In reply to Terry Blanton's message of Fri, 29 Apr 2011 18:41:47 -0400:
Hi,
[snip]
>On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 5:58 PM, <mix...@bigpond.com> wrote:
>
>> Please don't advocate stupid wastes of energy. Current known World Nickel
>> reserves (140 million tons) are only going to last us 100 years *at our
>> current
>> rate of use*. If we start wasting energy on stupid things like heating roads
>> and
>> sidewalks, we will run out in no time flat.
>
>You keep ignoring the fact that with an ECat propulsion system, we can
>fetch water from comets and nickel from asteroids and get all the
>stuff we need.
>
>T
I hope you are right.
However I don't think roads will ever be heated anyway, because I expect
"lifter" based air transport to "take off" in a big way, so roads may become
largely redundant.
("lifters" are less energy efficient than fixed wing aircraft, but more
efficient than helicopters, and they have the advantage of the ability to carry
vast payloads while being able to take off and land vertically).
I foresee aircraft with payload capacities of hundreds of thousands of tons,
because the decrease in energy efficiency is not really a consideration when you
have a cheap, compact power source like CF.
(They would be flying saucer shaped).
Regards,
Robin van Spaandonk
http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/Project.html
