Xref: utzoo talk.politics.misc:8687 sci.misc:1229 Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!athena.mit.edu!jfc From: jfc@athena.mit.edu (John F Carr) Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,sci.misc Subject: Re: NOT greenhouse effect / solar power satellites Message-ID: <4195@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> Date: 31 Mar 88 10:59:49 GMT References: <22678@bbn.COM> <5564@well.UUCP> <761@spdcc.COM> Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU Reply-To: jfc@athena.mit.edu (John F Carr) Distribution: na Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lines: 83 In article <761@spdcc.COM> eli@spdcc.COM (Steve Elias) writes: >In article <5564@well.UUCP> pokey@well.UUCP (Jef Poskanzer) writes: ::Steve Elias is, as Jerry Pournelle put it, "not merely uninformed but ::aggressively misinformed." This thermal pollution bullshit seems to recur : : speak for yourself, Jef. we don't need bullshit comments like this. : it figures that you would quote Pournelle. you are both assholes. Would it be possible to save the name-calling for private email? Pournelle is an informed, intelligent source who supports such accusations as quoted above with facts. ::reason Steve is full of shit. As John Carr and others mentioned, most of the ::inefficiencies in SPSs are off-planet. The conversion from microwaves to ::electricity is extremely efficient. (Yes, 90%. Not 80%. Not 50%.) And the : : efficiency has nothing to do with the problem of thermal pollution. Efficiency has everything to do with thermal pollution. For a fixed power consumption, efficiency determines the amount of heat generated relative to useful power. A system with a 50% efficient converter would produce twice as much heat as a 90% converter (including the rest of the system, and the consumer). ::So the question is: for a given electrical capacity X, how much extra energy ::gets absorbed by the Earth? For SPS, the answer is simple: 1.1 X -- X itself : snore No wonder you have missed my point: you slept through it. As you have not argued for zero growth in consumption, I must assume that you think certain power sources are worse than others producing the same useful power. The only factor determining the waste heat produced by a system is its efficiency. SPS are among the most efficient power generation systems (counting the earth-based parts, which are the only ones relevant to thermal pollution). ::So, if you insist on being utterly paranoid and worrying about the thermal ::balance of the Earth, you should be out there campaigning hard for SPS, ::since by your own criteria it's 3.6 times better! DO YOU GET IT YET STEVE? ::YOU'RE WRONG! YOU'RE A MORON! SHUT THE FUCK UP! : : i didn't come up with the theory myself, you unmitigated asshole. : Frank Drake is not a moron. (i'm not either, Jefy). : your obnoxious comments are not relevant to the debate. all energy : produced by solar power satellites would not otherwise enter the : earth/atmosphere system. so your silly arithmetic is pointless. : if you had done your silly calculations properly, you would see that : solar satellites are infinitely worse than most other energy sources. If you are arguing that SPS are worse than earth-based systems capable of generating the same power you are wrong. If you are arguing against increasing our generating capacity you should say so. ::For the few reasonable people out there: the CO2-induced "greenhouse effect" ::is very very different, and is indeed a serious problem. But of course ::SPS wins there too. : : jef -- you misunderstand my point completely. jfc and others out : there apparently do not. and they are capable of civil discussion. For sources on the greenhouse effect I recommend the Feb 88 issue of Scientific American and an article in the science section of Tuesday's New York Times. My conclusions from these: the earth reacts to thermal pollution on a very short timescale (days to weeks). The timescale of the feedback by which an increase in temperature produces a runaway greenhouse effect is millions of years. On the other hand, the timescale for CO2 pollution to produce a greenhouse effect is very short. Adding heat will not raise the temperature noticeably until the rate of addition approaches the solar flux on the earth. Adding CO2 has already warmed the earth (the articles have numbers). John Carr "No one wants to make a terrible choice jfc@athena.mit.edu On the price of being free" -- Neil Peart