Xref: utzoo talk.politics.misc:8721 sci.misc:1237
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att-cb!att-ih!gargoyle!ddsw1!gryphon!edk
From: edk@gryphon.CTS.COM (Ed Kaulakis)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,sci.misc
Subject: Re: greenhouse effect / solar power satellites
Summary: Efficiency ==> less generated for same useful enery
Message-ID: <3104@gryphon.CTS.COM>
Date: 3 Apr 88 02:42:10 GMT
References: <22678@bbn.COM> <5564@well.UUCP> <761@spdcc.COM> <763@spdcc.COM>
Distribution: na
Organization: Trailing Edge Technology, Redondo Beach, Ca.
Lines: 29

In article <763@spdcc.COM>, eli@spdcc.COM (Steve Elias) writes:
>In article <4195@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> jfc@athena.mit.edu (John F Carr) writes:
> !In article <761@spdcc.COM> eli@spdcc.COM (Steve Elias) writes:
> 
> !:     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).
> 
>       you are wrong, here.  both the 'useful power' and the 'waste heat'
>       end up in the environment as heat.  

	Aaah... God forbid I should ruin anyones' day, but let's do a little
arithmetic, shall we? Suppose I need 1 Mw of power. Then I could get it
from an SPS by beaming 1.1Mw to a 90% rectenna.

	Or, I could pave some desert that used to re-radiate 5 or so Mw
in solar cells.

	In the first case, the Earth's energy balance is loaded with 1.1Mw
thermal.

	In the second case, the Earth's energy balance is loaded with ~4Mw
thermal.

	READ MY LIPS, OR MOVE TO TALK.BIZARRE!