Anybody know anything about Solar or Geothermal energy?

n7axw wrote:Hi SWM,

I rather doubt it. There is going to be an ice period on Safehold. It could well be that such period will be shortened. But I don't believe you can skip it altogether. Those advanced energy sources you mention require tech Safehold will have to grow into and the ice period will be a stage in the growth to getting to that tech.

Don

Thank you for saying that.

SWM, I mistook you for Weird Harold, sorry. He dislikes the pollution IC engines out out and is a advocate of skipping over the IC engine period altogether.
On the topic at hand, to get to the more advanced heat sources, especially for vehicles and things that require a lot of power, that means oil based fuels. Excepting wood and coal, which are more inefficient than oil, I don't see any fuel there could be to make heat for a moving (truck/ship) vehicle. A power plant -might- get something else, but I'm not sure about that until they get to nuclear power. In the meantime though IC engines allow for cheap and easy engines and vehicles being built and a much more rapid and vaster expansion of technologies to more people. Steam power is nice, but it is a lot more limited and there are decades of very well documented IC engine development that can be used.

But to get to a question, besides wood and coal and oil based fuels, what other heat sources are there that are more advanced? Personally I'd say a IC engine is more advanced than a steam engine.

Zakharra wrote:

n7axw wrote:Hi SWM,

I rather doubt it. There is going to be an ice period on Safehold. It could well be that such period will be shortened. But I don't believe you can skip it altogether. Those advanced energy sources you mention require tech Safehold will have to grow into and the ice period will be a stage in the growth to getting to that tech.

Don

Thank you for saying that.

SWM, I mistook you for Weird Harold, sorry. He dislikes the pollution IC engines out out and is a advocate of skipping over the IC engine period altogether.
On the topic at hand, to get to the more advanced heat sources, especially for vehicles and things that require a lot of power, that means oil based fuels. Excepting wood and coal, which are more inefficient than oil, I don't see any fuel there could be to make heat for a moving (truck/ship) vehicle. A power plant -might- get something else, but I'm not sure about that until they get to nuclear power. In the meantime though IC engines allow for cheap and easy engines and vehicles being built and a much more rapid and vaster expansion of technologies to more people. Steam power is nice, but it is a lot more limited and there are decades of very well documented IC engine development that can be used.

But to get to a question, besides wood and coal and oil based fuels, what other heat sources are there that are more advanced? Personally I'd say a IC engine is more advanced than a steam engine.

Nuclear and solar. And in terms of having the tech to economically use these sourses fully, we aren't quite there yet ourselves.

Don

n7axw wrote:Hi SWM,

I rather doubt it. There is going to be an ice period on Safehold. It could well be that such period will be shortened. But I don't believe you can skip it altogether. Those advanced energy sources you mention require tech Safehold will have to grow into and the ice period will be a stage in the growth to getting to that tech.

Don

n7axw wrote:

Zakharra wrote:

Thank you for saying that.

SWM, I mistook you for Weird Harold, sorry. He dislikes the pollution IC engines out out and is a advocate of skipping over the IC engine period altogether.
On the topic at hand, to get to the more advanced heat sources, especially for vehicles and things that require a lot of power, that means oil based fuels. Excepting wood and coal, which are more inefficient than oil, I don't see any fuel there could be to make heat for a moving (truck/ship) vehicle. A power plant -might- get something else, but I'm not sure about that until they get to nuclear power. In the meantime though IC engines allow for cheap and easy engines and vehicles being built and a much more rapid and vaster expansion of technologies to more people. Steam power is nice, but it is a lot more limited and there are decades of very well documented IC engine development that can be used.

But to get to a question, besides wood and coal and oil based fuels, what other heat sources are there that are more advanced? Personally I'd say a IC engine is more advanced than a steam engine.

Nuclear and solar. And in terms of having the tech to economically use these sourses fully, we aren't quite there yet ourselves.

Don

So IC engines to cover much of what the steam engine cannot or didn't cover, and to help expand innovation and use of technology.

Hi Zakharra,

I thoroughly agree with you on how important IC engines are ti the general industrialization Safehold is going to need in transitioning to even more powerful and efficient engines.

However, given Ford's Model T engine blocks were made of Vanadium Steel, which requires more than a little electricity to be economic in any way, It will be a while before Safehold's cities are clogged by Model T's etc.

Of course, they'll still smell a lot better than of horses and dragons, even with wide flowing sewers.

L

Zakharra wrote:

n7axw wrote:Hi SWM,

I rather doubt it. There is going to be an ice period on Safehold. It could well be that such period will be shortened. But I don't believe you can skip it altogether. Those advanced energy sources you mention require tech Safehold will have to grow into and the ice period will be a stage in the growth to getting to that tech.

Don*quote*
*quote="n7axw"*quote="Zakharra"*


Thank you for saying that.

SWM, I mistook you for Weird Harold, sorry. He dislikes the pollution IC engines out out and is a advocate of skipping over the IC engine period altogether.
On the topic at hand, to get to the more advanced heat sources, especially for vehicles and things that require a lot of power, that means oil based fuels. Excepting wood and coal, which are more inefficient than oil, I don't see any fuel there could be to make heat for a moving (truck/ship) vehicle. A power plant -might- get something else, but I'm not sure about that until they get to nuclear power. In the meantime though IC engines allow for cheap and easy engines and vehicles being built and a much more rapid and vaster expansion of technologies to more people. Steam power is nice, but it is a lot more limited and there are decades of very well documented IC engine development that can be used.

But to get to a question, besides wood and coal and oil based fuels, what other heat sources are there that are more advanced? Personally I'd say a IC engine is more advanced than a steam engine.*quote*

Nuclear and solar. And in terms of having the tech to economically use these sourses fully, we aren't quite there yet ourselves.

Don

So IC engines to cover much of what the steam engine cannot or didn't cover, and to help expand innovation and use of technology.

n7axw wrote:Hi SWM,

I rather doubt it. There is going to be an ice period on Safehold. It could well be that such period will be shortened. But I don't believe you can skip it altogether. Those advanced energy sources you mention require tech Safehold will have to grow into and the ice period will be a stage in the growth to getting to that tech.

Don

When I first read this, I thought "however did we get into discussing the next ice age on Safehold", rather that reading ice as ICE (internal combustion engine). Actually, this leads to an interesting and fairly off topic discussion about ice ages. Is there any textev about past ice ages on Safehold, or even the possibility of an ice age in the future, and (to tie it back at least partially to this chain), what about the possibility of global warming due to the burning of fossil fuels?

Zakharra wrote:
Thank you for saying that.

SWM, I mistook you for Weird Harold, sorry. He dislikes the pollution IC engines out out and is a advocate of skipping over the IC engine period altogether.
On the topic at hand, to get to the more advanced heat sources, especially for vehicles and things that require a lot of power, that means oil based fuels. Excepting wood and coal, which are more inefficient than oil, I don't see any fuel there could be to make heat for a moving (truck/ship) vehicle. A power plant -might- get something else, but I'm not sure about that until they get to nuclear power. In the meantime though IC engines allow for cheap and easy engines and vehicles being built and a much more rapid and vaster expansion of technologies to more people. Steam power is nice, but it is a lot more limited and there are decades of very well documented IC engine development that can be used.

But to get to a question, besides wood and coal and oil based fuels, what other heat sources are there that are more advanced? Personally I'd say a IC engine is more advanced than a steam engine.

An advanced steam engine can be way more complex than an internal combustion engine - particularly steam turbines (the complex curves of a turbine blade may look simple until you try machining it). They are also heavier for the same power output (but use way less fuel due to higher efficiency).
The path you take depends on the endpoint. Steam turbines lead directly to gas turbines and liquid fueled rockets (which use turbine driven fuel pumps, in most cases (recips also work and have been used occasionally)) with side branches into geothermal and nuclear power ( and possibly large solar thermal).
Piston steam engines lead to diesels and otto cycle engines (same technology pushed harder) at the expense of inherently lower efficiency and mechanical wear. Piston engines are also better small (small efficient turbines are hard and at less than 300hp gas turbines are virtually unheard of, due to very poor fuel efficiency) so the first steps into heavier than air flight will probably be piston powered.
Yes, I know model aircraft have 4 to 6hp turbines, but you don't want to look too hard at the fuel burn (round 12 liters an hour small 2014 gas turbine compared to 36 liters hr for a 110hp aircraft 1950's piston engine (Lycoming O-320 at 75% power)(25 times the thrust at 3 times the fuel burn).
Gas turbines fuel economy is much worse than equivalent piston engines at all sizes, but they need less maintenance and less wear as they have fewer moving parts, and their density falls with size, and also bigger gas turbines are much lighter for the same power output. (Engine weight vs fuel weight trade off again). So you match the technology to your application.

Zakharra wrote: But to get to a question, besides wood and coal and oil based fuels, what other heat sources are there that are more advanced? Personally I'd say a IC engine is more advanced than a steam engine.

Sure, I'd agree that an IC engine is more advanced than a basic steam engine (but possibly not an advanced steam engine). But IC is not a heat source, it is a power source (just as a steam engine is). I said a more advanced heat source to produce steam. And remember that this is only if they continued to use steam.

For heating large steam engines, besides wood, coal, and oil-based fuels, I was thinking of solar, geothermal, nuclear. Smaller steam engines (such as land vehicles) would obviously still be limited to wood, coal, and oil-based fuels, but I assume those steam engines would quickly be replaced by electric motors once they have enough large steam engines to produce electricity. And obviously there are other advanced methods of generating electricity, too, such as direct solar, tidal, wind, etc.

SWM wrote:

Zakharra wrote: But to get to a question, besides wood and coal and oil based fuels, what other heat sources are there that are more advanced? Personally I'd say a IC engine is more advanced than a steam engine.

Sure, I'd agree that an IC engine is more advanced than a basic steam engine (but possibly not an advanced steam engine). But IC is not a heat source, it is a power source (just as a steam engine is). I said a more advanced heat source to produce steam. And remember that this is only if they continued to use steam.

For heating large steam engines, besides wood, coal, and oil-based fuels, I was thinking of solar, geothermal, nuclear. Smaller steam engines (such as land vehicles) would obviously still be limited to wood, coal, and oil-based fuels, but I assume those steam engines would quickly be replaced by electric motors once they have enough large steam engines to produce electricity. And obviously there are other advanced methods of generating electricity, too, such as direct solar, tidal, wind, etc.

The problem with that is none of those are good for vehicles or things that move. A steam engine that is stationary could use the fuel source methods ; geothermal, solar, nuclear: but to make society truly mobile, you need small, mobile and easily useable, and reliable engine sources. Even there though, to make electric engines useful, they also need to make batteries small enough to be put in a car frame, as well as making it able to be recharged numerous times and be durable enough to survive long hard use. It also needs to be cheap and economical enough for average people (middle class to poor) to buy and replace.

If vehicles are kept only to the governments and upper/ upper middle class because of price, that seriously undercuts economic growth and opportunity for the average person by denying them freedom of movement and of jobs. Look at how many jobs there are now in just in making parts for cars/trucks,trains and planes, putting them together, maintenance, replacement and alteration, disposal and reuse. That's millions, tens of millions of jobs. Just creating that industry vastly expands economic opportunity and helps people express their ideas (how to improve this part or that part or how to make it look nicer/more sporty/faster/more fuel efficient).

Zakharra wrote:

SWM wrote:Sure, I'd agree that an IC engine is more advanced than a basic steam engine (but possibly not an advanced steam engine). But IC is not a heat source, it is a power source (just as a steam engine is). I said a more advanced heat source to produce steam. And remember that this is only if they continued to use steam.

For heating large steam engines, besides wood, coal, and oil-based fuels, I was thinking of solar, geothermal, nuclear. Smaller steam engines (such as land vehicles) would obviously still be limited to wood, coal, and oil-based fuels, but I assume those steam engines would quickly be replaced by electric motors once they have enough large steam engines to produce electricity. And obviously there are other advanced methods of generating electricity, too, such as direct solar, tidal, wind, etc.

The problem with that is none of those are good for vehicles or things that move. A steam engine that is stationary could use the fuel source methods ; geothermal, solar, nuclear: but to make society truly mobile, you need small, mobile and easily useable, and reliable engine sources. Even there though, to make electric engines useful, they also need to make batteries small enough to be put in a car frame, as well as making it able to be recharged numerous times and be durable enough to survive long hard use. It also needs to be cheap and economical enough for average people (middle class to poor) to buy and replace.

If vehicles are kept only to the governments and upper/ upper middle class because of price, that seriously undercuts economic growth and opportunity for the average person by denying them freedom of movement and of jobs. Look at how many jobs there are now in just in making parts for cars/trucks,trains and planes, putting them together, maintenance, replacement and alteration, disposal and reuse. That's millions, tens of millions of jobs. Just creating that industry vastly expands economic opportunity and helps people express their ideas (how to improve this part or that part or how to make it look nicer/more sporty/faster/more fuel efficient).

Yes, electric cars do require an extensive infrastructure--just like the internal combustion cars do. And yes, electric cars do require advanced batteries--which can be built with the information available in OWL.

Just because we have all those people doing all those jobs on Earth today does not mean that Safehold has to do it, too. Instead, they could be designing the most efficient zeppelins for mass-cargo transport, or building fancier bicycles and tricycles for short travel around the city, or designing the most efficient electric car for racing, or whatever. (Note: I'm not saying that any of these ideas are actually practical. I'm just saying that Safehold doesn't have to do things the way Earth did.) I'm sure that Safehold can come up with other things to put those tens of millions of people to work on. Just building the infrastructure for an impending Federation-tech society will require every able-bodied person on the planet.

Zakharra wrote: The problem with that is none of those are good for vehicles or things that move. A steam engine that is stationary could use the fuel source methods ; geothermal, solar, nuclear: but to make society truly mobile, you need small, mobile and easily useable, and reliable engine sources. Even there though, to make electric engines useful, they also need to make batteries small enough to be put in a car frame, as well as making it able to be recharged numerous times and be durable enough to survive long hard use. It also needs to be cheap and economical enough for average people (middle class to poor) to buy and replace.

If vehicles are kept only to the governments and upper/ upper middle class because of price, that seriously undercuts economic growth and opportunity for the average person by denying them freedom of movement and of jobs. Look at how many jobs there are now in just in making parts for cars/trucks,trains and planes, putting them together, maintenance, replacement and alteration, disposal and reuse. That's millions, tens of millions of jobs. Just creating that industry vastly expands economic opportunity and helps people express their ideas (how to improve this part or that part or how to make it look nicer/more sporty/faster/more fuel efficient).

Whilst you can build steam powered vehicles fairly easily (an engine that works in a motor launch will work just as well in a truck), small petrol engines are lighter but burn more fuel.
At the extreme end nuclear powered aircraft are possible, they just tend to be big. A B-36 was flown with a functioning nuclear reactor and the B-70 was designed to have a nuclear powered gas turbine engine (a number of the various prototypes still exist). A nuclear cruise missile was also proposed (a 737 sized aircraft cruising at 300ft AGL at Mach 3 - calculations indicated that no warhead was needed). At the same time the NERVA project was working on a nuclear powered rocket engine.

A prototype for a nuclear powered loco was also worked on in the 1950's.

Nuclear power in mobile systems is possible - just not small ones (40kW (55Hp) seems to be as small as anyone got to work, and that was a hot water service (Canadian toy...).