Comment Sadly, the only option ... (Score 1) 2
... IMHO is to walk away before you lose you marbles tilting at windmills.
... IMHO is to walk away before you lose you marbles tilting at windmills.
You assume RTG technology - I don't and I don't think the linked article does, either.
They discuss Energy Organs here, stating that (emphasis mine):
a sphere of Gd148 emitting ~100 watts with a 75-year half-life and measuring 3.41 cm in diameter with a 5-micron Pt shield glows at 1326 K (e-sub-r for Pt at 1326 K is 0.156; Gd melting point ~1585 K, Pt melting point ~2042 K); this is approximately the decomposition temperature of diamond (into graphite) and well above the combustion point for diamond in air (Section 6.5.3), so Pt-coated sapphire (sapphire melting point ~2310 K) may provide a more stable first wall for the radionuclide energy organ. Carnot thermal efficiency for a heat engine using this source could reach, at most, ~76%.
I'd say that's pretty good efficiency, and given the power levels and temperatures, I think non-RTG technologies should be used. If the system never drops below 0C, why not use a more conventional system?
Plus, you could just use the Gd148 to keep the craft warm and use other means to generate electrical power.
Gd148 is sexy as hell, but isn't exactly available in the corner drugstore. I quote:
A ~0.2 kg block of pure Gd148 (~1 inch^3) initially yields ~120 watts, sufficient in theory to meet the complete basal power needs of an entire human body for ~1 century...
Yes, I admit it.
I stopped using TurboTax when they decided they could write data outside my filesystem, as if it were their computer. I use H&R Block's TaxCut, and it's just as good as TurboTax ever was.
Cancer may not have to be the cause of death, but rather the cause of immortality.
Perhaps they can harness the same thing that keeps HeLa cells immortal - sort of a body-wide 'cancer' that makes you immortal?
The sound of a Saturn V ripping and rending it's way into space.
Lucky you. I have a huge notch in my hearing around 15 kHz thanks to flybacks.
Seems like it would be more fair to compare the costs and specs of Teslas and Leafs (etc.) that will be released in 2017--the Chevy is still 2 years out! The Volt's specs certainly changed while under development. Will be interesting to see if the same hold trues for the Bolt.
Life is a "Grand Illusion" -- Styx, 1977
Check out Strong Spermin' ^H^H^H^H Strom Thurmond. He popped out 4 kids between the ages of 68 and 73.
I said ignore so 4g/wireless ISPs, so let's just ignore them
In many places, you do have a choice of ISP even with the same connection. I have a choice of Time Warner Cable or, e.g., Earthlink for cable modem access. I leverage this every year for lower rates. I also have a different connection possibility--Frontier (Bleh) for DSL. AT&T is in the process of rolling out fiber that will be available 1Q 2015 (hopefully Google comes soon after). Look at the fiber maps (AT&T, FIOS, Google)--they're expanding incredibly rapidly.
I was responding to the GP who said "Something like 80% of US citizens don't have a choice in the matter of which ISP they use." I disagree with that statement. If you are trying to read into my reply that I think the Internet situation in the US is flawless, you are stretching!
One thing that could immediately become mainstream in the future: nightly, off-site backups. Transferring 1 TB of data over a 10Gbps line takes just under 15 minutes [wolframalpha.com].
Forget the fiber connection, I want a terrabyte data store that reads at 10Gbps!
She can't get cable ?
Trying to be happy is like trying to build a machine for which the only specification is that it should run noiselessly.
