In reply to Hoyt A. Stearns Jr.'s message of Tue, 26 Dec 2006 19:33:32 -0700: Hi, [snip] >Some half-baked ideas from memory on previous lists (somewhat jocularly): > >Buying cheap land under high tension power lines. >Selling energy stocks ( and the many subsidiary industry stocks) short. >Starting filling station remodeling companies. >Buying Neodymium (The Chinese have already cornered that market :-( ). >Making retrofit car engines. >Inventing heat dissipation technology for portable devices. >Selling road and sidewalk heaters to melt snow in north east cities. >Build perpetual hot air balloons. >Selling power back to the power companies (~US$60.00 per day for a >residential generator unit). >Desalination plants. >No more concern for energy efficiency in homes, vehicles -- the end of the >insulation business. >No more interest in the middle east at all -- let them go their own way. >Extracting gold from sea water. >Making gasoline from air and water. >Disinfecting drinking and pool water by boiling it. >Selling scrap power plant parts. >Dismantling wind farms and hydro plants. >Replace broadcast antenna towers with perpetually hovering helicopters. >Completely new airplane designs where no fuel has to be onboard, and >efficiency doesn't matter. >Self heating soup cans. >Self cooling soft drink cans. >Car air conditioners and heaters that are on all the time. >Send your car up into the air ( hot air balloon or helicopter rotor) or >around the block 'til you call it back -- no parking places needed. >Buildings supported by compressed air (should be more immune to earthquakes >as well as cheaper).
They are worse than half-baked, they are suicidal. Let's hope that humanity has enough sense to avoid such stupidity. We currently have a global warming problem, *at least* partially driven by the greenhouse effect. While FE would solve that problem, extreme profligate waste will create a new problem of direct heat overload. It is therefore imperative that efficiency measures be continued along with the introduction of FE. Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://users.bigpond.net.au/rvanspaa/ Competition provides the motivation, Cooperation provides the means.
