It's been brought to my attention that 11 years ago, an architect made a mad plan to give us more space. To be specific, seven Earths of space, using the materials of the earth itself. Just one problem -- the original earth would be completely destroyed.
Specifically, the plan was to drill into four spots in the equator, and have it pumped up four space elevators, producing an ever-growing ring around the earth, which would be expanded over time into a giant hollow shell. As this worked, the sky would darken, gravity would shrink (due to more of the earth being above you than below you), and everything would slowly get moved up. Halfway through the process, all of our nature and civilization would have to be moved up to the hollow surface up top. Finally, the shriveled up earth collapses, raining down on the inner surface, providing it with the atmosphere and water it needs to survive.
Other engineers have pointed out just a minor rub in the plan. Namely, the nickle-iron substance of the mantle that he was planning to use as the primary framework could not withstand the strain of an object that big, and would collapse. With some slight reenforcement from asteroid-iron, it could survive that, only to get ripped apart by the lunar and solar tides. Ultimately, a stable lattice would require materials that have not yet been invented.
It's clear to me that eventually, we will need more space than the earth has. Every idea, even the completely crazy ones, will help.
Showing posts with label Engineering. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Engineering. Show all posts
Monday, September 28, 2015
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Cooling Fountains
Fountains are a common civic decoration, in front of buildings, in parks, and in all sorts of locations because we humans just can't get enough of that flowing water. Both the visual element of water spraying into the air, and the sound it makes as it trickles back to its source evoke some very pleasant instincts for us.
Unfortunately, fountains are surprisingly expensive. The water must be pushed against gravity for a surprisingly high energy cost. The water will quickly grow full of slime and clog the machines unless regular cleaning is involved, or poisonous water. However, fountains give me an interesting idea.
Cars and computers are often cooled by a flowing liquid. This is an old technology. The liquid flows through the hot areas, taking heat with it. The liquid then flows through a radiator, which has a much larger surface area and can disperse far more heat. The liquid is then cool, and can be sent back to the hot areas. Hence my next idea.
In my idea, a large radiator is replaced with a fountain, which spews hot water out of the ground using a pump, producing a fancy geyser. The hot water cools significantly in contact with air, until it hits the small "lake in the fountain, and is sucked back into the system to cool the machinery again. Algae and mildew can't build up in this system, as the water is routinely heated by well over 50C, and potentially up to boiling temperature. Even if it could withstand the hot end of the scale, the repeated heating and cooling would kill any living thing by thermal shock alone. The fountain is pretty, and the machine is using a house-sized piece of atmosphere as a radiator. It's sort of efficient...and artistic!
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Skinner's Baby Care
Psychologist P.F. Skinner was famous for studies of birds in little Plexiglas boxes. When he then made a plywood and Plexiglas box for care taking of his then infant daughter, they were heckled by the print equivalent of Internet trolls until significantly after he died. The younger Ms. Skinner reports that contrary to rumor, she did love her father, wasn't traumatized, was never institutionalized, and did not shoot up a restaurant in Wisconsin, a state which she has in fact never been to.
I personally think the box was an excellent idea. The box's environment can be controlled for the infant's comfort, care, and intellectual development. If I ever have to care for an infant, I plan to construct one.
The box is elevated, allowing a passing parent (or caretaker) to observe the baby at eye level, and retrieve the baby for feeding and changing without bending over. In the parent's absence, a baby monitor transmits all the baby's utterances. The box is heated to 90F (~32C), yet well ventilated, and a recording of the parents voices shows baby both that he or she is well loved, as well, as teaching a new language.
Later, baby grows up and graduates to a real bed.
I believe this also has major applications for disabled parents, who will have difficulty taking baby out of a crib when they are in a wheelchair. By setting the height exactly so, the parent can open the doors and take baby without having to prop themselves up first, and can put baby back very gently. This allows them far more autonomy in caring for their baby.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Engineering Apotheosis
First, a zero point energy generator. This might not even be possible. Energy is like the money of physics, and there have been a few clues that it might be possible to have negative energy as well as the positive kind that we're familiar with. If so, then from a "zero point" of no energy, you could draw off and separate arbitrary amounts of negative and positive energy, which would have to be shuttled off in opposite directions, as they would nullify each other on contact. However, negative energy hasn't been shown to really exist, and might make about as much sense as making money by sending out checks for negative amounts of money and somehow collecting when the checks are cashed in.
The first thing I'd do with zero point energy would be the mundane energy use, running the air conditioning, refrigerator, and lights with the energy, and do experiments with the negative energy. Could I run my computer on anti-electricity, and if so, would it absorb heat instead of producing it?
The next thing would be a matter condenser, that would change energy into hydrogen. Since E=MC^2, this would ensure an unlimited supply of materials. Of course, this would not be worthwhile without the unlimited energy from the zero point system.
The third thing would be some sort of teleportation system to make arbitrary manufacturing. It would have to teleport together raw materials to make things, such as combining a few grams of carbon from charcoal, hydrogen and oxygen from water, and nitrogen from air to form a hot dog. It would also need to be able to scan new patterns and store them in a computer. This also might not be possible due to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, in which knowing the exact position of an atom requires unpredictably altering its velocity and vice versa.
My power with these things would grow exponentially. First I'd use the teleporter/replicator to scan the three inventions and be able to arbitrarily produce more. Then I'd start scanning useful tools, which I now have in arbitrary amounts. Then, having proven its safety, I'll start handing them out because other people deserve this too. And next, I'd start designing entire star systems, which I teleport into existence. If I want to visit them, a matter-condenser rocket will take me there, accelerating to preposterous speeds with a zero-point-energy plus matter condenser, producing a stream of supercompressed hydrogen gas.
I'd send probes to go deep into the void, make a ring of trillions of matter condensers that was several AU in diameter, and spray hydrogen into the center to create stars. When the star grows enough, the welding on the ring fails and the matter condensers go flying outward into the universe. I'd recharge the sun by swapping out large amounts of it for a fresh cube of hydrogen. The heat death of the universe would never occur, because we would continuously rebuild it from scratch.
Friday, June 17, 2011
GE's Walking Truck
Hack a day brings to my attention that in the 1960s, General Electric had a project with the military in which they produced Quadrupedal walking armored vehicles, which would be used to transport soldiers and their large amount of very heavy supplies across uneven terrain that trucks and even tanks couldn't cross. The project had mixed results.
Apparently, the vehicle was built, and it did transport people at speeds up to 30 miles per hour for very little fuel, and could deftly walk across surfaces that would flip over a tank. It was even sensitive enough that an operator could gently rest a foot on a lightbulb. (Critics note that the lightbulb was placed on a pillow, rather than a cement floor, which is slightly cheating.)
On the downside, though, the user interface was incredibly poorly conceived, and operators needed WTF breaks every 15 minutes, because everything was controlled with a ludicrious array of levers, which drove people absolutely bonkers. I see an immediate improvement that could be produced.
There are two kinds of quadruped animals whose gaits may prove useful to this machine, and that I could describe. The dog and the horse. I learned the dog's foot habits from my pet dog as a child, which I noticed had two gaits. At slower speeds, a walk, the dog would align feet by sides. So first she would step with her front and rear left feet, then her front and rear right feet. When speeding up, there would be a point at which she would switch gaits to the running gait. With the running gait, the front and rear feet were treated as a set: first the front feet together, then the rear feet together.
In horses, there are three gaits: a walk, a jog, and a run. For the horse's walk, the four feet move completely independent of each other, as if two separate people were walking, one in front of the other. At the jog speed, or trot, legs are moved in diagonal pairs: The left front and right rear, then the right front and left rear. The horse's run resembles the dog's run, except that the feet pairs do not hit the ground at the same time. (There tends to be a slight delay, but the front feet will hit the ground within a half second of each other, while the rear feet will hit the ground a second later, also within a half second of each other.)
With some testing, an embedded computer could be made to copy these gaits in the walking truck, which could allow the operator to move across smoother surfaces in the same manner as driving a truck, taking manual control only when the terrain becomes too rough for automated motion. This would save the driver a lot of WTF breaks.
Apparently, the vehicle was built, and it did transport people at speeds up to 30 miles per hour for very little fuel, and could deftly walk across surfaces that would flip over a tank. It was even sensitive enough that an operator could gently rest a foot on a lightbulb. (Critics note that the lightbulb was placed on a pillow, rather than a cement floor, which is slightly cheating.)
On the downside, though, the user interface was incredibly poorly conceived, and operators needed WTF breaks every 15 minutes, because everything was controlled with a ludicrious array of levers, which drove people absolutely bonkers. I see an immediate improvement that could be produced.
There are two kinds of quadruped animals whose gaits may prove useful to this machine, and that I could describe. The dog and the horse. I learned the dog's foot habits from my pet dog as a child, which I noticed had two gaits. At slower speeds, a walk, the dog would align feet by sides. So first she would step with her front and rear left feet, then her front and rear right feet. When speeding up, there would be a point at which she would switch gaits to the running gait. With the running gait, the front and rear feet were treated as a set: first the front feet together, then the rear feet together.
In horses, there are three gaits: a walk, a jog, and a run. For the horse's walk, the four feet move completely independent of each other, as if two separate people were walking, one in front of the other. At the jog speed, or trot, legs are moved in diagonal pairs: The left front and right rear, then the right front and left rear. The horse's run resembles the dog's run, except that the feet pairs do not hit the ground at the same time. (There tends to be a slight delay, but the front feet will hit the ground within a half second of each other, while the rear feet will hit the ground a second later, also within a half second of each other.)
With some testing, an embedded computer could be made to copy these gaits in the walking truck, which could allow the operator to move across smoother surfaces in the same manner as driving a truck, taking manual control only when the terrain becomes too rough for automated motion. This would save the driver a lot of WTF breaks.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Things that Make Things
I understand there's a whole movement to machines that can make arbitrary objects. Usually, they're step-motored plastic fabricators, that melt plastic into specific shapes, given to them by CAD design. They also have a second compound that melts away in water, so one can cast shapes that would have fallen apart without support, but can become their final shape after a quick rinse. (Like an arch. It would have collapsed without support while building, but once built, the supports can be taken away because now the keystone holds it in place.) Most of these can make a very large percentage of their own parts, thus being semi "self assembling."
Some examples of this include the reprap, the "cupcake", Fab@home, and even a "gadget printer".
I love it because it's the closest we can have with today's technology to the "replicators" of science fiction that can grind out anything of your choosing. And maybe 99% of all jobs would disappear if that sort of thing became common, but in the right milieu , so would the need for jobs. I especially like that they can make copies of themselves, as most of them are rather expensive. (The cheapest one costs $500 USD!) And yet the plastic parts they're made of cost maybe 50 cents total, and the metal nozzle on the extruder is maybe another $3 at most.
Some examples of this include the reprap, the "cupcake", Fab@home, and even a "gadget printer".
I love it because it's the closest we can have with today's technology to the "replicators" of science fiction that can grind out anything of your choosing. And maybe 99% of all jobs would disappear if that sort of thing became common, but in the right milieu , so would the need for jobs. I especially like that they can make copies of themselves, as most of them are rather expensive. (The cheapest one costs $500 USD!) And yet the plastic parts they're made of cost maybe 50 cents total, and the metal nozzle on the extruder is maybe another $3 at most.
Friday, September 3, 2010
Why Space
I'm a big advocate of space travel. Partially because the entire earth is small as an atom compared to the vastness of space, but partially because the engineering required to live well in space often has implications for earthly living. Space is infinitely big (or nearly so), but travelers must live in tiny spaces with few resources, lest their air supply be sucked away by the vacuum.
Our little journey to the moon in the sixties gave us improved computers, TANG, improved radios, memory foam mattresses, and improved thrusters. We also got some technology that doesn't quite help as much on earth, like space suits. (People living on earth are highly unlikely to encounter high vacuum.) Though space suit technology may prove useful for improving, say, dialysis. (The space suit has to provide quite a lot of life support systems.)
So if we go forward with the proposal to visit Mars? We'll need to develop cramped quarters that still keep everyone alive for 3 straight months, up to six, we'll need medical support so that the astronauts' bones don't turn to mush along the way, we'll need to develop space farming, because otherwise the cargo burden is unbearable, We'll need to pack all this into a very tiny, low weight space. We'll also need all the instrumentation to do the experiments that make this financially worth while.
Medicine, materials science, and construction engineering would all gain a direct and major boost. And who knows what else might be discovered?
Our little journey to the moon in the sixties gave us improved computers, TANG, improved radios, memory foam mattresses, and improved thrusters. We also got some technology that doesn't quite help as much on earth, like space suits. (People living on earth are highly unlikely to encounter high vacuum.) Though space suit technology may prove useful for improving, say, dialysis. (The space suit has to provide quite a lot of life support systems.)
So if we go forward with the proposal to visit Mars? We'll need to develop cramped quarters that still keep everyone alive for 3 straight months, up to six, we'll need medical support so that the astronauts' bones don't turn to mush along the way, we'll need to develop space farming, because otherwise the cargo burden is unbearable, We'll need to pack all this into a very tiny, low weight space. We'll also need all the instrumentation to do the experiments that make this financially worth while.
Medicine, materials science, and construction engineering would all gain a direct and major boost. And who knows what else might be discovered?
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Autocoffee
This gives me an idea. A more automated coffee-maker, capable of refilling itself. It would have an embedded computer, and connect to the office network. A small interface would allow people to replace grounds, refill the pot, and report on quantities of coffee available. It would need a number of sensors, like a scale beneath the hot plate to determine how full the pot is.
Now, if a number of offices had this device, I could justify the businesses pooling together to have a coffee maintenance worker travel from office to office, maintaining each machine in turn. Maintenance would consist of refilling the supply of coffee powder, and checks of the mechanics. Any subsystem that fails would be replaced. This way, the machine is always in good working order and full of coffee. Morale is high, as no worker in the office need worry about having to refill the coffee machine. The cost to the business is low, perhaps only $1/day if enough businesses participate in this program, but the pool is large enough to pay at least minimum wage to the coffee maintainer.
I can also talk about the scale calibrations. If the scale reports zero, then the pot is not in the coffee maker, and the device should report that someone is currently taking coffee. (It should suggest checking back in about a minute.) If the scale reports the weight of the empty pot, then the device should report that the supply of coffee is exhausted, and suggest ordering a refill. (Which would be done with one click.) If the scale reports the weight of the pot plus the weight of a full supply of coffee, the device should report a 100% supply of coffee, and a suggestion to come have a pot. If the weight is between full and empty, it should calculate a percentage, and offer the refill button between a certain percentage and zero.
I should have an artist draw a picture of this, if an artist can be found.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Working Around the Volcanoes
A volcanic eruption in Iceland has made air travel to northern and western Europe mostly inaccessible. It is not safe to fly planes through the cloud of volcanic ash, as the ash clogs the airplane's air intake and fouls the engine.
So, if you really wanted to go there, how would you do it?
You could, as an immediate alternative, fly to southern Europe, and take trains to your final destination. Europe is quite interconnected with trains, even going to the UK, an island, via a tunnel.
But let's say you really really needed to fly directly to, say, Finland, and you lose a billion dollars for every moment after 8 hours from now. How could you fly directly?
You'd have to modify the plane. It would have to accept air not directly, but through a series of filters. It would need thick and tough hulls and windows. Or, alternatively, instead of gasoline it would have a non-breathing nuclear reactor. The filters would be in layers, and would have to be changed in mid-flight.
And when the plane landed, it would need to be instantly stripped for maintence. Flying through the ash and debris would have eroded every surface on the outside, and many clogged filters would need to be thrown away.
But it would be possible. And if you needed it that badly, you could do it.
So, if you really wanted to go there, how would you do it?
You could, as an immediate alternative, fly to southern Europe, and take trains to your final destination. Europe is quite interconnected with trains, even going to the UK, an island, via a tunnel.
But let's say you really really needed to fly directly to, say, Finland, and you lose a billion dollars for every moment after 8 hours from now. How could you fly directly?
You'd have to modify the plane. It would have to accept air not directly, but through a series of filters. It would need thick and tough hulls and windows. Or, alternatively, instead of gasoline it would have a non-breathing nuclear reactor. The filters would be in layers, and would have to be changed in mid-flight.
And when the plane landed, it would need to be instantly stripped for maintence. Flying through the ash and debris would have eroded every surface on the outside, and many clogged filters would need to be thrown away.
But it would be possible. And if you needed it that badly, you could do it.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Turbulance Cancellation
Discovery News reports that liquid-flow engineers now have a technique to cancel turbulence in a liquid as if it were sound: an equal and opposite turbulence defeats it.
This is actually a surprisingly big deal because it allows pipes to instantly unclog themselves, improving flow and speed of the liquid within, and in fuel-transfer environments can actually result in a marked increase in efficiency.
This is actually a surprisingly big deal because it allows pipes to instantly unclog themselves, improving flow and speed of the liquid within, and in fuel-transfer environments can actually result in a marked increase in efficiency.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Greenhouse Airfilter
We, as humans, require an atmosphere containing .2 atmospheres of oxygen, or we die. Less, and you asphyxiate. Much more and you also die. We evolved on a planet whose atmosphere contained 20% oxygen and 79% nitrogen, and its pressure of 760 torr has become our standard "atmosphere" unit.
But let's say that you're in a fixed environment. Maybe this is because you're in space. Maybe this is because you're so insufferably paranoid about a gas attack that you seal your living quarters airtight. Maybe you have been bricked up in a forgotten cellar somewhere, for the love of God, Montresor!!
Okay, what normally happens is that the air in your closed environment begins to collect carbon dioxide from your exhalations until it reaches a level poisonous to you, at which time you die of it. If you somehow scrub the air of carbon dioxide, then you very slowly use up the oxygen until it's all carbon dioxide in your scrubber, and you asphyxiate.
However, the oxygen we breathe is not the original atmosphere of the Earth. When the earth was formed, its atmosphere was made of nitrogen, methane, and carbon dioxide. The first life used the methane and carbon dioxide, and produced oxygen. As pollution. The environment absorbed the first production, until the concentration exceeded the environment's ability to absorb it, until it poisoned the atmosphere, nearly killing everything. Worse for the first type of life, a new type of life developed in this environment that ate that first type of life for food and metabolized it with oxygen. We are the descendants of this second type of life which we call "animals." The first type, "plants," are still around, but have gained considerable complexity since those early days.
Okay, we could then, if we provide the plants light, use plants to keep us alive, but let's say we don't want to do that directly. Plants live in dirt. They need watering, and can spill. They make pollen, which many people are allergic to.
Okay, so we keep the plants in a separate greenhouse, where if we spill a little when watering, no big deal. Also, if they spew pollen, no biggie. We can filter this out of the air when we return it. Your living area is in one place with a HVAC system that blows air about, and it moves old air into the greenhouse. In the greenhouse, air is blown about over the plants (who will enjoy human-breathed air, rich in CO2 and water vapor), and who produce oxygen. Plant-breathed oxygen can be blown back into the HVAC system, heated or cooled to a good temperature for humans, and brought back to the human-living area. There should be a HEPA filter in the input -- we've separated the plants from the humans for a reason. Dust, pollen, and dirt might be great for plants, but we don't want them in the human-living areas. NASA has found that the average human uses the same amount of oxygen as produced by 400 plants. Since plants produce no oxygen at night, we should double this to 800 plants per human. This sounds like a lot, but it can be achieved with 12 liters of algae.
So now I have the perfect setup for a human-carrying space ship (or bunker for an absolutely crazy person), but I want to go farther: I want to ensure that the human quarters gets only oxygen, and the greenhouse gets only carbon dioxide. I can think of a few ways to accomplish this.
Carbon dioxide turns to liquid if compressed to 10 atmospheres of pressure (at "room temperature.") The liquid can be drained off and reexpanded in the greenhouse. Or, it can be cooled to -78, which will deposit it as a solid material, which I can put in the greenhouse to warm up. If I take a great deal of air from the greenhouse into a tank first, then seal off the greenhouse after a major load, I can maintain an oxygen gradient. Of course, I would want to have at least two greenhouses in use for this kind of system. When one is "filled," we start pumping the carbon into the other one. At no time is a greenhouse exhausted of carbon, or the living quarters below 18% oxygen.
Oh, and it is important to immediately remove dead plants from any of these setups. Dead plants use up oxygen as they decay.
But let's say that you're in a fixed environment. Maybe this is because you're in space. Maybe this is because you're so insufferably paranoid about a gas attack that you seal your living quarters airtight. Maybe you have been bricked up in a forgotten cellar somewhere, for the love of God, Montresor!!
Okay, what normally happens is that the air in your closed environment begins to collect carbon dioxide from your exhalations until it reaches a level poisonous to you, at which time you die of it. If you somehow scrub the air of carbon dioxide, then you very slowly use up the oxygen until it's all carbon dioxide in your scrubber, and you asphyxiate.
However, the oxygen we breathe is not the original atmosphere of the Earth. When the earth was formed, its atmosphere was made of nitrogen, methane, and carbon dioxide. The first life used the methane and carbon dioxide, and produced oxygen. As pollution. The environment absorbed the first production, until the concentration exceeded the environment's ability to absorb it, until it poisoned the atmosphere, nearly killing everything. Worse for the first type of life, a new type of life developed in this environment that ate that first type of life for food and metabolized it with oxygen. We are the descendants of this second type of life which we call "animals." The first type, "plants," are still around, but have gained considerable complexity since those early days.
Okay, we could then, if we provide the plants light, use plants to keep us alive, but let's say we don't want to do that directly. Plants live in dirt. They need watering, and can spill. They make pollen, which many people are allergic to.
Okay, so we keep the plants in a separate greenhouse, where if we spill a little when watering, no big deal. Also, if they spew pollen, no biggie. We can filter this out of the air when we return it. Your living area is in one place with a HVAC system that blows air about, and it moves old air into the greenhouse. In the greenhouse, air is blown about over the plants (who will enjoy human-breathed air, rich in CO2 and water vapor), and who produce oxygen. Plant-breathed oxygen can be blown back into the HVAC system, heated or cooled to a good temperature for humans, and brought back to the human-living area. There should be a HEPA filter in the input -- we've separated the plants from the humans for a reason. Dust, pollen, and dirt might be great for plants, but we don't want them in the human-living areas. NASA has found that the average human uses the same amount of oxygen as produced by 400 plants. Since plants produce no oxygen at night, we should double this to 800 plants per human. This sounds like a lot, but it can be achieved with 12 liters of algae.
So now I have the perfect setup for a human-carrying space ship (or bunker for an absolutely crazy person), but I want to go farther: I want to ensure that the human quarters gets only oxygen, and the greenhouse gets only carbon dioxide. I can think of a few ways to accomplish this.
Carbon dioxide turns to liquid if compressed to 10 atmospheres of pressure (at "room temperature.") The liquid can be drained off and reexpanded in the greenhouse. Or, it can be cooled to -78, which will deposit it as a solid material, which I can put in the greenhouse to warm up. If I take a great deal of air from the greenhouse into a tank first, then seal off the greenhouse after a major load, I can maintain an oxygen gradient. Of course, I would want to have at least two greenhouses in use for this kind of system. When one is "filled," we start pumping the carbon into the other one. At no time is a greenhouse exhausted of carbon, or the living quarters below 18% oxygen.
Oh, and it is important to immediately remove dead plants from any of these setups. Dead plants use up oxygen as they decay.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Railgun Space Launch
Rail guns would greatly reduce the expense of launching items, vehicles, satellites, and so on, into space. Possibly down to the magic level that would allow privatization of space travel, finally putting advocates of such to put up or shut up. Allow me to explain.
A railgun is an engineered device that, using two electrically charged rails, exerts an enormous force on the object placed between those two rails. Aligning the currents with the right spin, this direction is "up." Yes, it uses a lot of energy to reliably produce a space launch, but less with this method because the energy will be provided at ground level. The launch vehicle will not require its own fuel, as the rail gun will be providing the energy. It can launch thousands of vehicles a day, if need be. (Though need will not be unless we're evacuating the Earth or something.)
Now space travel is expensive, because anything you want to get even into earth orbit must be sped to 11 km/s, or it will just fall back down again. 11 km/s is absurdly fast. To accelerate even, say, my car, to this kind of speed, some 19,958 Kilo-newtons must be applied. This would easily consume the entire output of a medium sized power plant, all charged in a bank of capacitors the size of a skyscraper.
Existing space travel uses massive hydrogen-oxygen bombs that, when
detonated, provide all that thrust and more. Of course, this means
carrying thousands of kilograms of those materials with you, which will further throw off calculations by being used up. Heavier thing, more fuel required. More fuel means even more weight. Any space mission will easily cost a billion dollars, leaving it solely in the reach of national governments.
With a rail gun setup, a very rich person could afford to send themselves and a Soyuz-type space station into orbit, for about $10 million. Plus maybe another $50 million in startup costs. Further advances might further reduce the expenses, bringing space travel to the masses.
Now at this time, there are people who complain that space travel is a misuse of government resources, and that space travel should be privatized. Very well. For $60 million, I offer you more material resources than the entire mining output of the earth. For $400 million, a consistent trade route could be developed, earning that sum back within 20 years time and employing a staff equal to the current population of Utah. I dare you to.
A railgun is an engineered device that, using two electrically charged rails, exerts an enormous force on the object placed between those two rails. Aligning the currents with the right spin, this direction is "up." Yes, it uses a lot of energy to reliably produce a space launch, but less with this method because the energy will be provided at ground level. The launch vehicle will not require its own fuel, as the rail gun will be providing the energy. It can launch thousands of vehicles a day, if need be. (Though need will not be unless we're evacuating the Earth or something.)
Now space travel is expensive, because anything you want to get even into earth orbit must be sped to 11 km/s, or it will just fall back down again. 11 km/s is absurdly fast. To accelerate even, say, my car, to this kind of speed, some 19,958 Kilo-newtons must be applied. This would easily consume the entire output of a medium sized power plant, all charged in a bank of capacitors the size of a skyscraper.
Existing space travel uses massive hydrogen-oxygen bombs that, when
detonated, provide all that thrust and more. Of course, this means
carrying thousands of kilograms of those materials with you, which will further throw off calculations by being used up. Heavier thing, more fuel required. More fuel means even more weight. Any space mission will easily cost a billion dollars, leaving it solely in the reach of national governments.
With a rail gun setup, a very rich person could afford to send themselves and a Soyuz-type space station into orbit, for about $10 million. Plus maybe another $50 million in startup costs. Further advances might further reduce the expenses, bringing space travel to the masses.
Now at this time, there are people who complain that space travel is a misuse of government resources, and that space travel should be privatized. Very well. For $60 million, I offer you more material resources than the entire mining output of the earth. For $400 million, a consistent trade route could be developed, earning that sum back within 20 years time and employing a staff equal to the current population of Utah. I dare you to.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Mechanical Motion
The number one obstacle in automating anything is a naive attempt to mimic what hands do in the manual version. Which the machine really cannot do, since mechanical hands exist mostly as prosthetics and would require a human brain to make them really work their best anyway.
In the 1700s and before, clothing had to be hand-sewn by a tailor, and was super expensive. Most people owned at most two outfits. Or sometimes even just one. If it got damaged, they would hand-sew patches on to repair it, because they sure as hell couldn't afford another pair.
The tailors were all overworked, and sewing was a task outright itching for automation. And so starting in the 1600s, people attempted to create automated sewing machines, recognizing that such an invention would revolutionize the clothing industry. So they watched people hand sew, and tried to make a machine copy that movement. None of them worked. Always, something would jam, break down, or fail.
The real innovation didn't hit until 1846. The modern sewing machine uses both a needle and a bobbin to sew from both sides of the cloth at once in a way that would be quite impossible for a human to copy. And that is the lesson I would like to teach today: Mechanical movements are quite different from their human counterparts.
Or, let us take the vacuum cleaner. The human-wielded device is a cart, with a vertical attachment to a bag, and a handle for human direction. So to automate it, I suppose people first tried mechanical legs and arms, only to have the whole contraption repeatedly fall over. And then when automated vacuum cleaners were invented, they look nothing like the hand-pushed kind of yesteryear. They look more like a security droid from a sci-fi movie.
So when a task is automated, it often is accomplished in a way different way than it would be if a human was doing it. Imagine if there were no windshield wipers. If it rained, you'd regularly have to pull to the side of the road, get out of the car, and wipe the windows with a dry cloth. And you had better hope that you had a large supply of dry cloths. Imagine if then somebody tried to create a windshield wiper that moved a cloth and then wrung it out. Probably wouldn't work very well.
PS: The invention of the sewing machine has reduced a pair of the typical kind of shirt I wear to $7, and the cost of a pair of pants to $10. I own tens of each.
In the 1700s and before, clothing had to be hand-sewn by a tailor, and was super expensive. Most people owned at most two outfits. Or sometimes even just one. If it got damaged, they would hand-sew patches on to repair it, because they sure as hell couldn't afford another pair.
The tailors were all overworked, and sewing was a task outright itching for automation. And so starting in the 1600s, people attempted to create automated sewing machines, recognizing that such an invention would revolutionize the clothing industry. So they watched people hand sew, and tried to make a machine copy that movement. None of them worked. Always, something would jam, break down, or fail.
The real innovation didn't hit until 1846. The modern sewing machine uses both a needle and a bobbin to sew from both sides of the cloth at once in a way that would be quite impossible for a human to copy. And that is the lesson I would like to teach today: Mechanical movements are quite different from their human counterparts.
Or, let us take the vacuum cleaner. The human-wielded device is a cart, with a vertical attachment to a bag, and a handle for human direction. So to automate it, I suppose people first tried mechanical legs and arms, only to have the whole contraption repeatedly fall over. And then when automated vacuum cleaners were invented, they look nothing like the hand-pushed kind of yesteryear. They look more like a security droid from a sci-fi movie.
So when a task is automated, it often is accomplished in a way different way than it would be if a human was doing it. Imagine if there were no windshield wipers. If it rained, you'd regularly have to pull to the side of the road, get out of the car, and wipe the windows with a dry cloth. And you had better hope that you had a large supply of dry cloths. Imagine if then somebody tried to create a windshield wiper that moved a cloth and then wrung it out. Probably wouldn't work very well.
PS: The invention of the sewing machine has reduced a pair of the typical kind of shirt I wear to $7, and the cost of a pair of pants to $10. I own tens of each.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Chindogu: The mad engineering of Japan
I could write this entire blog on Japan alone. They have a long history of unusual invention, unusual perspective, and general oddness in the eyes of the rest of the world. This was made further manifest in 1995, when an inventor, Mr. Kawakami, came up with the idea of mocking the pop-culture tendency to make gadgets to solve problems with gadgets that were so utterly bizarre or impractical that no one in their right mind would use them. He calls this "Chindogu."
"Chindogu" literally translates "unusual tool," but they're more than just unusual. They're playfully un-useless. That is to say, they're technically useful, but so odd or embarrassing that they cannot be used. The inventor speculates that a proper chindogu is not patented, and is not satire, but it's hard to imagine many of them being anything else.
Commonly listed Chindogus are Chopsticks with attached fan for excessively hot noodles, some kind of toilet paper hat so that you're never far from a usable tissue (which might be practical for someone with a severe cold or hayfever), a feather-duster whose handle contains a cocktail shaker (since one should be rewarded for cleaning diligently, right?), and a drysuit for the aquaphobic (which I'm fairly sure is missing the point of aquaphobia). And yes, some wag has indeed put together a solar-powered flashlight, which appears in many jokes about stupidity.
Truly, Mr. Kawakami is a master of mad engineering, even if his ultimate goal is to mock it. He also succeeds as a conventional engineer. An interview with him plugs a DVD that he made to strengthen weakened eye muscles, since eye-strain is at an all time high with the constant reading and working at computer screens and other close-range precision irritations.
"Chindogu" literally translates "unusual tool," but they're more than just unusual. They're playfully un-useless. That is to say, they're technically useful, but so odd or embarrassing that they cannot be used. The inventor speculates that a proper chindogu is not patented, and is not satire, but it's hard to imagine many of them being anything else.
Commonly listed Chindogus are Chopsticks with attached fan for excessively hot noodles, some kind of toilet paper hat so that you're never far from a usable tissue (which might be practical for someone with a severe cold or hayfever), a feather-duster whose handle contains a cocktail shaker (since one should be rewarded for cleaning diligently, right?), and a drysuit for the aquaphobic (which I'm fairly sure is missing the point of aquaphobia). And yes, some wag has indeed put together a solar-powered flashlight, which appears in many jokes about stupidity.
Truly, Mr. Kawakami is a master of mad engineering, even if his ultimate goal is to mock it. He also succeeds as a conventional engineer. An interview with him plugs a DVD that he made to strengthen weakened eye muscles, since eye-strain is at an all time high with the constant reading and working at computer screens and other close-range precision irritations.
Monday, May 11, 2009
The Rules of innovation
Over in White African, the author, a Kenyan who is Caucasian (yes, they exist), describes principles that drive innovation in Africa in general. The "White African" is his personal blog, he has another one, AfriGadget about African inventions in general. Technically, this is a reposting of Ethan Zuckerman's expose on the innovation that he routinely sees.
Africa is rather different from much of the rest of the world. It has been bled white of resources in a series of wars, after a long history of colonial rule, often kleptocratic. Many of its natural resources have grotesquely deteriorated. The northern part was, in ancient history, a lush forest, but is today the Saraha desert, a burning wasteland of sand and little else. The Savannah to the south is likewise difficult for human habitation.
Africans have generally been described as hungry for education and jobs to pull themselves out of desperate poverty. These things are not readily available, as the people are poor, the government is poor, the infrastructure was all destroyed in the last war, and even if the resources were available, many people are afraid to help out because the wars could restart at any minute now. (The less stable countries tend to abruptly collapse into a coup, which then decides that a border war would be an excellent idea.)
That said, apparently lots of Africans own cell phones, which they buy from Latin American companies. (Land lines? Long destroyed.) When there's no schooling to be had, Africans feel that owning a cell phone is prestigious. You can make calls, transfer money, even make some money. Apparently Africans will forgo eating for a week to afford a good phone.
Anwyay, I see these rules as relevant not only to Africa, but to me, here, in wealthy America. Innovation proceeded poorly in many of the wealthier eras, which had a remarkable lust for snake-oil, Veblen goods, and the most comedicly wrong thinking of all time. It was during the poorer and more threatened times that the real innovation shines through. Incidentally, my home state was initially populated with a gold rush, but guess who actually made the money? It wasn't the gold miners, it was the people who sold them things. (Forgot a pickaxe? Want eggs for breakfast instead of those iron rations? Need a pair of jeans that doesn't have a huge hole in the knees? I accept gold nuggets!) This is a wealthy time currently, so much of the discourse is bitching about how expensive everything is and wondering how to offshore more of it.
Working with culture is important because it's the basic framework of people's lives. It defines their sense of time, space, good and evil. Working against culture will make people find your work pointless, stupid, evil, or some combination of the three.
Use market measures. Giving stuff away encourages people to just take all they can until your resources are exhausted. People better respect what they have to pay for.
Start with what you've got. To build a train, you'd need rail, fuel, trainyards, train station, and a train engineer, but a bicycle fleet can be put together with what you've got.
Problems are not obvious from afar. The framework that applies to me does not apply to the various frameworks of Africa, nor would any of their frameworks apply to me. Tanzanian children love stationary bicycles and can use them for power generation because it's a fun novelty. American children probably have their own bike, yawn, boring. Many Africans are surviving on $1/day, an amount at which I would be homeless and on a starvation diet.
Infrastructure can produce more infrastructure. If trains are really important to you, you will find a way to build the rails. Cars are important to America, since we like the idea of a vehicle that obeys our personal individual will, so roads and highways are built up at great expense. In Africa, cell phones are quite common, so a network of solar powered car batteries have been developed to recharge them, and a young genius has a system to use cell phones to prevent grand theft auto. (Note to self: Find way to fund this.)
Most importantly, I want to see how running lean might work out. Anything of which I can reduce the expenses is a thing that can sell for cheaper, and hence more. Muhahaha.
Africa is rather different from much of the rest of the world. It has been bled white of resources in a series of wars, after a long history of colonial rule, often kleptocratic. Many of its natural resources have grotesquely deteriorated. The northern part was, in ancient history, a lush forest, but is today the Saraha desert, a burning wasteland of sand and little else. The Savannah to the south is likewise difficult for human habitation.
Africans have generally been described as hungry for education and jobs to pull themselves out of desperate poverty. These things are not readily available, as the people are poor, the government is poor, the infrastructure was all destroyed in the last war, and even if the resources were available, many people are afraid to help out because the wars could restart at any minute now. (The less stable countries tend to abruptly collapse into a coup, which then decides that a border war would be an excellent idea.)
That said, apparently lots of Africans own cell phones, which they buy from Latin American companies. (Land lines? Long destroyed.) When there's no schooling to be had, Africans feel that owning a cell phone is prestigious. You can make calls, transfer money, even make some money. Apparently Africans will forgo eating for a week to afford a good phone.
Anwyay, I see these rules as relevant not only to Africa, but to me, here, in wealthy America. Innovation proceeded poorly in many of the wealthier eras, which had a remarkable lust for snake-oil, Veblen goods, and the most comedicly wrong thinking of all time. It was during the poorer and more threatened times that the real innovation shines through. Incidentally, my home state was initially populated with a gold rush, but guess who actually made the money? It wasn't the gold miners, it was the people who sold them things. (Forgot a pickaxe? Want eggs for breakfast instead of those iron rations? Need a pair of jeans that doesn't have a huge hole in the knees? I accept gold nuggets!) This is a wealthy time currently, so much of the discourse is bitching about how expensive everything is and wondering how to offshore more of it.
Working with culture is important because it's the basic framework of people's lives. It defines their sense of time, space, good and evil. Working against culture will make people find your work pointless, stupid, evil, or some combination of the three.
Use market measures. Giving stuff away encourages people to just take all they can until your resources are exhausted. People better respect what they have to pay for.
Start with what you've got. To build a train, you'd need rail, fuel, trainyards, train station, and a train engineer, but a bicycle fleet can be put together with what you've got.
Problems are not obvious from afar. The framework that applies to me does not apply to the various frameworks of Africa, nor would any of their frameworks apply to me. Tanzanian children love stationary bicycles and can use them for power generation because it's a fun novelty. American children probably have their own bike, yawn, boring. Many Africans are surviving on $1/day, an amount at which I would be homeless and on a starvation diet.
Infrastructure can produce more infrastructure. If trains are really important to you, you will find a way to build the rails. Cars are important to America, since we like the idea of a vehicle that obeys our personal individual will, so roads and highways are built up at great expense. In Africa, cell phones are quite common, so a network of solar powered car batteries have been developed to recharge them, and a young genius has a system to use cell phones to prevent grand theft auto. (Note to self: Find way to fund this.)
Most importantly, I want to see how running lean might work out. Anything of which I can reduce the expenses is a thing that can sell for cheaper, and hence more. Muhahaha.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Engineerng Aphorisms
Work is good, but drudgery is evil. If there's a task that you really hate doing, you should work a thousand times harder to automate it so that you never have to do it again.
Adding extra workers to a late project makes it later. Not obvious, but different workers have different ideas of how to accomplish a given task, and errors will most likely occur on the interface between two different people's work. Some 85% of time is spent fixing those errors.
Madness takes its toll. Please have exact change.
If you think education is expensive, try ignorance. --Derek Bok
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent --Isaac Asimov
The graduate with a Science degree asks, "Why does it work?" The graduate with an Engineering degree asks, "How does it work?" The graduate with an Accounting degree asks, "How much will it cost?" The graduate with a Liberal Arts degree asks, "Do you want fries with that?" (rimshot)
In a mad world, only the mad are sane. --Akiro Kurosawa
We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it - and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again, and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore. -- Mark Twain
No matter how complicated a problem is, it usually can be reduced to a simple, comprehensible form which is often the best solution. -- An Wang
Adding extra workers to a late project makes it later. Not obvious, but different workers have different ideas of how to accomplish a given task, and errors will most likely occur on the interface between two different people's work. Some 85% of time is spent fixing those errors.
Madness takes its toll. Please have exact change.
If you think education is expensive, try ignorance. --Derek Bok
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent --Isaac Asimov
The graduate with a Science degree asks, "Why does it work?" The graduate with an Engineering degree asks, "How does it work?" The graduate with an Accounting degree asks, "How much will it cost?" The graduate with a Liberal Arts degree asks, "Do you want fries with that?" (rimshot)
In a mad world, only the mad are sane. --Akiro Kurosawa
We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it - and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again, and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore. -- Mark Twain
No matter how complicated a problem is, it usually can be reduced to a simple, comprehensible form which is often the best solution. -- An Wang
Monday, August 11, 2008
Technical Language
Engineering involves a lot of technical language, much of which is actually less complex than it sounds.
Take This cartoon involving two groups of people trying to out-engineer the other, one is trying to find the other without being detected, and the second is trying to foil this.
The ultimate gag is a "Connector Ejector" that causes a part to fall out of the opposing machine, sabotaging it. So the good guys find out where the evil guys are...but the evil guys know that they're coming.
Now the ultimate setup (each part involves the entire name of the previous part, for hilarious reasons,) is the "Quantum vector collector inspector detector deflector projector protector connector ejector." Certainly a complex sounding compound idea, but each of these can be broken down conceptually so that even a 4th grade student could understand it.
Quantum
From the Latin "Quantus," meaning "How much," it has come to mean "Immensely small, on the atomic scale." So this device involves really tiny particles.
Vector
A mathematical idea involving a number that is not only a quantity, but also a direction. Very commonly used in physics, where things like velocity and acceleration are affected not only by how much, but in what way. Changing directions affects things at least as much as speeding up or slowing down.
In this case, only the "direction" part matters. So far it is "using small particles to find a direction."
Collector
To "Collect" is to "Gather up." This is the villain's first counter measure, gathering up the quantum vectors so that the heroes cannot read them.
Inspector
To "inspect" is to "examine." This part of the device checks for the gathering of quantum vectors, and presumably has some way of retrieving them if they are being collected.
Detector
Like the inspector, the detector can tell if something happens...in this case, the villains can detect the snooping around of the heroes.
Calling a device a "detector" implies it to be more of a passive sensing than an "inspector." An "inspector" would actively search for the condition, while a "detector" would more passively watch for it.
If you can see the picture, it shows a smoke detector, a device that can sense if smoke is present in the room. Most smoke detectors I know aren't very good at it, being set off by cooking smoke, or even steam from a shower.
Deflector
To "Deflect" is to "bounce off." So this device would "bounce off" anything that the detector used to detect, foiling it. The heroes would then be free to find the villains without fear of detection.
Projector
Meaning "A device that throws forward." Most Americans are familiar with light projectors that project a still image on a flat surface, and film projectors, that does the same with a continuous film strip to produce a moving one.
This one "throws forward" something to harm the deflector, foiling the heroes' security system once again.
Protector
To protect something is to keep it safe from harm, so this device would somehow absorb or make harmless whatever it is that the projector throws forward.
Connector
Complex machines are not generated by magic. They are constructed from simpler machines, often factory made. These simpler machines must be connected together in the right configuration to do a complex job.
In fact, a modern computer could not be made by any one person anymore. You need a team of 20 to design even the central parts. The parts only work because the simpler parts (which one person knows how to make) can be connected together by experts until a complex design emerges.
So the villain's final stab at victory is to mess with his opponent's machine directly.
(Yes, the connection points ARE the weakest point in modern manufacturing. This will continue to be the case unless some kind of magical teleportation gets invented.)
Ejector
To "eject" is to "throw out." So an ejector throws something out of a machine. In this case, it removes one part from the hero's machine. Namely, the "Protector" part, and anything attaching it to the rest of the machine.
-----
So for this strip, team evil was just SLIGHTLY smarter than team good, and team good accidentally tipped their hand. But team good won in the end. And you got to learn a whole bunch of fancy words that might even help you invent something*.
* Inventions may be slightly or totally insane and/or non-practical.
Take This cartoon involving two groups of people trying to out-engineer the other, one is trying to find the other without being detected, and the second is trying to foil this.
The ultimate gag is a "Connector Ejector" that causes a part to fall out of the opposing machine, sabotaging it. So the good guys find out where the evil guys are...but the evil guys know that they're coming.
Now the ultimate setup (each part involves the entire name of the previous part, for hilarious reasons,) is the "Quantum vector collector inspector detector deflector projector protector connector ejector." Certainly a complex sounding compound idea, but each of these can be broken down conceptually so that even a 4th grade student could understand it.
Quantum
From the Latin "Quantus," meaning "How much," it has come to mean "Immensely small, on the atomic scale." So this device involves really tiny particles.
Vector
A mathematical idea involving a number that is not only a quantity, but also a direction. Very commonly used in physics, where things like velocity and acceleration are affected not only by how much, but in what way. Changing directions affects things at least as much as speeding up or slowing down.
In this case, only the "direction" part matters. So far it is "using small particles to find a direction."
Collector
To "Collect" is to "Gather up." This is the villain's first counter measure, gathering up the quantum vectors so that the heroes cannot read them.
Inspector
To "inspect" is to "examine." This part of the device checks for the gathering of quantum vectors, and presumably has some way of retrieving them if they are being collected.
Detector
Like the inspector, the detector can tell if something happens...in this case, the villains can detect the snooping around of the heroes.
Calling a device a "detector" implies it to be more of a passive sensing than an "inspector." An "inspector" would actively search for the condition, while a "detector" would more passively watch for it.
If you can see the picture, it shows a smoke detector, a device that can sense if smoke is present in the room. Most smoke detectors I know aren't very good at it, being set off by cooking smoke, or even steam from a shower.
Deflector
To "Deflect" is to "bounce off." So this device would "bounce off" anything that the detector used to detect, foiling it. The heroes would then be free to find the villains without fear of detection.
Projector
Meaning "A device that throws forward." Most Americans are familiar with light projectors that project a still image on a flat surface, and film projectors, that does the same with a continuous film strip to produce a moving one.
This one "throws forward" something to harm the deflector, foiling the heroes' security system once again.
Protector
To protect something is to keep it safe from harm, so this device would somehow absorb or make harmless whatever it is that the projector throws forward.
Connector
Complex machines are not generated by magic. They are constructed from simpler machines, often factory made. These simpler machines must be connected together in the right configuration to do a complex job.
In fact, a modern computer could not be made by any one person anymore. You need a team of 20 to design even the central parts. The parts only work because the simpler parts (which one person knows how to make) can be connected together by experts until a complex design emerges.
So the villain's final stab at victory is to mess with his opponent's machine directly.
(Yes, the connection points ARE the weakest point in modern manufacturing. This will continue to be the case unless some kind of magical teleportation gets invented.)
Ejector
To "eject" is to "throw out." So an ejector throws something out of a machine. In this case, it removes one part from the hero's machine. Namely, the "Protector" part, and anything attaching it to the rest of the machine.
-----
So for this strip, team evil was just SLIGHTLY smarter than team good, and team good accidentally tipped their hand. But team good won in the end. And you got to learn a whole bunch of fancy words that might even help you invent something*.
* Inventions may be slightly or totally insane and/or non-practical.
Saturday, December 1, 2007
Atlanta Needs Water
The city of Atlanta has a bit of a problem. It gets all its water from one reservoir, one that is also legally obligated to feed a river where an endangered mollusk lives. Not only that, but it is also not allowed to deprive Florida water from downstream.
Atlanta has been growing significantly for the past few years. New developments spring up every day, and everyone wants to drink water, shower, grow a lawn, and wash their dishes and clothes. They will lose this ability if the reservoir dries up, and unfortunately both the east and west coasts of the United States are undergoing a severe drought. Atlanta had 90 days of water left....60 days ago.
Water does not appear by magic. It must come from somewhere, either rain or importation. The Los Angeles region, where I was born, imports water from northern California, which has enough for both regions. Unfortunately, the regions around Atlanta don't have spare water, so this option is out.
Water can be reprocessed, removing the pee, poop, soap, and various chemicals that go into waste water, and then filtered through the earth. This produces clean water, the natural way. If you think it's gross, I guarantee you that any given glass of water you pour, be it from a tap or a bottle, has been through at least 12 different animals in the past. But let's assume that this strategy also is rejected for the ick factor, like it is in Australia.
However, Atlanta is reasonably close to the ocean. I therefore propose that a desalinization plant be built between the two. The plant would force filtered seawater at high pressure through pipes made of a membrane. The reverse osmosis reaction would cause fresh water to leak through the membrane, and concentrate the water still in the pipe as brine. The brine could then be evaporated into sea salt, and sold at a premium. The fresh water would be piped into the reservoir.
This plant would be very harsh on the power grid, (because pumping at high pressure uses a lot of electricity), and so I also think the plant should have a power generation plant built next to it. I recommend nuclear, as it is inexpensive to run and will not pollute the air. However, since people tend to have hysterical reactions to nuclear power, coal will probably be substituted. Coal would work almost as well, if one doesn't mind the bad smelling smoke.
I estimate, very roughly, that the nuclear plant would cost about $9 billion, the water treatment another $1 billion, and $1 billion to lay out the pipes between the ocean, the plant, and the lake. For $11 billion dollars, Atlanta has fresh drinking water for the rest of American existence.
Atlanta has been growing significantly for the past few years. New developments spring up every day, and everyone wants to drink water, shower, grow a lawn, and wash their dishes and clothes. They will lose this ability if the reservoir dries up, and unfortunately both the east and west coasts of the United States are undergoing a severe drought. Atlanta had 90 days of water left....60 days ago.
Water does not appear by magic. It must come from somewhere, either rain or importation. The Los Angeles region, where I was born, imports water from northern California, which has enough for both regions. Unfortunately, the regions around Atlanta don't have spare water, so this option is out.
Water can be reprocessed, removing the pee, poop, soap, and various chemicals that go into waste water, and then filtered through the earth. This produces clean water, the natural way. If you think it's gross, I guarantee you that any given glass of water you pour, be it from a tap or a bottle, has been through at least 12 different animals in the past. But let's assume that this strategy also is rejected for the ick factor, like it is in Australia.
However, Atlanta is reasonably close to the ocean. I therefore propose that a desalinization plant be built between the two. The plant would force filtered seawater at high pressure through pipes made of a membrane. The reverse osmosis reaction would cause fresh water to leak through the membrane, and concentrate the water still in the pipe as brine. The brine could then be evaporated into sea salt, and sold at a premium. The fresh water would be piped into the reservoir.
This plant would be very harsh on the power grid, (because pumping at high pressure uses a lot of electricity), and so I also think the plant should have a power generation plant built next to it. I recommend nuclear, as it is inexpensive to run and will not pollute the air. However, since people tend to have hysterical reactions to nuclear power, coal will probably be substituted. Coal would work almost as well, if one doesn't mind the bad smelling smoke.
I estimate, very roughly, that the nuclear plant would cost about $9 billion, the water treatment another $1 billion, and $1 billion to lay out the pipes between the ocean, the plant, and the lake. For $11 billion dollars, Atlanta has fresh drinking water for the rest of American existence.
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