Re: Introducing Myself
On 13 May 2013, at 5:42 am, E. S. zoo...@hotmail.com wrote: Also I don't have a screenname picked out for this list. I try not to share my real name online. Hello. There are plenty of real names and plenty of ‘nyms here, so don’t be shy either way. “ES” or “zoon33” both seem reasonable enough - as long as you’re consistent or let the rest of us know your wishes who are we to argue? It’s been quiet recently but every now and again this place sputters into life… I doubt it’ll ever reach the volumes of The Old Days again (unless DB WRITES MORE UPLIFT BOOKS…) but there’s always room for discussion. Cheers, Charlie. ___ http://box535.bluehost.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Power satellites was and the rest of you
On Mon, Mar 3, 2014 at 11:00 AM, Ellen S. zoo...@hotmail.com wrote: snip Solar energy beamed down from outer space? I don't know anything about that. Try http://nextbigfuture.com/2013/09/propulsion-lasers-for-large-scale.html The big objection to solar and other forms of renewable energy is the cost. It's 10-20 times what we need for a vibrant economy. Gail Tverberg makes a case that is $30-50 dollar a bbl oil. Over that and the economy can't grow enough to cover past commitments. Energy is fungible if you can afford the conversion cost. For making synthetic oil out of CO2, water and electric power, the power has to be in the 1-2 cents per kWh to make oil in that range. Power satellites will do that _if_ we can get the transport cost to GEO down to $100/kg. That's about a hundred fold reduction from the current price we pay to lift communication satellites to GEO. It is also ~100 times more than the minimum energy cost if you had something like a moving cable space elevator. Between the Skylon rocket plane and a big propulsion laser, the math works out that at half a million tons per year or more we can get the price down that low. It would be trivial to get humanity off fossil fuels if there was a less expensive energy source. So why space? Five times the sunlight as the best places on earth and more like 10-20 in cloudy places. Materials cost, 1% of what it takes on the ground because no wind and no gravity. In GEO, the sun shines 99% of the time so there is no need for storage. Energy payback time? Under two months. Time to displace fossil fuels is a bit over two decades from the start. Start might have happened last July with the Skylon engine development being funded. Sounds hopeful? Would you like to help on the technical issues? Even more we need people to spread the idea that there is at least one solution to the economic, energy, carbon and climate problems. Keith ___ http://box535.bluehost.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Introducing Myself
-Original Message- From: Charlie Bell char...@culturelist.org To: Killer Bs (David Brin et al) Discussion brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Tue, Mar 4, 2014 6:22 am Subject: Re: Introducing Myself I doubt it’ll ever reach the volumes of The Old Days again (unless DB WRITES MORE UPLIFT BOOKS…) but there’s always room for discussion. Cheers,Charlie. At one point, there was Between a Grok and a Hard Pace on the net. My fanfic set 100 years beforeBrightness Reef. A Qheuen challenges a G'Kek to a downhill race--and wins. Then for the sake of continued peace, it's all hushed up. Only worth being a fanfic when written. Vilyehm ___ http://box535.bluehost.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Domain Hierarchy
On Tue, Mar 4, 2014 at 5:22 AM, trent shipley trent.ship...@gmail.com wrote: I once read a quote that went something like, No action against climate change has ever been taken that resulted in material economic injury to those who took the action. This lead me to think that despite the knowledge about climate change at a physical level, humans make decisions based on the domains (not the sciences) of psychology, economics, and politics. Climate change then, is not a hard science problem, it is an economic and political problem. The solution can't be had through privation, no matter how much scientists say extreme conservation may be necessary, but has to involve a path through shared prosperity. Oh my, do I agree with you! After considering the problems since 1975, I think there is a solution based on new technology. Some of the new technology, the Skylon rocket plane, has hundreds of millions ($) committed to it. I referenced it in a previous posting today on this list. The second thing it made me think is that while it cannot be said that one science is more important than another, the discursive domains indexed by sciences can be ranked as more or less foundational or derived, or more pejoratively as reductionist or ramified. Society Politics Economics Psychology Biology Chemistry Physics That's a good list. I think the first four are emergent from evolutionary psychology. That in turn is based on evolutionary biology, which is emergent from chemistry and physics. (Everything is, of course, mediated by psychology, but leaving that aside.) As you go down the scale knowledge becomes more precise and attainable, but relevance to daily experience lessens. As you go up the scale, the ramified complexity of the domain makes knowledge imprecise, but the lived relevance is high. This explains the frustration of natural scientists who find good science rendered irrelevant in the face of psychology,economics, politics, and society. That's well stated. And then there are the engineers (like me) who just want to solve the damned problems. It's just an economic/engineering problem to get the cost of renewable energy down. It's not like the sun doesn't put out enough energy. Keith ___ http://box535.bluehost.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
