New Mars Forums

I had a reply from Paul Glister of Centauri Dreams, regarding a magnetically confined atmosphere.

My suspicion is that at the plasma density required to achieve this, UV and x-rays from the plasma would cook anything on the surface.  But I will wait and see what Jeff Greason says.

Thanks TH.  My next entry will discuss hydraulic accumulators for static energy storage applications.  I will post here tomorrow.

I can certainly see the energy efficiency benefits of a much lighter car.  Longevity is very important as well, given that a large chunk of the lifetime energy consumption of a car is in its construction.  For EVs, the embodied energy is naturally higher.  A car that doesn't wear out for a century, aside from modular, replaceable parts, would make driving a lot more sustainable.

One problem with using high strength composites is stability.  The car needs to remain grounded during sharp turns.  A steel chassis, whilst heavy, does keep centre of gravity close to the ground.

Another problem is stress cycle.  Low alloy steel components can take a million stress cycles before creep effects become a problem.  Problems with steel, such as corrosion and cracking are revealed faults that an MoT will pick up.  From what I remember, fibre reinforced composites show minimal signs of damage up to catastrophic failure.

CFRP components would need to be glued or bolted rather than welded.  Does that introduce any potential problems?

Aside from that, fibre reinforced polymers are a splendid idea for car construction.  One of my pet favourite technologies is compressed air powered vehicles.  But the energy density of compressed air CFRP cylinders tops out at about the same as lead acid batteries.  If the airtanks are part of the chassis, their weight provides ballast keeping centre of gravity close to the road.

Compressed air is sustainable in ways that battery technologies never can be.  If we make a cylinder long lasting, then any additions to energy storage capacity with compressed air will be cumulative.  Rather like the Hoover Dam, which was built a century ago, you can build it once and use it almost forever.  When the Hoover Dam capital cost is divided by the total number of kWh produced over its lifetime to date, the resulting number would be ridiculously cheap.  Hydropower is cheap because the plants last almost forever.  If we build infrastructure that way, it becomes a gift to future generations that will go a long way towards compensating them for depleted resources.  If we build things that are initially cheap but wear out quickly, we are leaving them a burden.  We need to get into the mindset of building things that don't wear out and if they break, they are repairable instead of replaceable.  That is the path towards sustainability.  It is something the Victorians understood, but we seem to have forgotten.

There is plenty of truth in that.  Gail's message board seems to attract people that hate the world and want it to burn so that they can each live as king of the ashes.  They are openly hostile to anyone that turns up wanting to talk about solutions.  It is what turned me against the whole peak oil crowd during the 2007 - 2009 crash.  In 2005, conventional oil production peaked.  The price of oil went to $140/barrel.  It did cause a severe recession.  The doomers were ecstatic that the system they loathed was crashing down.  They were disappointed when enterprising engineers developed tight oil in the Permian and prevented the world from turning into a Soylent Green distopia.  I thought saving the world was the whole point of participating about peak oil discussions.  Apparently, I was wrong.

I stopped talking to these people some time ago because they just aren't interested in doing anything proactive.  We saw the same thing a decade earlier with the whole Y2K issue.  A problem was identified.  Doomers formed fan groups talking about the end of civilisation and how to position themselves to rule in a road warrior future.  The time came, 1999 turned into 2000.  The world didn't end because behind the scenes, people had actually prepared and fixed the problem.  The doomers were actually disappointed that their cult had lost its disaster.

I still read Gail's board because she does, in spite of her following, have a good grasp of the energy problem hanging over industrial civilisation.  But I don't go there looking for solutions.  I come here instead.

On the topic of economic localism:
https://www.amazon.com/Conserver-Societ … 856492761/

I read Ted Trainer's book in my early 20s.  That was over 20 years ago!

Trainer is a radical environmentalist.  He presents a vision of a sustainable society achieved by simplifying the economy, adopting low consumption of disposible goods and generally making as much as possible locally.  This means towns growing most of their own food using horticulture and sourcing water locally.  Sewage is dealt with locally using anaerobic digesters, with the water and sludge used to fertiluse the same ground the food came from.  Most goods will be produced locally, within the town itself.  The townsfolk would establish comittees that will look for ways of replacing imports with locally produced goods.  Goods will be designed for repairability and long life.  This reduces the amount of manufacturing needed.

I would recommend the book.  I think Trainer's vision of self-sufficient towns is rather extreme.  It would mean living simpler and much poorer lives.  But in real life, a spectrum of solutions is possible.  It is certainly possible for a nation of 1million+ people to be self-sufficient in basic goods.  High-tech goods that require a lot of engineering are more difficult.  But it would still be possible for a nation like Canada to produce basic cars, mobile phones, computers and even aircraft.  They may not be as capable as globally available models, or as cheap.  But it could be done.  Maybe this is the way to go from now on.  It would save a lot of natural resources.  But it would inevitably mean less specialisation and lower wages.

I regard the shutting of the UKs remaining blast furnaces as an unmittigated disaster.  Russian and Ukrainian pig iron is no longer available for import.  So closing these furnaces means increasing reliance on China.  That is a bad idea for all sorts of reasons, not least of which is the impending collapse of the Chinese economic system as their workforce shrinks away over the next decade.  Imagine how stupid it would have been to have closed a blast furnace back in 2019, because it was marginally cheaper to import iron from Ukraine.  That would have gone down in history as a terrible decision.  Yet, we seem poised to do exactly that, having learned nothing from five years of supply chain disruption.

I think your point about supporting local industries is correct.  Having regional self-sufficiency is a sensible goal.  There are arguments about economies of scale in support of globalisation, which are valid enough.  But there are other considerations that need to be accounted for when considering the benefits and disbenefits of allowing products to be produced by multinational companies based on short term economic decision making.  The distribution of wealth is just as important as the total wealth generated.  How much difference would an extra million dollars make to Warren Buffet's life?  And reliance on home industry reduces geopolitical risks to supply chains.  Another benefit to fostering home industries is maintaining technological expertise.  A nation cannot be at the forefront of metallurgical science without a metal industry.  So I am fully onboard with Trump's strategic aims of rebuilding US industry.  Even if it does nothing to increase GDP, it has other important benefits.  If tariffs on China and Europe are needed to achieve that, so be it.

My question is specifically about the wisdom of imposing tariffs on Canada and Mexico.  I will admit that most of my thinking has been shaped by the podcasts produced by Peter Zeihan, who many people have mixed feelings about.  But he makes some very good points about manufacturing needing labour at different price points and skill levels.  Manufacturing has the advantage of paying good wages to people engaged in high end processes, like chip development.  But do you really want to be employing Americans on $5/hr in product assembly?  Those are the sorts of low income jobs that can be done in unskilled countries.  To produce finished goods, intermediate products often have to cross multiple borders.  It may be possible for workers in the US to fulfil all points on the supply chain.  But is it desirable?

On the specific case of Canada.  The US and Canadian economies are highly integrated.  Canada has a population 1/9th that of the US and is full of minerals, oil resources and lumber that would appear to me to be very useful.  It is hard to see the Canadian economy stealing that many jobs from the US.  There aren't really enough Canadians for that to be a major concern.  And it supplies a lot of what is needed for North American reindustrialisation.  So tariffs against Canada would seem to make American reindustrialisation harder.  The timing is bad as well.  The Chinese dominate global materials processing capacity and their capabilities are going to disappear.  Canada could help fill that gap.  So how does it make sense raising tariffs against Canada if the object is to rebuild US manufacturing?

Robert, there is your answer.  What Kbd512 has explained does make sense when considering the direction that global demographic trends and resource depletion are taking.  Canada has a relatively old population.  That makes it very export dependant.  The US is in a position to build a more self-sufficient economy, with production and consumption both domestically based.  Aggregate GDP will be lower and certain goods will be more expensive.  But it is possible for them.  And it will distribute wealth more evenly.  It will be more difficult for Canada.  Needless to say, this new arrangement burns NAFTA to the ground.

If Canada, UK, Australia and NZ were run by conservative administrations with brains, then now would be a good time to impliment a CANZUK arrangement, probably with Canada as its leading member.  Although all four nations have similar demographic issues, a shared market of 140 million first world consumers, is a lot more better than trying to rely on purely national consumer bases for each of these nations.  For defence and space exploration, these nations have enough collective resources and expertise to do very well.  The problem is, they are spread across the Earth.

The industrial system of the western world, its infrastructure and working arrangements, grew into its present form using coal power, later substituted by oil, natural gas and uranium.  All of these energy sources are controllable, energy dense and available 24/7 and 365 days per year.  The western world is now trying to move away from those convenient energy sources and onto ambient energy sources, primarily wind and solar energy, which has comparatively low energy density and is highly variable, both regionally and temporally.  What is more, we are trying to use technology to make those ambient energy sources fit the needs of a system that grew to depend on the abundant stored energy of fossil fuels and uranium.  Unsurprisingly, it isn't going too well.  Technology may help us adapt to low density, intermittent energy.  Electricity for example, allows energy to be transmitted over long distances.  But it cannot change the nature of the resource.

Next week I will be touring a country that really did build an industrial economy and a global maritime trading empire, using a mixture of wind and biomass energy.  Up until the 20th century, fossil fuels had had a minimal impact on the Dutch economy.  Wind provided most of the mechanical power they needed, substituted by human and animal power.  Transportation was largely water based.  This was energy efficient, if not speedy.  Wood provided the input to iron and brick manufacture.  Wood was used to build ships and windmills.  The wind was directly used to drain the land, allowing agriculture.

But this was a very different world to the one we now live in.  People were very much poorer and they lived simpler lives.  Life was more local.  Historical Dutch cities are compact out of necessity.  They needed to be small enough for people to walk around and deliver goods via water or horse pulled wagons.  Industry was on a smaller scale.  The largest Dutch tower mills provided about 100kW of power in a good wind.  The workers had to work with the weather.  This meant long shifts with little sleep during periods of high wind.  It meant no or little work during periods without wind.  Many mill workers were farmers who would work the fields in low winds and work the mills when the wind came.  Transportation using the wind was slow and unreliable.  It often took Dutch ships 6 months to reach the East Indies.  When the wind dropped too low, ships could be stranded in duldrums for weeks at a time.  At other times, stormy weather would be a hazard to ships carrying too much sail.

My impression is that it is physically possible to build a modern economy that uses the sun and wind as its main sources of power.  But it isn't going to be practical to run the sort of JIT, 40-hour a week lifestyle that we have grown accustomed to.  And the problem the no one really acknowledges is that RE is highly regional.  The UK and Holland experience strong winds for much of the year.  But most parts of the world do not.  In Texas, there is enough direct solar energy to provide heat and power to industry for much of the year.  But that won't be true in Western Europe.  And it isn't the case for most of the temperate regions where people live.  So a world running on renewable energy will produce different results depending upon where you are.  Many parts of the world (i.e China and India) are not well served by either wind or solar power and yet many millions of people living in these places need energy to survive.  The waterways of England and Holland were only possible because both have a relatively flat topography.  They allow slow but highly energy efficient transportation of goods.  But that strategy would be useless in most other places.  Water based transport works in the eastern half of the US and could be used a lot more.  But it is unworkable in most of the western US, Canada and Mexico.  Nuclear powerplants can be built almost anywhere.  But wind turbines only work well in places where there is good wind.  Solar power works best where there is a lot of direct sunlight.

Much of the world doesn't have either of those things.  A world run on renewable energy would be a very unequal world.  Some parts of it could maintain a reasonably affluent way of life, because they happen to benefit from a local abundance of wind or sun and geography works in their favour.  Other places won't do well at all.  I find it ironic that it is people on the Left, who are supposedly concerned about issues of equality, that tend to be most in favour of renewable energy.  It is by its nature a resource that will produce entirely different prospects depending upon where you are lucky or unlucky enough to be born.  Nuclear power on the other hand, is the great equaliser!

The Fall of Europe.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/fall-europe

Depressing reading.  But important to read.  The crooks that run Europe are unlikely to relinquish power.  And the damage they have done is largely baked in.  Native youth population will be a minority in just a few decades, due to falling birthrates and uncontrolled immigration.  Trying to discuss the problem in Europe will likely see you arrested and jailed for hate speech.  It certainly will in the UK.  Most countries in Europe have reached the point where they are probably out of time for a political solution.  The rot has gone too far.  By 2050, well within the lifetimes of many readers here, Western European nations will be Islamic republics.  For decades, conservative parties in Europe have begged people to listen and take the danger seriously.  Most people didn't.  They chose to spit on the conservatives, vilify and jail them instead.  Now they sit down to a banquette of consequences.  The story of the European nations ends with the current generation.

Waste materials from ore processing will be mostly silicate rich slag.  A few years back on this forum, we discussed the production of basalt fibres for tensile applications.  The fibres are as strong as maraging steel and weigh less than half as much.  Melting basalt is considerably less energy intensive than smelting steel, because the temperatures involved are more modest (1200°C vs 1600) and chemical reduction is not necessary.  We are melting the material and not chemically reducing it.  If we have enough energy to melt silica rich slags, then the liklihood is that we would find uses for these materials.

For high compressive strength and low thermal conductivity, I would recommend magnesium oxide.
https://www.azom.com/properties.aspx?ArticleID=54
See also: https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/jres/103/4/j34sli.pdf

Thermal conductivity declines as temperature increases.  As the engine will be operating in vacuum, you could also incorporate porositity to reduce thermal conductivity even further, with some loss of compressive strength.  The thrust of 0.5 tonne-force is a quite modest.  If it is distributed over 1m2, it amounts to a pressure of 5KPa .  So the material probably does not require a lot of strength.  Vibration could be a problem, as magnesium oxide is a brittle ceramic.

The older I get, the more impressed I am by simplicity.  Maybe it is a sign of mental deterioration?  :-)

This article discusses furnicular railways.
https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2009/ … le-trains/

These are gravity powered cable railways, that are used for transporting people up and down hills.  The simplicity of this idea has always impressed me.  These vehicles do not require any engine.  Motive power is provided by adjusting a counterweight on each vehicle, which is a tank of water.  The ascending train is connected by cable to a descending train.  By filling a water tank at the top of the hill, the descending train is made heavier than the ascending train.  As it descends and applies tension to the cable, it pulls the ascending car up the hill.

Cable driven street trains pre-date the introduction of electricity as a power source.  Before electrification, cable driven public transit systems were built in many cities across the world.  Only a few now survive, with the San Fransisco cable cars being the most famous example.  Any town with a varying gradient could build gravity powered transit networks.  The cable would run through a conduit under the road surface.  It would not need to be powered, as the energy needed would come from filling water tanks in vehicles at the top of the gradient and emptying them at the bottom.  All of the cars are attached to the cable in a loop.  So the gravitational potential energy released by a single car as it descends a gradient will help drive all the other cars around the loop simply by pulling the cable down the slope.

Nothing is free of course.  The energy needed to run the network comes from the gravitational potential energy of water at the top of a hill.  This can be recharged using a pump, to transfer water from a lower reservoir to an upper reservoir.  Provided that the two reservoirs are appropriately sized, this task can be accomplished using intermittent energy.  A mechanical windmill at the top of the hill could drive a positive displacement pump at the bottom, by pulling on a cable.

There are variations in how such a system could work.  A gravity powered cable car could work on completely flat topography, by raising and lowering weights through pits and towers.  Towers could function as raised weight hydraulic accumulators.  Discharged hydraulic fluid would drive turbines, pulling the cable.  A system equipped with multiple towers could recharge them whilst others towers are discharging.