10 years.
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the article said prototype ready in 10 years- alleging new magnetic containment field refinments etc.

but its always 10 years away, is fusion. Just one more push...
 
Dr_Herbz said:
Regardless of what the future holds as far as technology is concerned, the question still remains as to why you'd want to take solar panels and run vehicles over them, when the solar panels could instead be used as a canopy to cover the footpaths, thus reducing their repair costs, whilst ensuring greater exposure to sunlight and maybe even keeping pedestrians dry when it rains...?
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T'other thing has to be "why do we always look for technological fixes, rather than managing resources properly?" (obviously there's a one-word answer to that - capitalism).
 
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