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To: Joe NYC who wrote (805)	2/21/2007 6:19:18 PM
From: Tenchusatsu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1141

Joe, > But saying these 2 things (leveling the civilization as we know it or building thousands of nuclear power plants) is not going to "earn" you an honorary degree in climatology... Then perhaps I can "earn" one by programming a simulation of earth's climate over the next 100 years using cluster of 5,000 Intel or AMD-based machines. As long as my results show a global warming trend of one degree Celcius per decade, it should be pretty easy to introduce bulls--t variables into the simulation just to give it a sense of legitimacy. What do you think? I'll even name you as a co-contributor! ;-) Tenchusatsu

To: Joe NYC who wrote (805)	2/22/2007 6:23:57 PM
From: pgerassi	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1141

Dear Joe: There are a few things we could do while leaving most of civilization as it is. 1) Build Gas Cooled Fast Breeder Reactors in cities and industrial areas, use the waste heat to heat buildings and process heat. They can be built to create more usable nuclear fuel than they use and by reprocessing the waste, very small amounts would need to be stored longer than a 100 years. Heat pumps would pump summer heat into the ground or into nearby lakes and rivers while in the winter, heat would be pumped back into homes and businesses. Buildings, industrial plants and homes would have to be highly insulated so as to reduce the heat needed. High efficiency compact fluorescent or better to be used as 16% of electric use goes into lighting. Look for this to cut energy use by buildings, plants and homes by half. 2) Cut highway construction by half and use the money to rebuild railroads with double or greater track mainlines and other mass transit systems. Reduce the distance truckers can go to say 100-200 miles. Have them pick up and deliver to rail stations for long distance cargo hauling via container (multimode shipping). By reducing the number and distance traveled by trucks, the highways would not need to be repaired as often as a single semi truck does 40 times the damage as a car. The railways would be electrified so as to use the power produced by those nuclear power plants. Also reduce highway speeds and provide for long distance car hauling at reasonable prices ($0.10 a mile or so) via rail like in Europe. With a rail point being no further than 100 miles away no matter where you are and with it a charging station (use the rail line as a right of way for pipelines, electric transmission lines and data trunks), you could use an electric car (battery or supercapacitor) with a methane (CNG), hydrogen peroxide or ethanol fuel cell assist. With a national speed limit of say 60MPH, and express car hauling between rail points at say 120MPH, most would get there faster with a mixed mode system for less money than it costs now. The large amount of long distance travel as either cargo, passenger or car, would drive prices down due to the large volume. A single train can easily carry 1000 cars and 4000 passengers and use less than 4000HP to go 120MPH (more going up the mountains with good deal of the power returned going back down the other side). Far less than the 120,000HP it would take those cars to go 120MPH. Tunnels would be used where the energy saved would be high. All of this transportation stuff would cut energy use in transportation by two thirds or more. This would cut any need for imported oil. 3) Create medium and high density housing and create public green spaces around the city, village and town centers. The higher density reduces the distance one normally travels and thus has great high volume points for the mass transit systems used on a daily basis whether it is by bus, light or heavy (subway or regular) rail. Cars would either be parked in underground areas, parking structures or lots at the outskirts of the town center. I would prefer the former and since it is electric, ventilation would not need to be great. Another possibility is electric bicycles. These would be collapsible, be able to be taken via buses (either covered trailers (video monitored) or an area in the bus) or train ( area in a passenger car or another (video monitored) car). So it would be a short trip from the home or apartment to the nearest mass transit point and another short trip from the closest mass transit point and the job or store. A small battery or supercapacitor should be sufficient as it can be recharged at all points, home, bus, train, store and job and you can always pedal it as a backup. A given road can accommodate many more bicycles than cars. The area saved of course can be given to more plants that will extract the CO2 out of the air and store it as biomass. We can have most of our lifestyle and yet save most of the energy we use. Pete