Timely Magic

Part 1 of 2. Chronos Merlin teaches Harrison and all of us about the algal updraft/ condensing downdraft tower biodisc, in exclusive footage retrieved from the MRM film archives (not yet digitally restored).

Posted by Søren Renner on Saturday, June 2, 2007 at 02:26 PM in
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Comments:

Posted by Guessedworker on June 02, 2007, 04:33 PM | #

Fish is a really bad idea.

I mean, with anything else you can throw a few dirty plates in the sink. Let them build up a bit. Baked beanz, egg, chicken dippers ... no problem. But then you eat one goddamned measly mackerel, chuck the stuff on the pile and after a day or two eeurgh. Fish. Got to wash the whole lot .

So fish is not good. Fish is oppressive.

Posted by President Barbicane on June 03, 2007, 11:01 PM | #

The biggest problem I’ve always seen in solar updraft towers is that they use up so much land. If they were used extensively, it would drive up the cost of land, meaning some people would not be able to afford land of their own.

Posted by Lorcan on June 04, 2007, 02:44 PM | #

Must this even be on land? Could not this be a floating construct in the tropics? Then you could sink another tower into the depths to make use of the oceanic thermal differences which would also balance and buttress the structure. The biodiesel area of the tower is huge so I wonder if there is a possibly or leveraging it for direct electrical power via a modified form of photosynthesis as well as normal energy production via natural photosynthesis.It can be done crudely with enzymes already.
http://www.newscientisttech.com/article/dn9040-bio-fuel-cells-could-power-portable-gadgets.html

The oceanic water could be perhaps used to further increase the thermal difference and it could offer opportunities for “mining” as well if the bottom layer of algae was saline insensitive and partially charged a quantity of sea water could be pumped through where it could act as an enormous filter for collecting particles of metals present in the sea water.

Merely some quick unfocused thoughts on the subject.

Posted by James Bowery on June 04, 2007, 05:32 PM | #

Relocation to ocean deserts results naturally from such a system.

I suspect it will be some time before we can improve on algae much—they’ve been around longer than almost any other life form—but biotech is going along very fast.

Posted by James Bowery on June 04, 2007, 05:33 PM | #

As for the price of land:

The entire point of such a system is to reduce demand for land.

It does so dramatically.

Posted by Lorcan on June 04, 2007, 06:09 PM | #

What im wondering offhand is would the combination of thermal updraft tower and an ocean Thermal Energy Converter in one linked structure produce more or less energy than the sum of their parts?
I might even take a curious look at modelling such a behemoth if I have any free time in next few months.

BTW James do offhand you know what the biodiesel harvest of your structure would be in megajoules? You have given an figure in dollars and economic reasoning may drive the building of such structures (or not as is the case now) but once in place such structures would more than likely drive the economy rather than the opposite.

Joules are a universal regardless of manufactured economic conditions.

Posted by James Bowery on June 04, 2007, 07:15 PM | #

OTEC requires a different kind of system with much larger pressure differences but those pressure differences are maintained within a portion of the tower (the submerged part) that must be massive anyway so as to act as a counterweight for the updraft portion.

There are some angles to investigate here including the raising of nutrients from depth for ocean deserts, but I suspect much of that potential is less critical than iron fertilization.

Posted by James Bowery on June 04, 2007, 07:27 PM | #

As for the numbers on the system, they are given at Sustainable Biosphere For Maximal Carrying Capacity At Current US Standard of Living.

The rough biodiesel energy per year is given by 203.719 towers/quad or 5.1787E+15 joules/tower.