Jed Rothwell writes: > > > Naturally occurring liquid fuel comes from deserts in Saudi Arabia and Texas. > Why would it be any worse to extract synthetic fuel from the deserts and drylands in : > Arizona, California and Texas? The solar thermal plants would probably be a lot cheaper \ > than any fission plant ever will be, and much safer. Even now, we could supply > all the liquid fuel we need with 10,000 to 20,000 square miles (100 x 200 miles) > but there is plenty of land out there. > You are talking about fission electric power generation while I was referring to a fission thermal heating unit (a one megawatt thermal device will fit in a 55 gallon drum) for heating the shale using heat pipe technology and getting high grade steam from the "spent shale" for ancillary electrical power generation. The Sandia-developed "Solar Tower" between Barstow and Victorville California Desert isn't doing all that great, AFAIK.
Fred > > - Jed > > >
