[rescue] DC Voltage distro (Was:SGI Challenge L... )

[Sandwich Maker]

" From: abuse at cabal.org.uk (Peter Corlett)
" 
" It's a fun hack to be able to get one up on the energy suppliers, but
" not really a practical long-term solution to our energy problems.
" 
" Renewable sources, biodiesel and nuclear are probably the solution.
" Hydrogen's a non-starter due to it being unsafe, hard to store, and
" hard to use, never mind it being a net energy loss again.

i agree.  i think all the us hydrogen push is a 'clever' disguise of
a govt handout to the car cos, with no intention of ever developing
commercial product.  remember the gm ev1?  they finished the govt
project and said it 'wasn't practical'.  or how about clinton's
hybrid project - honda and toyota wanted to participate but were told
it was us-only.  all the us cos finished the project and sais it
'wasn't practical'.  now who's got cars?

i have a love/hate relationship with nuclear though.  it has such
-potential-...

but the power industry really is hopelessly bad at safe mgmt, and govt
agencies like the nrc [and ag dept] can too easily become
cheerleaders, promoting the industries they're supposed to regulate.
in spite of that we've created a licensing enviromnent which
effectively restricts us to six-decade-old first generation tech...

they consume -1%- of the fissionable material in their fuel rods.  the
rest is 'waste'.  no wonder we're drowning in it.

we could do so much better...  thirty years ago i saw the procedings
from an energy conference; there was a whole -section- devoted to
resctor designs.  one, the 'liquid-fueled slow breeder reactor', used
soluble actinides and didn't let anything out until it'd decayed all
the way to lead.  one needed uranium as a 'spark plug' but could run
on thorium, at least ten times more plentiful as uranium but nobody's
really looked for it.  then there was the nuclear thermolysis reactor;
using heat to -thermolyse- water into h2 and o2 with sulfuric acid as
electrolyte.

this sounds like i'm going back to hydrogen power.  i'm not, but -
suppose one sited thermolysis reactors near coal mines, and used the
h2 and waste process heat to gasify the coal?  afaik the 'dirt' - ash,
sulfur, nitrogen - should be easily be cleanable as a side effect.
and natural gas can be piped with lower loss than electricity.

if all that's too abstract for you, hanford had a 'fifth generation'
reactor design up and running and just entering testing when clinton's
budget-balancing belt tightening shut them down.  they demonstrated
inherent safety based on natural physics that even our pwr mgmt
industry couldn't screw up.  dunno how efficient it was though.  bill
moyers did an excellent special on it.

" Actually, reduction in use is the real solution, but that's not going
" to happen until we really start to feel the pinch. Even if we get
" limitless energy from a magical source, we'll just have different
" problems caused by all that waste heat we can't dispose of.

true, and i personally am pretty frugal.

my mother recently sold the house i grew up in, and the agent was
shocked to hear it still had the original 60a electrical svc.  she
said new houses going up in the area often have 400a...  and no, we're
-not- talking about rescue types.
________________________________________________________________________
Andrew Hay                                  the genius nature
internet rambler                            is to see what all have seen
adh at an.bradford.ma.us                       and think what none thought