Everyone should live in one of Paolo Soleri's arcologies. davew
On Tue, Feb 8, 2022, at 9:45 AM, glen wrote: > It still sounds like rent-seeking to me. The answer is: Move to the > city. Centralize. Hivitize. We need to stop enabling those who think a > McMansion [⛧] in the forest/desert or the suburbs is, in any way, a > Good Thing. Suburban and rural populations are sucking way more than > they're contributing, living off the excess produced by the centralized > hubs. > > It *seems* reasonable to assert that we should work on the "last mile" > problem, applying individualist solutions like personal vehicles and > private power lines (of whatever composition) directly to one's rural > homestead. But the last mile problem is only a problem because of our > delusional identity as individuals and our delusional conception of > private property. Correct those causes and that symptom will be > mitigated. > > Sure, there will still be issues like transporting individuals from the > hive into the fields to do work (e.g. launching small groups into > space). But those would be the edge cases, not the center. If the power > law distributed majority of us lived in appropriately dense hives, > compressed air storage makes a lot more sense (as does broadband > communication, cultural transmission, and a host of other processes > perverted by our identities as individuals). > > > [⛧] Sorry, Steve. I know your homestead, littered with cool > micro-inventions and geeky tech, doesn't *seem* like a McMansion. But > it essentially is ... just tailored to a - our - subculture's tastes. > >8^D Even for those who go fully "off grid", when the sh¡t hits the > fan, those humans, massively capable harvesters of natural resources > that we are, will go back "on grid" to, say, get cancer treatment or > buy some canned beans or whatnot. But we can tolerate the few truly > innovative survivalists, and *not* pipe energy to their stead. It's the > blatant exploiters, rent-seekers, whose living out there is fully > supported by their ability to suck resources from the hive ... and our > abetting that parasitic relationship. > > On 2/8/22 09:00, Steve Smith wrote: >> >> As an amateur complexicist, I am a fan of multi-scale systems.... so I look >> forward to systems like yours not being scaled (only) to mega-industry. I >> wonder at how far out the existing distribution chain you can push >> compressed air practically? I doubt there are (m)any mechanics or private >> homes, for example, who could give up their NG feed (heat mostly) for >> compressed air, even if the upstream distribution were converting. The >> new(ish) DC-powered residential scale mini-split heat-pumps would seem to >> operate well off of any mechanical energy source (not just PWM modulated >> variable speed DC motors) and the decompressed chilled air from the >> air-motor would go right into boosting the efficiency rather than being yet >> another source of waste heat. Not a perpetual motion machine, just a system >> where some of the intrinsic inefficiencies are exploited/recovered elegantly? >> >> The big win seems obviously to be the major NG pipelines and existing >> electric generation stations. I can't tell from your literature if >> converting existing NG turbines to compressed air is even reasonable... >> seems like this is probably why CAES is burning NG to bring the charge up to >> the performance scale of existing turbine designs? I believe that many of >> these plants were designed/modified to be "peaking" plants which it seems >> your tech is ideal for... let the > > > -- > glen > When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers. > > > .-- .- -. - / .- -.-. - .. --- -. ..--.. / -.-. --- -. .--- ..- --. .- - . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn UTC-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > archives: > 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ .-- .- -. - / .- -.-. - .. --- -. ..--.. / -.-. --- -. .--- ..- --. .- - . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn UTC-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ archives: 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
