arc

That takes care of start and stop. Now you need control. I think you need to do some research, STAR WARS research. That series has the best selection of single and double rider vehicles. Return of the Jedi had a chase through the giant trees on skycycles? Or in Revenge of the Sith there is a real nice chopper style ride. Watch all the vehicles carefully, they only have a minimum of functional reality. They move like they have an anti gravity mechanism, which they may according to some back story information known only by the most devoted fans. They add some little flaps that seem to steer and the thrusters also. Don't let us make you think you have to create some sort of high degree of technical fidelity, because you don't. A good story will carry and/or negate any technical short comings. There have been many movies and stories that were very technically simple and were given a pass by most because it was an enjoyable story. But the badly executed story line gets no mercy for its technical flaws, as both are closely scrutinized. A book has to match the two carefully, a really serious plot tends to require more technical accuracy while a adventure like Star Wars can get by with a lot of gizmos and thingamajigs that don't need any real explanation. arc

Sorry Ed, I like history. They say, you cannot know where you are going unless you know where you have been. I believe understanding the pivotal moments in something that is as critically important as this can shed light. .er. .solar energy on the subject. This speech by Carter is an earlier attempt to layout a comprehensive plan to replace oil. Should that not be relevant to the discussion? This was the leader of the free world and it looks to have failed miserably. What went wrong? Would we have been better or worse off? What if it had succeeded? Would we right now be discussing how we screwed up and went heavily into coal 30 years ago and now need to, due to climate change, move quickly back to gas and oil as a stopgap measure until we develop clean energy? You think we are behind now, we probably would have been even farther behind had it succeeded. You see why I bring this up. As I alluded to earlier, if we were to subsidize more expensive alternatives to oil it would give the rest of the world's oil consumers a reduction in price due to free market mechanisms. We can only increase our energy costs by circumnavigating the free market. You pay the free market price or you pay more due to your forcing of non-market prices into what your citizens pay through hidden charges like taxes. Here's a perfect example. Venezuela has been discounting, aka subsidizing gasoline to its citizens for political gain. This gas would have generated profit if sold in the world market, and the profit would have been in the state treasury to pay for the many social programs like health and schools that were also promised by the government. So to stay with the original post, I suggest you allow market forces to choose the winners and losers otherwise you may end up subsidizing lower energy costs for everyone else but us. The Tesla car company is a free market winner. The Chevy Volt has Chinese competition at half the price. This is a few of faltering or bankrupt green-energy companies that tried to compete against a free market and failed. The dollar amounts are federal funding losses. These 3 are a part of larger list that accounts for 8% that failed or defaulted, so to speak, of the total number of tax payer funded start-ups. I think that is an acceptable rate. Some of these are cutting edge. As I said in the other post, I like solar and geothermal. I'm especially sad to see those type of ventures have failed or had trouble. Beacon Power ($43 million) The company technology consisted of wheels inside vacuum tubes that can spin at near perpetual motion to store energy. Filed for bankruptcy. Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million) no description needed. Brightsource ($1.6 billion) designs, develops, and deploys solar thermal technology to produce high-value electricity and steam for power, petroleum, and industrial-process markets worldwide. I went to their site, it looks impressive. I don't know how they lost the 1.6 billion. It would seem to be a tried and true technology, They must have tried something difficult. "If we pull this off well be kings" kind of difficult.

Its a pretty long speech, you can read it here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/primary-resources/carter-energy/ Its kind of strange hearing the trade oil consumption for coal consumption part. I don't remember that being discussed back then. It was not very practical in 1980. All you could do with it is generate electricity and I believe we were already generating a large proportion of it with coal. I'm guessing they were thinking electric cars on coal generated power. That's a step backwards. Jimmy Carter, "The President's Proposed Energy Policy." 18 April 1977. Vital Speeches of the Day, Vol. XXXXIII, No. 14, May 1, 1977, pp. 418-420. Because we are now running out of gas and oil, we must prepare quickly for a third change, to strict conservation and to the use of coal and permanent renewable energy sources, like solar power. ( I would liked to have been in the room when they dreamed up that one; Coal and Solar, It's just old and new sunshine.) The world has not prepared for the future. During the 1950s, people used twice as much oil as during the 1940s. During the 1960s, we used twice as much as during the 1950s. And in each of those decades, more oil was consumed than in all of mankind's previous history. World consumption of oil is still going up. If it were possible to keep it rising during the 1970s and 1980s by 5 percent a year as it has in the past, we could use up all the proven reserves of oil in the entire world by the end of the next decade. I know that many of you have suspected that some supplies of oil and gas are being withheld. You may be right, but suspicions about oil companies cannot change the fact that we are running out of petroleum. All of us have heard about the large oil fields on Alaska's North Slope. In a few years when the North Slope is producing fully, its total output will be just about equal to two years' increase in our nation's energy demand. Each new inventory of world oil reserves has been more disturbing than the last. World oil production can probably keep going up for another six or eight years. But some time in the 1980s it can't go up much more. Demand will overtake production. We have no choice about that. This is my favorite line; The fourth principle is that we must reduce our vulnerability to potentially devastating embargoes. We can protect ourselves from uncertain supplies by reducing our demand for oil, making the most of our abundant resources such as coal, and developing a strategic petroleum reserve. This message was brought to you by National Association of Coal Producers. Coal, its not just for blacksmiths. arc

Again my sincere apologies, arc

The use of air breaks (flaps) on planes like A10 Warthogs allow the pilot time to line up the target. These control surfaces resembles conventional ailerons but move to greater degrees of angle and are arranged in symmetrical pairs on each wing. You can use this concept in any position on the vehicles exterior. These braking surfaces can slow and even steer the vehicle by applying one side or the other. A reversed application would produce the most drag effect. Imagine a short wing splitting at the leading edge. The forward portion of the fuselage sides would work as well. I always smile when I see in sci-fi movies vehicles that match or exceed a motorcycles degree of performance without wings or tires. They glide through the air, leaning into corners without sliding and then just stop on a dime. All without an explanation of the technology.

As a rider with many hours on both dirt and streets, control of a highly maneuverable two wheel vehicle is dependent almost entirely on the friction of the tires to the road or uneven terrain as is the case off road. The ability of a motorcycle to lean over in corners to lower its center of gravity and keep its mass in line with direction of force is what makes it handle so well. A future vehicle would need to simulate this friction or it would perform, with respect to control, like a vehicle on ice or even worse a barrel rolling. You may provide it with propulsion that does not require friction to the ground or even the atmosphere like propellers or the thrust of jet engines, but you would need to provide a relative degree of control based on friction like wings or tires. A complex array of retro rockets or jets over the vehicles surface could provide the characteristics of high performance control in environments of liquid, atmosphere or even outer space. arc

Increased complexity is always moderated by reduced probability. I like the solar and hydro-thermal technologies, they will continually improve over time and are safe. safe as in tsunami's, earth quakes and do not kill fish in rivers. The BPA has sent hydro-electric power south to California for many years, it's pay back time. You can send power both directions on transmission lines. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonneville_Power_Administration BPA transmits and sells wholesale electricity in eight western states: Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Nevada, and California.

Hay Split, If you look at the data you will see a constant correlation between the magnetic field strengths of the Sun and Earth. http://www.ncdc.noaa...clisci10kb.html Gerard C. Bond, a researcher at the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory has suggested that the ~1,500 year cycle of ice-buildup in the North Atlantic is related to solar cycles; when the sun is at its most energetic, the Earth’s magnetic field is strengthened. . . This is induction, one larger electromagnetic field inducing current in a smaller field. As the larger increases the smaller follows in kind. As the larger decreases the smaller does the same. I posted this material in Mike Smiths thread; http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/74578-news-earths-core-hotter-than-thought/ , it is cutting edge. http://www.geology.illinois.edu/people/xsong/Sites/papers/sun_song08_epsl.pdf Geologists Xinlei Sun and Xiaodong Song at the University of Illinois have confirmed the discovery of Earth's inner, innermost core, and have created a three-dimensional model that describes the seismic anisotropy and texturing of iron crystals within the inner core. What they found was a distinct change in the inner core anisotropy, clearly marking the presence of an inner inner core with a diameter of about 1,180 kilometers, slightly less than half the diameter of the inner core. The layering of the core is interpreted as different texturing, or crystalline phase, of iron in the inner core, the researchers say. "Our results suggest the outer inner core is composed of iron crystals of a single phase with different degrees of preferred alignment along Earth's spin axis," Sun said. "The inner inner core may be composed of a different phase of crystalline iron or have a different pattern of alignment." Images and lower text Credit: Xinlei Sun and Xiaodong Song, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign/IRIS Consortium Above left. Displays of the two-alignment model of inner core texturing, viewing from the North Pole (a) and along Meridians 40o and 220o (b), 100o and 280o ©, and 160o and 340o (d). The outer circle and the inner core circle (dotted) indicate the ICB (Inner core boundary) and the radius of 590 km, respectively. The dashed line in the western hemisphere of topmost inner core marks the region where anisotropy increases sharply with depth. (a) The circles and pluses indicate the fractions of polar alignment (f1) and equatorial alignment (f2) of the iron crystal's fast axis, respectively. The symbol size is proportional to the fraction. (b–d) The line segments indicate the fractions of polar and equatorial alignments. The complexity of the Earth's field generator has increased greatly with this discovery. The past and current attempts to model this mechanism in spinning spheres of molten sodium were based on an over simplified concept, it may now be even more so. I wonder what Tesla would have made of this electromagnetic mechanism? arc

Well Ed, I think you hit the nail on the head. It will all be recycled, more so as time goes by. But don't fret the stuff we don't recycle now, well dig it up when the technology is cost effective. Companies will bid against each other to robotically mine the old land fills. They will tear down the buildings that now sit on some of them to get to the material under them. The name land fill is inaccurate, they are more accurately described as; Resource Storage Facilities. It is a shame the trash that was hauled and dumped out at sea, we should have stored it under ground for later recovery. We developed oil resources outside of the U.S. because the free world was a free market. Americans were racing the British and Dutch around the world looking for the market advantage of more for less, more raw material for less money. Which is the easiest way to boost your profits. We took dirt poor countries and made them dirt poor countries with a billionaire mobsters running them. And we held our noses to the stench of corruption because that's the way the world has always worked. It was more important at the time to buttress a line of allies against the Soviets than to risk these two-bit dictators turning a 180 and helping the Soviets. Like I said, that cheap foreign oil was more profitable to bring to market than the domestic, and competition drives corporate strategy. We now have the price of oil high enough to create a domestic oil boom and this is a good stimulus for the American economy. The EPA requirements are more stringent, so it creates jobs for testing technicians, pipe line workers, truck drivers and all of the supply chain involved, and many other jobs a foreign oil reserve would not. All oil is bought and sold on a world market, the price driven by supply and demand. If a country with a rate of consumption like the U.S. wanted to subsidize its own production of domestic reserves they would do it to their own detriment, we would help the other world wide consumers by decreasing the demand and forcing a price drop. Thus giving everyone else a discount while Americans pay more per barrel though the taxes going to the subsidy. A free market is also a fair market. When you take all the biased politics out, this terrorism looks to me like simple cultural shock. They know they can't stop the modern world that is making there medieval world mindset irrelevant, so they hardened their resolve for a fight they will lose, not from us so much as from the youth of their own culture.

Hi Ed, you can look at this in a different way. If the U.S. had been for the last 150 years importing all of its iron ore from foreign sources, it would have seemed to us that we were getting screwed every time they had a "shortage" or wanted to jack the price up. But the price would have been based on demand and our industries would have had a difficult time dealing with the unstable supply and our economy would have suffered for it. We would have found domestic sources, and done things like going to Alaska to find it. America could not have prospered like it has without its abundant and low cost domestic iron ore supply. Our oil for a long time was cheaper to buy abroad than to produce at home, but now that has changed. How would everyone feel about oil if none was burned for fuel, not converted to CO2, just used like we use steel to make products. We take our domestic oil and make components for alternative energy systems and other products with it. Well, I think that will happen but not quickly. We are going continue to develop our reserves and transition as technology allows. The point I want to make regarding your post above is that the figure is high but has to be to bring domestic production on line. It costs much more per barrel to produce here than most places. The important thing is these commodities like iron ore and oil are raw materials, and the real value is what all that iron ore is made into. Its worth as finished products is so much greater than the raw material its made from. Everything we built with the steel made from that cheap iron ore is what created our world leading economy during the 20th century. And the same go's for the oil, as we pay more for oil more will be produce domestically and more wealth will be created in Texas, OK, Kan, Col, NM, SD, Alaska, Canada and every where else in North America and even Mexico that has oil. Its the creation of finished products from raw materials that creates the wealth in our economy.

This guessing game is killing me. To help you we need to know what the heat source is. How far above the apparatus it is? You remove it after 10 minutes, how long is it allowed to cool down? Is the metal it sits on (lets call it the base) allowed to cool also during the same time? So this is what I am guessing this thing needs. You can reduce the conduction of heat from the metal (base) by reducing the contact area. Small protrusions on the bottom of the apparatus can cut down conductive heat immensely. Your next source is radiant heat from the surface of the metal (base), you can reduce its effect by painting the apparatus white or better yet silver or chrome. Lengthening the protrusions will reduce radiant heat proportionately. A sleeve of reflective material would insulate and reflect radiant heat. Covering the metal base in white will lower the absorption of heat, mirror will almost eliminate it, reducing the metal base's heat content would go a long way in reducing the heat content in the apparatus. arc

Is it a consensus that all oil reserves known and unknown, including the very last quantities attainable in the future with advancing technology, will be removed and consumed whether or not alternative energy is developed? Does that 100 year estimate allow for future unknown technological advances in recovery. I think it will all be found and used. And alternative energy development and advancing recovery technology will push that "last drop used" progressively out farther into the future. Add to this the future unknown but continually advancing efficiencies in oil consuming products, this best guess of 100 years could turn into a great deal longer. The only thing that will keep the oil in the ground is alternative energies that can under cut oil's production costs which should continually climb while the alternative's cost's reduce. But here's the rub, the energy portion of oil is only a part of that valuable commodity. The fuel portion will be synthesized into something else and combined with the traditional chemical portion into the components that go into those alternative energy technologies. So, all will be recovered, it will last farther into future than estimated, and be proportionally used less for fuel as time progresses.

So this regards heat conducting down through the material from the top of the device to the bottom? You want to prevent heat transfer in the material? This sounds like a radiant heat source. Are you by chance a indoor gardener. There are paints that resists heat but a thermal insulating paint sounds like NASA stuff with a low bang for big buck$ Thin coatings make lousy insulation.

The various local media (newspaper and television news) repeated the story with some experts somewhere stating the ten year dead line. Everyone was waiting in 2 hr+ gas lines and getting 5 gallons. This was 6 years after the 1973 oil crises. People were primed for hysteria. I was a senior in high school, I remember that prediction was repeated to me several times. My brother in-law sold his pride and joy 1975 Trans Am H.O. 455 for dirt cheap because of that story.

You should see the size of the rod and reel.

Sounds like the perfect place for a test of a NASA remote submarine. The one that is going to Jupiter's moon Europa. I don't imagine anything bigger than a small shrimp and something a little bigger to eat it. Anything bigger would have eaten itself out of its food supply. Is this geothermal chemical driven or just a deep cave kind of hot water. Those brine thermal chemical pools at Yellowstone would be a good model for a possible water chemistry. I'm really curious about temperature and chemicals in there.

Point well taken, I use one all the time. Its my most used heat source. I have an electric heat gun that will put out 1500 f. But I can control the temp better with the torch. The shut off valve does little but adjustment for depleting fuel pressure. The temp control is all in the distance from the flame tip and rapid movement side to side. I use mine to soften old electrical tape on wires and to activate electrical insulating shrink tube. The sign industry I work in use them on plastic panels and car doors to soften the adhesive of vinyl lettering with no damage to plastic or paint. As they say Its all in the wrist. I figured the thermometer would help someone unfamiliar with the technique. I have reservations about this kind of stuff. I believe in over engineering in these things. If someone says they need it to withstand 190 degrees whatever, does that account for mistakes. What if the heat source is capable of going as high as 500-600 degrees or higher. For safety it should have that capability. As a worst case scenario imagine that the stated temp has to do with some process like cooking. And so this apparatus is on a gas or electric burner set at the 190 something and worst yet it involves cooking oil. You see where I'm going, just a turn of the wrong dial and some distraction you have a big problem. I'm for a slow destruction testing of this kind of stuff, its cheap in materials and could provide some unexpected insight into the long range durability of this thing. Personally I would avoid all plastics and stick to metal and the insulating material.

A super volcanic eruption, the inevitable large object from space or that next and very soon ice age glacial period will, I believe, reset this timeline to or nearly at 0. These events are the true arbitrators of mans prospect for a future history of any kind. arc

I think some of those infomercial cooking products may be to blame. That heat resistant glove might also be the solution. I'm taking a guess that the material the gloves are made of is available in bulk for industrial apps. Maybe as a insulating sleeve tubing for high temperature locations. Probably for protecting wiring and plastics in automotive and aviation for example. Or just buy a glove to pick up a metal ring or get some of the material and attach it onto, under or sleeve over a metal ring or possibly even a plastic one, then use the glove to pick it up. Copper pipe comes in a soft variety known as L it will be the easiest pipe to shape into tight curves. It does not take any preheating like steel or even thermoplastics that you would be considering. What is a 1/2 inch dia. is actually 5/8 on the outside. Size denotes inside measurements. If you want something near 1/2 outside dia. get 3/8 inch. Depending on your design you can use larger or smaller dia. Whether you use metal or a plastic with the sleeve just do proper testing. Slowly expose it to higher temperatures (a handheld butane torch like plumbers use work best NEVER GASOLINE you could die!) while using a proper thermometer and a clock to monitor the progress. Do it outdoors on dirt, brick or concrete away from buildings and combustibles with a water source like a hose and also a fire extinguisher. Just because nothing happened to it for 20 minutes of exposure doesn't mean it won't in an hour burn whatever your doing up. And plastics out-gas some pretty nasty vapors, use a proper respirator. Plan for the worst, it could happen! AND ONLY WITH THE PROPERTY OWNERS PERMISSION. Parents and landlords hate this kind of crap and YOU and maybe them are legally libel.

That sounds reasonable. So how were they so wrong during the 1979 energy hysteria, so sure it would all be gone in ten years. Propaganda or bad math.

At what point is an underground lake different from an aquifer that circulates through fractures? How much free space is involved? Is it a rock structure that looks like a sponge or is it a massive water filled cavern or caverns, as some caves are just filled with water. arc

Again my sincere apologies, arc

It is like chess because you carefully choose your words as if your argument depends on the effectiveness of each for the support of the many. A simple misuse or poorly phrased idea leaves your position vulnerable to a counter argument. Sometimes you may realize you have overextended your argument so a retreat to a smaller safer position is your only choice. This is seldom accomplished without losing many pieces of your argument and possibly any chance of winning. It is like a battle because as one side is attempting to outflank the opponents argument they are in turn strategically looking for a weakness in the attackers argument. It is also like a battle because you may know the field, you may know your strengths but your opponents capabilities are unknown many times until its to late. And as in war, cooler heads will prevail. And, as moreinput said so well; "Debate, especially when heated, draws out the best and weeds out the rest". I am not aware of any academic "intelligent discussion" teams although debate has been a cornerstone of education since antiquity, they apparently have found some merit to it. Debate is the forge where idea's are tested against the heat and pressures of an adversaries hammer. Intelligent discussion is what takes place after, when figuring out why you lost. arc

I think it is unlikely a large organism could evolve in such small environments. The old goldfish in the bowl limitation. Is there a possibility it was once connected to larger bodies? Again, the largest life forms would have to be sized to the environment that could support it. Or be given time to evolve to the ecosystems limits of scale which seems highly unlikely. I've see those blind fish, spiders and crickets in those deep cave pools some time back, all of them immigrants from the upper world. They are the survivors, the remains of larger animals (including humans) that penetrated these places are sometimes found beyond the environments that could support them. arc