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A cunning plan...
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PMM
PMM
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Re: A cunning plan...
Jul 26, 2010, 03:56
geoffrey_prime wrote:
OK..to be clear, when you say..

"I mean a system that is closed" I ask..What is this "system"?


I mean a set of interacting or interdependent entities forming an integrated whole.

geoffrey_prime wrote:
"Effectively, I mean at a global level"... Can you help me understand what you mean by a global system?


Well, that's a system that is limited to, but spread over the entirity of this planet.

geoffrey_prime wrote:
"We cannot currently grow away from this planet".....eh?


So how is the Lunar economy doing right now?

geoffrey_prime wrote:
"The amount of energy available to us is limited to what the sun provides"... I have to ask, and what about wind, wave, nuclear, carbon-based etc etc?



The wind is caused, partly by the Earth's rotation, and partly by differences in atmospheric pressure. These pressure differences are caused by differences in temperature, which are at least partly attributable to... The Sun!

Waves are caused by the Wind, and are therefore ultimately sourced from the Sun's energy.

Carbon resources are effectively, stored sunlight. - energy that has been trapped by plants that catalysed sugars into hydrocarbons using the suns energy. Some of those plants were trapped in anaerobic situations such as the bottom of swamps, and their stored hydrocarbons changed over geological time into hydrocarbon based minerals such as oil and coal. Being formed over hundreds of millions of years, they are effectively nnon-renewable within any human meaningful timescale.

Nuclear? Well OK. How long do you think available sources of fissionable materials would last if we replaced all the solar based
energy sources with nuclear?
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