From: Jim Choate <ravage@einstein.ssz.com>
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1998 14:46:34 +0800
To: cypherpunks@einstein.ssz.com (Cypherpunks Distributed Remailer)
Subject: Re: Citizenship silliness.  Re: e$: crypto-expatriatism (fwd)
Message-ID: <199809102009.PAA06031@einstein.ssz.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text



Forwarded message:

> Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1998 13:15:09 -0500
> From: Petro <petro@playboy.com>
> Subject: Re: Citizenship silliness.  Re: e$: crypto-expatriatism (fwd)

> 	Well, we used to dump 1000-3000 gallons of waste fuels into a pit,
> but I'd guess a decent size bucket or tray would work.
> 
> 	We had a smaller pit about 5x3 feet.

Youser, this is a plan to have every fireman and policeman in Austin show up
at my house Saturday afternoon isn't it (you crafty devil you)?...

I'll have to beg off since I live right in the middle of town any showy
demonstrations would be met with some neighborhood hostility I suspect. I
also don't believe the folks who own the land out in Elgin where my shop is
would go for that either, they're worried enough about my rocket engines and
Tesla coils...

> truck, we are talking no more than 10 or 20 gallons of fuel, tops.

> 	As I said, I know "just a bit" about this. I know that we would
> often get the bubbles from the detergent/water combo floating on top of
> everything, assisting in preventing a reflash by keeping a blanket between
> the air and the fuel/water.

Well in petroleum fires it isn't the liquid that burns but the very thin gas
layer just above it. You can actualy put a gas fire out with a wash of
gasoline. It's got to literaly be thrown on the fire and it needs to be
much larger than the quantity of material being burned. The soap/water
combo act as a layer reducing the outgassing and hence starving the fire of
fuel. It also lowers the temperature also helping the fire fighting
(remember temperature, fuel, oxidizer).

The bubbles of water than form, without the soap, sink to the bottem of the
spilled fuel and play no part in the fire/fire-fighting process.

> 	A "friend" of my fathers has been heating his home with it longer
> than I've known him, and that's about 20 years. Had his investment returned
> a LONG time ago.

Where does he live? What kind of house does he live in? What happens when we
expand his system to cover a small city of say 10k and include schools,
hospitals, business, etc.? What are the costs to install and operate
compared to traditional methods?

If he lives in a wood house in Alaska that won't work, if he lives in a mud
hut in the desert of Nevada all you need is a straw mat, a fan, and some
water to cool (yeah I know that's a literal exageration, but environment
does play a role).

There's this house here in Austin that is thermo-regulated by a fluid that
is pumped several hundred feet into a hill. The temperature in the core of
the hill stays about 68F year around, his house stays around 72 or so year
around as a consequence. Unfortunately, we don't have enough hills in Austin
(and if you've never been to Austin, we're nothing but hills) to take care
of the entire city. The heat from your neighbors house ends up in  your
house and vica versa.

> 	Question, when you said that there we'd need more land under
> production than we have available to produce enough CHO3 (IIRC) to replace
> oil, was that using current corn/soybean as a base material, or was that
> considering higher biomass stuff such as Hemp &etc. As well, where was that
> number from?

I suspect (and that's all it is) that when one takes the population growth
rate, requirements for water, transportation, housing, commercial
enterprises, waste, etc. there won't be enough arrible land left to grow
sufficient quantities of any plant material for anything except food.

There are issues with clathrates as well. Such as the fact these materials
are also the result of decay of animal matter and some percentage of
outgassing on the sea bed from deep geo-sources and ultimitely face the
same sort of issues with petroleum *if* the various curves don't match. The
question is, and I admit to have no hard data other than supposition, what
are/would be the curves if we used clathrates? Is the deposition rate
sufficient given a global extraction rate that was positive over time? Does
the increase in bio-mass as a result of population growth compensate
sufficiently?

I don't know and really would be hesitant to try to put real numbers to that
with what references I have available currently. And given my current
commitment level I'm not likely to spend a great deal of time working on it
to solidify the model.

I support diversity as well, unfortunately in some instances it's more
economical (with the inclusion of waste and other issues normaly ignored)
to go with a single solution on large scales. And that after all is the
issue, not one house out of 10,000 but all 10,000.


    ____________________________________________________________________

                            The seeker is a finder.

                                     Ancient Persian Proverb

       The Armadillo Group       ,::////;::-.          James Choate
       Austin, Tx               /:'///// ``::>/|/      ravage@ssz.com
       www.ssz.com            .',  ||||    `/( e\      512-451-7087
                           -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'-
    --------------------------------------------------------------------