Re: Solar powered lasers in space

On Sep 15, 8:31 am, BradGuth <bradg...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
As per usual it looks great, except you've excluded the usual ENRON/
Exxon 10X factor, making that 0.03 cents per kWh into at least 0.30
cents per kWh, but lo and behold at least it's clean and renewable, as
well as usable for many other life and Earth saving things.


Enron still exists as an assetless shell corporation emerging from
bankruptcy in 2004. It sold its last asset to Prisma Energy in 2006.
Prior to its 2001 bankruptcy, Enron had 21,000 employees and Fortune
magazine voted it the most innovative company for six consecutive
years, and claimed revenues of $111 billion. It turned out that these
revenues were arrived at through massive accounting fraud, which
ultimately caused the dissolution of Arthur Anderson, and the arrest
of key individuals and suicide of others.

Exxon replaced Esso in 1973 as a brandname, which was derived from S-O
after the 1911 breakup of Standard Oil. Anti-trust settlement. In
areas where the Esso brand was blackballed by consumers, the name was
changed to Humble Oil - haha.. These were all absorbed and integrated
by the New Jersy company Exxon.

Exxon no longer exists, it became part of ExxonMobil in 1999 - and is
one of the largest integrate oil companies in the world. A direct
descendant of John D. Rockerfeller's Standard Oil. It has $377.6
billion in revenue, and $517.9 billion in market capitalization.
ExxonMobil actually produces 6.5 million barrels of oil per day and
distributes it at thousands of retail locations throughout the world -
employing 82,000 people directly and hundreds of thousands indirectly
to create the fuels it sells.

Have you figured out which significant group of topic/author stocking
naysayers is in charge of your private parts, and why your research
and best of intentions are not getting Usenet or any other group net
supported?

Well, can you name anyone anywhere that garners support through
usenet? I can't think of a soul. So, I don't understand your
question. I think like most people, I post things for my own reasons,
with little or no expectation of response. I do value some responses,
and rarely, I get pissed off at especially dumbass responses.


Too bad that I'm not in charge, as your space based laser cannon
energy would have been 50/50 public funded as of a dacade ago,

I can imagine you get a little thrill of excitement thinking that you
have such power - but you don't. So, what's the point? I don't want
public funding anyway. So, I wouldn't have accepted it. Our tax
dollars should go to educating our kids and paying police and fire and
stuff like that, so that companies have halfway intelligent workers
and everyone has a decent job and lives in a safe community.
..
as will
as any terrestrial applications of converting solar energy into wussy
hydrogen or good old robust h2o2.

Your comments about H2O2 make no sense. H2O2 is an explosive. Its use
in Russian torpedoes caused the famous sinking of the Kursk. Gasoline
doesn't do this. Neither does hydrogen.

For stationary applications - pipeline delivery of gaseous hydrogen
under high pressure is adequate and cost-effective. For mobil
applications using hydrogen to convert coal into gasoline by direct
hydrogenation is the easiest way to go at present, with a strong R&D
into using liquid hydrogen directly as a gasoline replacement.

Check it out - The US burns 1.1 billion tons of coal each year - 880
million tons to make electricity in coal fired power plants. This 880
million tons of coal can be replaced by 142 million tons of hydrogen
made from 1.28 billion tons of deionized water - via solar/laser
electrolysis. It takes 50 MWh of solar/laser electricity to make a
ton of hydrogen this way. So, this is 810 GW of laser energy - beamed
24/7 to Earth.

Now, .0.03 cents per kWh, is $0.30 per MWh, so, 50 MWh is $15.00 -
that's the cost of each ton of hydrogen. So, 142 million tons is
$2.13 billion per year.

This eliminates 2.7 billion tons of CO2 each year - and strands 880
million tons of coal.

If the 880 million tons of coal each year is taken in trade for the
hydrogen, and an additional 80 million tons of hydrogen (costing $1.2
billion and requiring 456 GW more satellite capacity) is combined with
that coal, a total of 6.16 billion barrels of gasoline worth $544
billion may be produced each year.

When this total is combined with domestic production, the US now
becomes an exporter of liquid fuels - re-establishing the geopolitical
and economic conditions of the 1950s and the gogo 60s...

If the US would do this along with attempting to power share and share
costs with its allies in a true war against terrorism - the reduction
in costs combined with improved income - would re-establish US
economic leadership in the world.

Since I'm going down this path, haha, I would also humbly suggest that
the US reverse the anti-union campaigns began by Eisenhower. The US
got rid of its manufacturing business in part due to Eisenhower's
observation that liberal and Democratic support stemmed mostly from
the manufacturing sector. So, it was no surprise that during the
Eisenhower administration that overseas manufacturing skyrocketed,
which was combined with union busting in the 1950s. Nixon in his
detente with China completed what Eisenhower started, and by the
1980s, unions and domestic manufacturing was history in the US.

Our inability to manufacture the bulk of what we consume, has made us
very weak in certain areas, while it has solidified certain
conservative norms. We have routinely ignored this weakness - as for
example - China accumulates US mortgage debt and US dollars. We are
fools to believe they will not exercise their growing economic
influence in years to come.

I urged a reversal of this policy. This is rather simple. A thorough
house cleaning of unions - which JFK/RFK tried to do before he was
shot. Then, adopting legislation making it easier to unionize.
Finally, placing fair wage requirements for imports. Forget about
taxing or otherwise limiting trade. Free trade is king. But make
sure that people who work to make things, can - as Henry Ford
envisioned - the people who make the stuff are paid a wage that allows
them to buy the stuff. There is something fundamentally immoral about
a barefoot ignorant 12 yo child spending 12 hours a day making $100
Nike's in a sweatshop for $2 per day so that Phil Knight can increase
his stock value by a few cents! Now, I'm not saying Phil Knight is a
bad guy, or that he doesn't deserve to be a billionaire. What I am
saying is that there are third party effects to every decision and it
is the proper role of government to look at these and do what is best
for society.

Now, this gets a little complex, but in the US, we're all the same
community. So, its clear that if we pay someone starving wages,sure,
if we can get away with it, we'll do it because it makes us a little
richer - that's the way most people think. But if too many people are
starving, then they'll do something about it! They'll engage in
crime, or they'll organize a revolution and kill the bastards who are
enslaving them. So, it pays to be a little clever about this. It
pays to have a little decency. Henry Ford created mass-production
techniques as an answer to this problem. And increased wages enough
so that the people who made the cars, could buy the cars. This
created the middle class. And that's what we did in America. And
there was a big turn to the left, as formerly downtrodden folks, began
to participate more fully in the politics of the 1920s through the
1950s.- and the greatest increase in economic well-being of any nation
in history..

Now J Edgar Hoover and others would have us believe that the Commies
took over the labor movement throughout this time period and THEY were
responsible for liberal ideas that were accepted at that time. I
question that. But this was part of the reason in the 1950s the US
government began undermining the unions - first by subverting them
with organized crime (by indirect means)- and then, by promoting
foreign manufacturing.(direct subisdy) - this tied in nicely with the
idea that the US should maintain a huge disparity of income to avoid
being attacked again. This approach to safety failed on 9/11 -
something we have yet to realize. It was the poorest nation that
attacked the richest - in part because of the disparity - no matter
how much we demonize radical muslims.

The thing is, the poor little barefoot 12 yo girl in Indonesia
laboring away 12 hours a day to make thousands of pairs of Nike shoes
that are sold at over $100 retail - deserves more than $2 - and if the
US demanded of Nike that they follow wage, hours, and age laws applied
in the US - throughout the world - before the US allowed imports to
enter the US - it would do many things. First, it would raise
everyone's boat. Second, since labor costs are second or third or
sometimes even fourth in the list of costs of running a business -
increasing wages will make only a small difference in the total profit
picture - so it won't hurt the companies involved (the service
companies that organize this labor are something else). Third, the
tendency toward radicalism would be greatly diminished - as the
tendency toward crime and revolution was diminished in the US during
fulfillment of Henry Ford's vision. Fourth, the folks who made the
shoes, and whatever else, would become buyers of the shoes and
whatever else - and global demand - and the global marketplace - would
increase by a factor of 11x.

Now this leads to the deepest darkest rationale for US policies abroad
- there isn't 11x the stuff to go around. And by stuff I mean - oil,
black gold, texas tea - and that's an issue. Except we have a
solution. Low cost powersats in space beaming energy to Earth.

Things take time. It takes time to implement a fundamental shift in
policy. It takes time to build up a large infrastructure. And we're
running out of time. But if we effected these changes now - building
up the infrastructure for solar/laser energize synfuels - and adopted
a policy of wages and labor rules for all people who manufactured,
grew or mined stuff that ended up in the US - we could be a positive
force for change in the world - and give everyone hope.

BTW, even if ISS were 100% converted into a viable platform of hosting
those IR laser cannons, and outfitted along with those multiple km2
solar collectors, it wouldn't become nearly as affordable as you've
suggested, as for the cost and extremely negative environmental impact
of keeping such technology up and running isn't cheap, nor without
human risk.

Solar powersats have nothing to do with ISS - so this doesn't make any
sense whatever.

I have a fix or two for that, which includes utilizing our moon's L1
and a tether dipole element that'll give your laser cannons access to
97.6% solar and loads of other than solar renewable energy to boot
(I'm talking teraWatts of continuous clean energy).

This makes even less sense than the earlier statement.

You do realize that our corrupt government that's faith-based
puppeteered and in total denial of their being in denial, will soon
enough require us to pay $1/kwhr, don't you?

Any time you measure any factor in a human population you get a
gaussian distribution curve. A bell shaped curve. So, when
corruption in measured, there are those who will be corrupt. The
question is, does the corruption correlate with power or anti-
correlate with power. A buyer may take a $5,000 kick back to sign a
deal with his company. That's different than the CEO scheming with
the CFO to produce with the help of their accountants, fraudulent
income statements.

In the background of this human drama is mother Earth. The world
started out with only so much coal, oil, and so forth. Production
rates have a bell shaped type curve that peak at the half-way point.
Demand for stuff increases exponentially. And we've reach, or have
nearly reached, the halfway point for oil on this planet. So, we're
seeing a massive price rise in the cost of oil. The oil companies are
supressing change - in an effort to get the most for themselves at the
end game. The government seems to have gone along with this strategy
- believing that what's good for 'ExxoMobil' is good for the country -
echoing Truman's statement about GM. And like Tucker at the end of
World War 2 - many a good and honest and contributing and hard working
innovator has been buried by the military-industrial powerhouse.
Where technology has slipped outside the control of this powerhouse -
innovation and growth have occurre. But where the technology is
deemed important to national security - especially where that
technology could challenge the control of major corporations important
to national security - innovation has not occurred. We still burn the
same kerosine in our jet engines that we used to burn in our lamps
when Reagan was a boy. And innovation in energy is either non-
existent, stilted, or directed into areas that do not compete with the
majors.

Is this corruption? I don't know. I don't think people are that
smart or that lucky. I do think though, that a host of abuses can
accumulate in a culture and kill it. And that's what's happened in
America. We're a declining culture and people can see we're a
declining culture,and the more people that see that, and lose any hope
that they can make it by being clever, or hard working or honest,
those people will do what it takes to get ahead - and they'll add to
the problem... and in the end, we'll, to quote Reagan, join the
Soviet Union on the trashheap of history.

It doesn't have to be this way. We have plenty of opportunities to
revers this downward spiral. But it won't occur because of
conversations on usenets, or rants,or anything like that. It will
occur if those in power grab their balls and screw up the courage to
make difficult decisions that reverse the trend.

The only thing I can do, as an engineer, is to look at the physics of
what's going on and say - hey, here's a solution. Beam energy from
space and use it to make hydrogen, then burn the hydrogen in coal
fired plants and hydrogenate the coal to make gasoline. Then adopt a
policy that increases wages around the world and increases consumption
- and supply the energy by expanding this new US source. This ishow
the US can remain dominant through the next century.

But we won't do it. We're too deeply involve in the strategies of the
1950s and haven't seen they have failed let alone WHY they have
failed. Meanwhile, leaders, true leaders,that have the vision, the
means and the courage to lead - are non existent or disheartened or
distracted.

If a certain little faith-based group were trying to dominate Earth
for all it's worth, why would they allow public access to clean and
affordable energy, and especially if it were renewable?

The US is trying to survive as an industrial nation in a nuclear world
that is running out of the means to support their industry. Its
policies were instituted at the end of world war 2 using the ideas and
means thought best in the 1940s and 50s. These policies are largely
secret - and tended to by a tiny group of experts. Those experts are
blind and isolated from the community at large. They do not see 9/11
as a failure of their control paradigms, let alone seeing what must be
done to truly address this failure. At best they see 9/11 as a lapse
- of them being too lax and lenient, and so they're cracking down -
closing the gap - securing the frontier. They do not yet see that
they are the cause of much of what is killing America. It will be the
next generation of Americans to address that - I doubt it will be as
bad as the Civil War - but it will be worse than the Civil Rights
movement - to get this particular tick out of our scalp.

Clue No.1) those that are currently rich and powerful don't actually
give a tinkers damn as to how spendy, polluting or lethal our energy
can be made, because where do you think they obtain their loot that's
stuffed into those nifty offshore bank accounts, as is.

The USA is the richest and most powerful nation on Earth. Our poverty
line is well above the median of most nations. The US is rich because
the US is productive.

Even so, there are more people getting richer all the time - The
Capgemini World Wealth Report for 2007 says that there are 9.5 million
millionaires in the world a double digit increase. Most new
millionaires have arisin in China and India. The total wealth
controlled by these 9.5 million folks is $32 TRILLION !!! Most of
this is liquid. Compare this to the $65 trillion PER YEAR created by
human activity. This is an important point.

The so-called rich are that way mostly due to their own efforts - and
by creating wealth. After all they only have managed to accumulate
1/2 of 1 years production into their own pockets. On a global scale
wealth is broadly dispersed across a huge population, more evenly than
at any other time in human history. And its getting more evently
dispersed as time goes on.

The UN in the past - ended small pox. Since then its various
organizations have outlined a vast array of issues that face the world
community. But since the election of Nixon the US has ignored these
issues and gone its own way. Money has dried up. And issues remain
outstanding, and they multiply. The massive deaths in Africa for
example, and the continuing production of heroin in Afghanistan, as
another example...

But many of the issues that face the poorest of us, and face all of us
really, might be addressed if the UN for example create a tax-free
'world bond' for investors -

This would be very similar to a tax free municipal bond that we use to
build a library or school or roadway. The county, or city, or state
outlines what they need, and they issue tax free bonds - and folks
invest in them.

We could do the same on a global scale. We could offer these 9.5
million folks tax free world bonds - that would be used to build up
infrastructure that would address issues of drought in Africa, or
flooding in Bangladesh, and so forth.. and we would have access to
trillions of dollars - and expand the global economy rapidly.

Until you realize whom is in charge of your private parts,

I am.

and
subsequently of how badly snookered you've been,

The truth is what it is. Lies cannot change the truth. The truth
needs no defense.

there's no way in any
hell on Earth that anything 'Willie Moo' is ever going to fly.

??? I have already done a lot of things - and will continue to do
things going forward. So, like many of your statements, they make no
sense at all in the light of reality.

BTW, do you even realize what number of our homes are 50% or more
heated with wood, corn and even coal, because they simply can't afford
their local energy grid or other alternatives as is?

Not a whole lot. Hubbert in a Scientific American article in
September 1971 - on the issue entitled Power and Energy - showed that
the entire Earth had the following sources of renewable power

50,000 TW - direct solar
320 TW - tides, rivers, wind, currents
40 TW - photosynthesis

Humanity uses 10 TW of energy currently and that demand is growing at
4% - which could rise to 7% with the right policies related to labor
practice and public investment worldwide.


Of course, thanks to our corrupt government, many have lost their
homes and are living on the streets,

Of 300 million people fewer than 60,000 are living in the streets
according to the WSJ. - one in ten thousand. Most of these are folks
who in an earlier time would have been put away in a mental
institution. But Jimmy Carter helped pass legislation that closed
down a lot of the mental institutions - which lead to the current
situation. Many of the more violent folks were arreste and are now in
prison - swelling our growing prison population - which is another
indicator of our decline as a culture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_children

A worse problem world wide are the 150 million street children in the
world. UNICEF expects this to grow to 800 million by 2020. Horrific
actions by 'concerned businessmen' who organize clean up squads to
hunt down and murder children in the street - without police
intervention. Untold are those from the US, Japan and Europe, who pay
to go on these escapades.

This alone shows us that we are culture in decline - more than
anything else I can think of.

or if lucky they live in some god
forsaken dump of a place with minimal or w/o energy. The American
system has badly failed to take care of its own kind from the bottom
up,

That's not true. Despite growing problems in some areas, aggregate
wealth and its dispersal is growing better and better - and America is
a large contributor to this trend. Even so, I do agree that our
government is failing us, and that governments generally throughout
the world fail to address the issues facing us. So, they all will
ultimately fail and something new and better will take its place.

and there's simply not the resources available as long as those
Cheney/ENRON/Exxon types and of their fiath-based puppeteers are in
charge.

They certainly do not believe there are enough resources. That is
true. At the same time, Exxon for example, fears any change in the
means of producing energy - that may have an adverse impact on their
valuation. So, they are creating the very situation they blame for
decisions. I do not believe they are doing this on purpose. You need
to realize how much courage and strength of character you need to have
to stand against the tide and try to affect change. If you would
take 6 months or a year vacation from the internet - you'd see how
hard such change is.

But then you and others of your pathetic kind don't think
there's any such problems to begin with.
- Brad Guth -

There are plenty of problems. But that doesn't define me. You seem
to relish in defining your world in terms of problems. Maybe because
it makes you feel superior to everyone. You certainly like ending
your screeds with words like 'others of your pathetic kind' and stuff
like that. Clearly you're a person of low self esteem who's only joy
is feeling himself superior to others - even if its totally
imagined.

That's why it makes sense for you to get off-line and do something
fun. Forget all the problems and do something that someone else truly
values. Mother Teresa said all each of us need do, is go out and find
the most miserable person you can find and let them know they are
loved. If each of us did that the world would be transformed.

So, do it Brad. Get off line and do it!!


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