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Abyssalstudios1

If projects were approved based on their coolness factor

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My friends and I were talking in math class a few days ago, and we came up with the idea for a hovercraft system that would travel from San Diego to Las Vegas to Phoenix. Allow me to explain:

I've always been a huge fan of solar power. I've heard it remarked somewhere that the state of Nevada could theoretically produce enough solar electricity to power the 48 continental States.

The hovercraft(s) would actually be trains. The tracks would be powerful electromagnets that would repel the trains a few feet into the air. More rail laid to the side would keep the trains on a steady course.

This would have to be in the desert because of electricity concerns. I have very little knowledge of electromagnetism (or magnetism, for that matter). But I do know that a few thousand miles of electro-magnetic force would require a lot of electricity.

And that's where the solar power comes in. Panels of solar cells would line the tracks, giving electricity to the magnets and essentially providing a free method of propulsion. All I have left to do is to figure out how the hovercraft would move.

Of course, this will never happen. People are too busy working out ways to get power from corn, shale, and new ways to blow people up to get their oil. But if projects were approved based on their coolness factor, this should be near the top of the list.

So what about you? Do you have any neat ideas, also knowing that it will probably never be approved?

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The problem with solar panels is that they require environmentally-unfriendly methods to make, and have a lifespan so short that you're better off using fossil fuels in the first place.

The coolest thing that will never be built? Orbital laser cannons that you can use to melt cities and write your name in mountains and stuff. Not going to happen cuz well, nukes work "better".

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They're investigating the possibility of getting solar power from satellites orbiting earth, that then send the energy to receptors on earth using microwaves. I think that is pretty cool. :p

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I've learned in an electricity class that solar power is like.. super inneffective. like 90% of it just creates heat while the remaining 10% is used to do what it's supposed to do.

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Abyssalstudios1 said:

The hovercraft(s) would actually be trains. The tracks would be powerful electromagnets that would repel the trains a few feet into the air. More rail laid to the side would keep the trains on a steady course.

It's been done.

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40oz said:

I've learned in an electricity class that solar power is like.. super inneffective. like 90% of it just creates heat while the remaining 10% is used to do what it's supposed to do.

Solarpower IS heat. (at least I think so) Those black panels are there to collect as much heat as possible so it can transform it into electricity. Heat is a recidue energy. Of the three tiers of energy, Heat is considered the lowest because it's the most "elusive". IE it got fall off.

Consider that nuclear and coal powerplants use chemical energy to create heat energy, which they then transform into motion energy and in the end electricity. That's pretty damn inefficient too.

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wring, it's not heat , check this out :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaic_cell

On the other hand, the classic electric generators require heat. That heat is used to steam water that in turn run the turbines of an alternator.

And indeed solar has a rather low yield compared to a nuclear reactor or burning fossil energy.

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yeah this one is yet another method, but its much less common than the use of photovoltaic cells.

It's quite a bit closer to the regular methods (nuclear and fossil energy) as it involves steaming water to run an alternator. (One that I visited in France does just that)

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@ Spleen: that is awesome.

And personally, I think the main reason that solar power is ineffective is because there has been little interest in developing it. I heard somewhere that someone is working on supercooled conductors that move electricity at incredibly slow speeds, effectively turning the power lines into a giant battery [citation needed]. This would efficiently store the solar power.

But I'm certain that if more research was done into developing solar power, it could be made much more efficient to use.

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The problem with solar energy is that it requires a WHOLE lot of space/surface to produce a somewhat decent power.

Superconductors at very low temperature are indeed very efficient but not applicable to solar yet. Solar and cold are somewhat opposing, no ? :D How can you cool down below -50C an object exposed to the sun w/o using a massive amount of energy? (that energy could be indirect such a liquid nitrogen, coz it takes a lot of energy to concentrate and compress Nitrogen/gases)

But I am sure the solar technology will evolve and improve, probably through nano-technology to cram as many photovoltaic cells in a small surface.

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Don't care about this one bit. Those cities are on the other side of the US, what benifit does it give me? Also magnetic hovering like you said has already been done, trains in Japan use it for example. Also hovercrafts require tons of power to keep themselves in the air, currently there isn't much that we have to keep up with burning gas.

Also, solar panels are nice but they are not that great, I own a bunch and it's not really a "You can get off the grid!!11one". Also, it would be alot cheaper to continue using power off the grid. But anyway, you need to cut back what you do, that is you turn all your shit off when you aren't using it depending on the amount of panels, sun, and battery capacity. You'd also have to clean the birdshit off your panels. Solar panels are easily damaged, if water gets in them you are screwed (there are waterproof ones (as in covered), but they are waterproof to a certain extent).

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Um, Maglev trains are already all over Europe and Japan. And I don't think they eat up THAT much power compared to other things.

However, I fully support more public transportation in all areas of the US. I have no idea why people are so horribly against it.

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Danarchy said:

However, I fully support more public transportation in all areas of the US. I have no idea why people are so horribly against it.


Public transportation is slow, cramped, and expensive. It also doesn't go everywhere so it's usefulness is limited. In some towns, bus stops are across town through gang infested streets and areas of high crime.

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GhostlyDeath said:

Public transportation is slow, cramped, and expensive. It also doesn't go everywhere so it's usefulness is limited. In some towns, bus stops are across town through gang infested streets and areas of high crime.

It's not expensive. If the local buses actually had a reasonable schedule (and they didn't because they keep cutting the budget in half every year), I'd have taken them to work every day when I was living on the bus line. Unfortunately, they only began running at like 9:00 and stopped at like 8:00 at night, so I had to supplement it with rides from friends and the like when my car was out of commission. Anyway, the times I didn't have a car and rode the bus, I actually ended up saving up a lot more money than what I was spending on gas. Buses do tend to be a bit slower than driving by car, but if we had more light rail and the like, public transportation might actually end up being faster.

I haven't had problems with buses going through high-crime areas, but then again we don't tend to have those much around here. Yes, they don't go everywhere (I have to live out in the boonies right now, so I'm screwed if my car ever has to go in to the shop), but if we just put more funding into public transportation in high-population areas, they'd be viable for commuting in areas where there are lots of people living, thus cutting down significantly on car traffic in urban areas.

Unfortunately, I live in the Puget Sound area, where people for some reason have a hard-on for their fucking SUVs and a pathological hatred for public transportation (and poor people) and so every year they keep cutting back on the public transportation funding so us poor folk are being fucking screwed, not able to get to work or anything. I wouldn't be surprised if they completely axed our world-famous ferry system within the next few years, considering all it is now is a few rusting ferries running only 3 times a day like that's fucking useful (hey, some people have to fucking commute on those things, assholes). This area keeps getting rated the WORST FUCKING PLACE TO DRIVE in the ENTIRE COUNTRY for WELL OVER A DECADE NOW and we keep wondering why that is. WELL, YOU FUCKING GENIUSES, MAYBE IF YOU STOPPED VOTING FOR LOWER TAB PRICES FOR YOUR FUCKING GAS-GUZZLING H3s WE COULD GET SOME FUCKING FUNDING FOR PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION AND THE ROADS WOULDN'T BE CLOGGED EVERY GODDAMN HOUR OF THE DAY. FUCK, YOU YOU UPPER MIDDLE CLASS SELF-ABSORBED PRICKS, GET YOUR HEADS OUT OF YOUR ASSES AND STOP VOTING FOR EVERY PIECE OF SHIT INITIATIVE THAT CUNT-FACED LIBERTARIAN FUCKTARD TIM EYMAN PUTS TO PETITION AAAARRGEKHAFLADFHLSAHFLSAKF

um...


tl;dr - More funding would make public transportation much more viable and better.

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Abyssalstudios1 said:

Using land suitable for feeding the country's population for fuel seems like a waste to me.


We would use only biofuels which are not derived from edible materials but from the non-edible components of the plants. We could even plant desert-resisten vegetables in desertic areas which would be otherwise unused.

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EEs opinion: too low conversion efficiency, and too energy inefficient all the way.

There are better ways to use solar energy, and powering an energy hungry and wasteful beast just doesn't but it. It would be like trying to make a solar-powered heavyweight cargo plane: it wouldn't collect enough solar energy to taxi, let alone take off.

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the most efficient use of the solar energy so far is through the plants's chlorophyle and their crops by producing food for us.

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GhostlyDeath said:

Public transportation is slow, cramped, and expensive. It also doesn't go everywhere so it's usefulness is limited. In some towns, bus stops are across town through gang infested streets and areas of high crime.

You're full of shit. I'm saving thousands of dollars a year using the public transit in Toronto. Insurance alone for my bullshit Sunfire is $5100 a year. That's not including gas, maintenance, and parking. And it's not slow. Toronto has some of the worst traffic of many large American cities. And yes, we have buses that go everywhere.

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Ahh, Americans and their nonsensical fear of the bus. It's nice not having to drive during rush hour, pay for parking, pay for gas, pay for insurance, pay for maintenance, and then worry about car thieves! I don't have to pay bus fare because my eyes keep me from driving, but even if I did I'd be paying about $4/day for the days I go out. It would add up to around $1000/year. What's it cost to drive a car all the time? :p

The crap about poor neighbourhoods and crime is bullshit too. I hear about far more people dying in cars here (because some other car hit them) than I do people getting attacked on buses (and we do have some nasty places where the buses go).

I miss Tokyo. Trains everywhere. Trains every two minutes. Almost no cars. Too many people though, and they don't talk to each other. Also, their trains all stop at midnight, which is kind of weird and frustrating.

I can't say I've ever been on a mag-lev train. I saw one in Shanghai. It just went from the airport to the city.

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Abyssalstudios1 said:

Using land suitable for feeding the country's population for fuel seems like a waste to me.

If only everyone who ate fast food would take the oil used to make their food and put it in their cars. But that still wouldn't be enough oil for all the useless driving people do. Walking and biking and carpooling are far more preferrable than a nation designed around single people driving around in SUVs.

What does sound promising is biofuels from algae. From what I understand, there are places we can grow large amounts of algae so that it wouldn't take up the space of our corn food supply, and we wouldn't have to cut CO2-eating forests for even more massive corn fields.

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Technician said:

You're full of shit. I'm saving thousands of dollars a year using the public transit in Toronto. Insurance alone for my bullshit Sunfire is $5100 a year. That's not including gas, maintenance, and parking. And it's not slow. Toronto has some of the worst traffic of many large American cities. And yes, we have buses that go everywhere.

Cool, that's Toronto. Number one: it's a big city. I'm wondering what people use to get to work in rural Nunavut. Number two: it's in Canada, not the US. I'm in United States, land of the roads and home of the cars. Public transportation is way different here.

GhostlyDeath said:

Public transportation is slow, cramped, and expensive. It also doesn't go everywhere so it's usefulness is limited.

Well, it doesn't have to be this way, if the government puts effort into improving it.

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You can use giant fields of solar mirrors focusing light onto a central point and boiling liquid or heating air to generate power. But nuclear power is another thing with the thorium reactor. Or you could use deuterium from sea water. Using coal is so backward.

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Technician said:

You're full of shit. I'm saving thousands of dollars a year using the public transit in Toronto. Insurance alone for my bullshit Sunfire is $5100 a year. That's not including gas, maintenance, and parking. And it's not slow. Toronto has some of the worst traffic of many large American cities. And yes, we have buses that go everywhere.


Was I talking about a random city in Canada?

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Spleen said:
I'm wondering what people use to get to work in rural Nunavut.

Given that Nunavut's road system is isolated from the rest of Canada's, I'd say feet and snowmobiles...

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Here in China (where population is much denser in cities) the main cloggaage of roads seems to be people who drive huge SUV's, or any kind of disproportionately large vehicle, with just one or maybe even two people inside. Everyone else zips past on motorcycles and electric bikes, and I zip past everyone else on my crappy old (leg-powered) bike. Of course for longer distances maybe a motorcycle or something is ideal. Many people use buses which are very cheap and very crowded, and definitely slower than a bike. Not sure what I'm trying to say, except that for relatively short distances (which is often the case, especially in cities) I am inclined to believe that bikes or buses are usually ideal.

I think there are always relatively easy ways to travel way more efficiently, but it seems that people are always too stuck in their own old ways of doing things, or preoccupied with other stupid things, that nothing ever changes. This (transportation) is a complex subject, considering so many (infinite?) factors and ideas that factor in. But it's definitely worth improving upon.

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