An interesting response

[dsummersminet at comcast.net]

Charlie Bell wrote on April 16th:
Re: An interesting response 

>On 17/04/2008, at 12:26 PM, Dan M wrote:
>
>> Well, Concord was a political animal from the very beginning wasn't
>> it? It was a tax subsidized showcase for Britain and France from the
>> start. IIRC, it never really was a profit center.

>All aircraft mfrs are subsidised. Yes, it was supposed to be a
>technology

It sounds as though this is a reflection of the common EU argument that the
US’s concentrating its purchases of military aircraft amounts to a subsidy
of US commercial aircraft.  But, the big US commercial aircraft maker
(Boeing) hasn’t had much luck in the military marker in the last 15 years. 
Boeing has received tax breaks, like every company, but the governments are
not involved the way the EU is involved with AirBus. 


>> its successor would have been an "efficient" supersonic plane.
>
>> I don't doubt that a successor would have been better, but you putting
>> "efficient" in quotes seems to indicate that you aren't arguing
>> against the fundamental increase in cost per passenger mile when a plane
goes at
>>Mach 1.05 compared to Mach 0.95.

>"Fundamental"? No. Substantial, yes.

Well, we may be arguing semantic again.  I’ve seen fundamental costs being
about a factor of 5 or so per passenger.  I guess that would allow for 

>> That's not political. The decision to use tax  money to subsidize the
travel of the richest >>businessmen is, of course, political.

>The politics came in when a swathe of countries banned the Concorde
>from overflying. That's what killed it. Didn't take long before the
>only route for Concorde was the transatlantic shuttle, and even then,
>only the very rich could afford it. 

After looking into this, there is some truth in this.  But, you do know it
was environmental politics,  right?  That’s what killed the US SST program

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_2707

I know how loud sonic booms sounded when I was a kid.  I can see how easy
it was to get people opposed to them happening all the time.


>That's a scale issue. When only a handful are ever built, the R&D isn't 
>every going to be repaid. 

That’s OK, and I understand it.  But, at the same time, I recall the
tremendous pride of Britain and France on stealing a march on the US at the
time.

>You seem to think the subsidies were aimed towards Concorde's final fate.
>They weren't, they were aimed at getting the time of long-haul flights
>down. Even today, it takes a day to get from London to Sydney.
>Concorde was supposed to halve that.

But, supersonic flight is a fuel hog.  Look at the range of the 747 vs. the
Concord and their fuel loads per passenger.  One would have to stop for
fueling several times to make that distance. I realize that most planes
have to stop once, including the 747, but the 777 can make it in one.

The Concord would still be faster, and the point is moot due to
environmental concerns that won’t go away.  But, I think without those, it
is reasonable to assume that some businessmen would be willing to pay 5x
the fare for a thin seat to save half of the time.

But, granting that, my point is that natural barriers do exist.  Some lines
of inquiry and technology are easier than others.  Right now, computer
chips remain under Moore’s law  and it appears that gene manipulation is
doing even better.

Let me try an analogy to illustrate my point.  We scientists and R&D
engineers are like 16th century explorers.  Part of where they went was
determined by their will, our abilities, their technology, etc.  But, part
of it was determined by the lay of the land.  The Northwest passage didn’t
exist until last year (the Northeast passage existed for a few years before
that).  There was no easy way around the Americas.  Valley that were
explored seemed promising as passages over the Continental divide, but few
good ones exist.

My argument is that we shouldn’t think of green energy as merely a test of
our will.  It is also dependant on the lay of the land.  Past behavior
doesn’t guarantee future behavior, but it’s much more likely that, in 10
years, we will have a 1 terabyte drive for $100 than have a plane that can
carry 1500 passengers that flies for the same price (not price per
passenger but total price) as a plane that carries 100.


>t's chicken wire on poles, Dan. Strung over land that can still be
>used for other stuff. The rectennas are by far the smallest costs in
>the whole thing...

I’m not sure it’s quite that simple.  I agree it will probably be a lot
cheaper than the transmitter. But, I don't think the process is trivial. If
the transmission is that simple, why wouldn’t we be using it for remote
locations now.  Just put a tower up and transmit the energy? 



>> I understand that, but there was a huge inertia

>...?

 I understand that, but there was a huge inertia with mainframe computers
in the 70s and they soon became dinosaurs.  Yet, the capital invested in
the Z-density I helped design was small, yet it was 20 years before it was
worth the bother to design a new tool.  And that’s with all the
efficiencies of new electronics in between.  Some technology is mature, and
not much happens for decades; other technology seems to change when you
turn around.


>
>
>> All that said, I'd like to see you, Dan, try to put together a cost-
>> analysis on a powersat project.
> Nothing works 100% of the time, but lets assume a 95% efficiency, or
> running
> 8322 hours/year. The cost is, then, about $39 per kWh.

As pointed out by someone else, that $39 per kWh per year.  If we assume 10
years, and no other costs, then we’d be talking about $4.00 kWh, about 100
x the commercial rate. 
>So... how to bridge the gap?


You bridge the gap with and only with technology we don’t see yet.  We
don’t know where that will come from.

Let me give one more example from what I know: high energy physics.  It
took over 3 decades for the new CERN accelerator to go 10x the power of
Fermilab because a wall had been reached.  The superconding supercollider
(which was close to the new CERN facilities) was going to cost more than
10x than Fermilab and when the price kept on rising beyond that it was
cancelled.

Now, there is a new technique that’s being proposed that shortens the
acceleration length

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/20373

This might or might not work.  If it does, then we can have a 100 Tev
colliding beam accelerator for less than CERN’s.  

If you look at what’s been proposed for new rockets, it’s, well, fiddling
with established technology.  If we can get a propellant with 10x the
energy density per kg, 10x the thrust velocity, a cheap durable heat shield
material, etc. then we’d have something.

That’s why I proposed spending money on basic research.  I’m not sure
what’s going to benefit from this research, but for the last 200 years at
least, it’s paid off.

Dan M. 


--------------------------------------------------------------------
myhosting.com - Premium Microsoft® Windows® and Linux web and application
hosting - http://link.myhosting.com/myhosting