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Tapping Solar Wind's Renewable Energy
A few folks noted a story making the rounds about the huge energy potential just blowing past the planet in the form of solar wind. This research involves putting a satellite into orbit with a thousand-meter cable and a 5,000-mile sail to generate more power than the earth currently uses.
However, when you consider that the solar wind is the only thing keeping the aliens at bay, you might think twice about disrupting them.
Am I the only one slightly concerned about this idea turning the Earth into an interstellar spacecraft, solving the global warming problem permanently (as far as humans are concerned)?
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
You must be new here.
Cause we always have new people complaining about the editors.
Just saying it like it are.
"thousand meter cable, and 5,000 mile sail" Meters and miles. Isn't this use of mixed units the error that doomed a mars satellite?
That's ok, the energy unit that they use is the kilohome:
According to the team's calculations, 300 meters (984 feet) of copper wire, attached to a two-meter-wide (6.6-foot-wide) receiver and a 10-meter (32.8-foot) sail, would generate enough power for 1,000 homes.
You can convert that to English units using Home's Law.
Don't be nasty. Just because a lot of Microsoft's products are resource hogs doesn't mean they all are.
Oh wait, you said ISS...
Summation 2
Obviously, you just remember to plant a new star so it'll be ready by the time the old one burns out.
That's just common sense.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Obviously, power from solar wind is twice as renewable as power from either solar or wind individually.
Until we find a way to add more fuel to the sun, the solar wind isn't renewable energy. Plus, it's nuclear man. Nuclear!