Boiling Water In Space - Page 8

Alpha_Geek · November 11 2009, 04:15 AM

Actually I think that's 5 TeraWatts....

Trekker4747 · November 11 2009, 05:06 AM

Alpha_Geek wrote:

Actually I think that's 5 TeraWatts....

Yep, 5 terawatts.

To put that into prespective,

5 terawatts over an hour (5 terrawatthours) is:

4.3 Megatons - 500 times stronger than the bombs that destroyed Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Less than a 10th the size of the largest bomb ever made.

It's about the number calories used by the entire population of China every day.

Equal to 136 million gallons of gasoline -45% of the amount used by the US every day.

It's also enough electricty to power NYC for a year.

PurpleBuddha · November 11 2009, 06:52 AM

Okay, so scrap all the ideas save two. How feasible is it to beam energy from space to earth in a usable form? This seems far fetched to me, but if it will one day be a reality than the second idea of building energy collectors in space is also good, just perhaps in a better form.

Can anyone here speak to the possibility of the first idea?

Great Mambo Chicken · November 11 2009, 09:16 AM

PurpleBuddha wrote:

Okay, so scrap all the ideas save two. How feasible is it to beam energy from space to earth in a usable form? This seems far fetched to me, but if it will one day be a reality than the second idea of building energy collectors in space is also good, just perhaps in a better form.

Can anyone here speak to the possibility of the first idea?

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

Yes, I know it's Wikipedia but there are a ton of references, and TGT seems to be long gone from here (which I can well understand).

birdog · November 11 2009, 01:13 PM

Alpha_Geek wrote:

Actually I think that's 5 TeraWatts....

You're right I miss read it. That just makes it worse. That's about a third of the output of the entire planet.

Plecostomus · November 11 2009, 08:15 PM

birdog wrote:

I Am Legend wrote:

Alpha_Geek wrote:

OOps, how about some salt for that foot?

Submarine and surface shiip reactors go up to 500 MW. A reactor that was transportable by aircraft ran at 1.5 MW output and kept one of the Antarctic stations powered for a decade.

So, where are your numbers, Taccy?

My space turbine will go up to 5 million MW.

That's 5 gigawatts. It only takes 1.21 gigawatts to make a Delorean time travel.

Seriously, that's an order of magnitude more juice than a commercial nuke plant puts out. Have you ever seen how much waste heat a 500 Mw plant puts out? You'd have to have thousands of acres of radiator to lose that heat. The ISS has 1680 square feet of radiator for it's heat load.

Correct. Nine Mile Nuclear Power Plant in New York used Lake Ontario for cooling when they had the first two reactors installed. When the third unit was built they had to reject the waste heat via cooling tower because the additional heat from Nine Mile II would have raised the surface temp of the lake in the local region too high. Not to boiling but enough to upset what is effectively a cold-water (as opposed to non-tropical) ecology.

Squiggy · November 12 2009, 01:07 AM

John Picard wrote:

I Am Legend wrote:

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Popular Science has featured articles where all houses would be running on a hydrogen power source before 2010, and said power source would be no larger than a refrigerator.

Guess what --?

I'm still waiting for my damned hoverboard!!!

Silvercrest · November 12 2009, 05:42 PM

What do you mean? Hoverboards are real. Robert Zemeckis says so.

Trekker4747 · November 12 2009, 07:41 PM

Silvercrest wrote:

What do you mean? Hoverboards are real. Robert Zemeckis says so.

And then when he denies it, Kirk Cameron subtly implies they are!

CONSPIRACY!

I Am Legend · November 12 2009, 07:45 PM

Squiggy wrote:

John Picard wrote:

I Am Legend wrote:

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Popular Science has featured articles where all houses would be running on a hydrogen power source before 2010, and said power source would be no larger than a refrigerator.

Guess what --?

I'm still waiting for my damned hoverboard!!!

It's not 2015 yet.

Great Mambo Chicken · November 13 2009, 01:41 PM

I Am Legend wrote:

Squiggy wrote:

I'm still waiting for my damned hoverboard!!!

It's not 2015 yet.

So you admit we will live through 2012 to see 2015?

Silvercrest · November 13 2009, 11:20 PM

SLAM-DUNK!!!!

Great Mambo Chicken · November 15 2009, 10:06 PM

All you wanted to know about steam-powered rockets and more can be found in "To Inhabit The Solar System" linked from this article:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11..._solar_system/

or directly as this PDF:

http://www.neofuel.com/inhabit/inhabit.pdf

aka "Tony Zuppero's zingy tale of space travel and bonkers weaponry".