Tag Archives: California

The Future of Power?

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The California PG&E outage is a clear note about what happens when you ignore your infrastructure and you don’t have a regular preventative maintenance schedule. PM can cost a lot, but as we see in California, does it really?

I started wondering about alternatives to high tension power lines in California. You couldn’t really bury any of it, with so many quakes, maybe. So what else? Microwave transmission? Maybe make it auto-aiming so if there is a quake and the tower moves a little, it can reacquire the source faster? Or perhaps spread out the generation stations, like solar reflector installations, to distribute the load and increase the production rate…

But then these ideas lead me to truly knackers ideas. If you are going to go this far, why not just also install immense Tesla coils and then outfit cars with wireless AC receivers and then the entire automobile fleet can be electric and not need charging, since you can skip batteries, it’s much easier and cheaper.

But if we did — then we might be able to use addressable frequencies per vehicle or overlay a data stream on top of the power itself, so a car that did a hit and run or is involved in an OJ chase could be remotely turned off. But man, with enough coils dotting the landscape, powered by solar reflector stations you could drive from coast to coast with ease. We could possibly make covered tunneled roadways and then increase the speed, then automate the entire thing so after you get past human reaction limits, your car can accelerate to a comfy cruising speed of 350mph or higher.

I want to trade an immense battery bank for honeycombed graphene and kevlar car bodies so I’m traveling safely even if I impact at ridiculously high speeds. Or I want a car that automatically fills with a gassy rubber filler and ejects the passenger compartment upon a catastrophic impact event, like we have with fighter jet ejection systems. And an adorable theme-able packed parachute, maybe Hello Kitty? 😉

But an entire truck fleet that is automated and powered by solar reflector stations and tesla coils. Zero emissions. Poof, just like that. I suppose I like solar reflectors more because they mean business. Plus you could put the parabolic mirrors on gantries say twenty feet up, and then have open pasture underneath for cows, chickens, and sheep. Or grow shade-happy crops?

These power stations might, if there are enough of them, raise the albedo of the local area and then you nip greenhouse effect at the beginning of the cycle. You’re channeling the incoming solar radiation elsewhere. It isn’t heating up water or pavement or farmland. It’s being soaked up by hungry devices like trucks and cars and trains.

I sort of wonder what an airplane with a wireless AC box would look like? Different jet technology, based on electrics not on jet fuel. And the tons of carbon saved. You could replace the jet fuel with new safety equipment, like foam bursters and ejection systems in case of some sort of failure in the air. The plane just falls apart, the cabin fills with sticky goop, and it parachutes to earth safely.

We would be free of oil completely. It would rewrite the entire narrative.

Chainfire

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It all started with a comic exchange about the fetish that some southerners have to mowing their lawn. That they do so in conditions that make sitting on a rain-soaked lump of steel during an electrical storm appear to be exclamations to evolution to come and weed them out of the gene pool. It struck me that these people could be riding along, get hit by lightning and then the tractor they are sitting on could explode and shoot a gout of flaming gasoline onto their house setting that on fire.

That started the idea that I’ve had for a long time. That there exists situations where the worst possible thing could actually ignite a chain of comically bad consequences. One of my favorites starts with a teeny Earthquake and then proceeds to lead to one path for the Apocalypse. It all starts with a 9.5 Earthquake under New Madrid, Missouri. That of course annihilates New Madrid (see ya) and the energy released causes the San Andreas to finally let go, which would of course need to be more than a 10 on the Richter scale. That pushes the western ridge of California into the Pacific, and pretty much all of California is annihilated (oops, bye bye) and of course the lateral shift would push a huge mass of water out and that would initiate a real Tsunami, so Midway and Hawaii would see maybe a little rise in water level, but Japan… oh… bye bye. The energy released for both faults going off so close together causes Mt. Hood to erupt (bye Oregon) and the differential in magma + the earth ringing like a bell from both events sets off the Yellowstone supervolcano. It’s 600,000 year store of pressure is released, perhaps 15 on the Richter scale opens up something fantastic right under Yellowstone. So immediately we’ve lost California, Missouri, Oregon, Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho. Hawaii might be under seawater, and Japan would definitely also be lost. The supervolcano rages for maybe a month, shooting millions of tons of ash and pyroclastic material high into the atmosphere. The Jet Stream takes all this fine particulate material and pushes it all the way out to Newfoundland. The dimming of sunlight causes an epic crop failure, the pyroclastic grit causes all dwellings in the precipitation path to collapse from the weight and then as people drive around with the grit in the air they destroy all the mechanical modes of conveyance through abrasion and failure leaving us in scattered communities only bridged by people willing to walk outside. Without a rebreather-kit the grit would likely lead to widespread development of Mesothelioma in anything that breathed the air. The United States practically starves to death, the US Economy collapses, which then sets off China as their currency collapses (debt based on the full faith of  a place that no longer exists, really) and that would affect every other world economy, leading to an extinction-level event. Practically the only really safe people would be aboard the ISS. As of today, that would be six people left.

Dear Dr. Hawking, it’s a damn shame nobody is listening to you. I hope the people up in the ISS have a woman and a way back down, up there. 🙂

Comic Con Day 2 -San Diego

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I’m sitting in the Sails Pavilion after enjoying a spot of lunch, which was a few oatmeal cookies and two bananas washed down with some bottled water. So far ComicCon has been like it has been in years past, very very busy and lots of great reveals and sneak-peek screenings. My iPad gets recognized and doubly-so when people see me reading comic books on it. I’ve attended a very digital comic heavy convention so far and the industry has caught a whiff that they may be behind the herd when it comes to releasing digital comics. I laugh at this, because they are very behind the curve. They are trying to approach the situation as a kind of transmedia experience, that people want a rich experience with audio, animation, video, and links. It is my opinion that they are right on for 2001. As for 2010, this should have all been old hat and the next wave they should be preparing for is the collision of digital comics and social networking. How do you mix comic books, digg, Twitter, and facebook all together? That’s where the future lies, until the herd moves on into post-social networking.

Seeing people getting all ooh and ash over digital comics when I’ve been enjoying then since April gives me a strong feeling of chagrin, i’ve been there, done that. What is new for me? I suppose I have to make it up for myself to really get any kicks anymore.

ComicCon 2010 has several oddities worth noting:
– more energy spent arranging shuttle services has made the con much easier to get to
– housing botch was annoying and demonstrates the inanity of the housing system
– line management in the exhibit hall needs more work
– out of control spontaneous photography in the exhibit hall clogs flow, they need photo zones
– DC’s snarky and immature preparations for releasing their signing schedules demonstrates that they don’t take their fans as seriously as Marvel does. The schedule needs to be online, in iCal format, and published two weeks before the start of the con.
– Artists are a capricious lot. Artists Alley needs a cork board for contacting free-range artists. We want to shower you with cash, but we need to see you first!

Next up are a batch more panels and perhaps some irrelevant wandering in the exhibit hall. 🙂

ComicCon – Day 0 – Chicago

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Today is Day 0 of our ComicCon adventure. The trip from Kalamazoo to Chicago was exceptionally easy. The traffic was practically non-existent and even the Kennedy expressway in Chicago was flowing incredibly quickly. We left the cats in good hands, a house full of food, and everyone who needed to have keys has them.

Tonight we went to Joy’s Noodle Company in Boystown and had some exceptional Tom Yum soup and my usual Rama Special.

Tomorrow we’re going to take care of some banking needs and then around 1pm head to Midway Airport. I’ll park my car at MDW and we’ll fly off to San Diego, California.

We got to laughing about how many people will be checking in using #4sq and we figure we might have a super mega holy-cow swarm with just the people checking in at San Diego Comic Con tomorrow.

I forgot to print my badge registration form, but thankfully I saved it in my Evernote, got it from there to my Google Mail account and was able to print it out. So now I have everything I need.

Now it’s time to hit the hay before I slump over. 🙂