From: Stirling Westrup (sti@cam.org)
Date: Mon Jan 31 2000 - 02:44:20 MST
Daniel Toffetti wrote:
> Solar tech is not affordable because it is made unaffordable. Do you
> really believes that an Intel Pentium III 500 Mhz is cheaper to mass-produce
> than a square meter of solar cells?
Of course its cheaper. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent to
develop the mass-production system for silicon chips. Far less has been spent
ramping up solar cell production. The obvious reason is supply and demand. The
world can't seem to get enough bigger and faster CPU's. There is no equivalent
demand for bigger and better solar cells. If the average person wanted several
square meters of solar cell, and was willing to discard it every 18 months in
order to buy a more efficient replacement, then maybe we would start to see
equivalent production costs.
> > Bonus high weirdness question: what happens to space-time itself if too
> > much Casimir energy is tapped? Paging Dr. Hawking...
>
> *Casimir Force Power Station (uncolored special land)
>
> When you play CFPS, if there is another Power Station in play, destroy that
> Power Station.
> Tap the CFPS to get one mana of any color.
> If you have four CFPSs into play, tapping all four will produce: destroy all
> lands,
> enchantments, and creatures in play. Destroy also your opponent player,
> yourself,
> and the whole solar system till Pluto.
>
> (I REALLY HOPE there exists some blue counterspell for this one... :P )
*If* we can extract energy from casimir forces (a big 'if', but well worth
investigating IMHO) massive use would probably start depleting the energy that
is now believed to be causing the runaway acceleration of the universe's
expansion. But I am talking *MASSIVE* use here, on or above the order of
galactic level engineering efforts... 'Course, you never know what other
effects that energy is causing that we might want to maintain.
--
Stirling Westrup | Use of the Internet by this poster
sti@cam.org | is not to be construed as a tacit
| endorsement of Western Technological
| Civilization or its appurtenances.
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