JumpStart by Robb Armstrong for March 31, 2012

… it may solve the energy crisis … but what about the financial crisis from having to pay for everything?… 50,000 thousand miles of conveyor belt don’t fall out of the sky, y’know …

And then what would power these conveyor belts?

How about subways based on pneumatic tubes like the ones at the bank drive-thru?

Fuel the cars using water: all you have to do is to apply some electrolysis to break it up into hydrogen and oxygen, and then burn the oxygen to get power to drive the car.

Speaking of Heinlein, TANSTAAFL. All of the plans or suggestions have to be powered by something. The more often the power is transferred or converted, the more is lost, especially when the fraffic is low and the belts have to keep going.

Even if we dammed the rivers, harnessed the wind, and converted to solar, we would still need to meet more than 95% of our energy needs. Then you would piss off nearly all of the environmentalists in the process. They would do their level best to impede any kind of beneficial technology because some poor critter would have to become extinct. We could drill for the natural gas and oil we have already. That would get rid of the 10% oil amount we get from OPEC. I would ask Jojo what his conveyor belts would be made of and who would pay for it, etc.? Also, what if dad needed to chase somebody down the conveyor belt?

My first thought! Not much new since classic sci-fi- plastic money engulfed us so completely, eg.

I love this thread! Make the belts of hemp.

Hydrogen is not a practical fuel, because it has to be made, and takes a great deal of energy to do so – four times the electrical energy to produce a given quantity of hydrogen energy – that’s in an efficient electrolysis system. That would be like if it took four gallons of oil to make a gallon of oil – the economics don’t remotely add up. There would have to be vastly more electrical generating capacity – because only if there is a enough excess capacity, at a low enough cost, will it make sense to essentially waste large amounts of electrical energy to make small amounts of hydrogen energy.

Photovoltaic electricity is especially expensive. Solar panels aren’t cheap, and take years just to pay back the energy consumed in making them.

There’s a simple reason why car manufacturers have been throwing money at hydrogen research for 50 years, yet we don’t have hydrogen cars except in small test fleets – it’s not that the technology isn’t there, it’s that the economics don’t make any sense – the cars cost a fortune to make, expensive fuel cells are easily damaged and ruined by contaminants, and hydrogen itself is very expensive to make, unless made from natural gas – which tends to introduce contaminants – and which is a fossil fuel, negating any environmental advantage for hydrogen.

I’d like to know how anyone would be able to turn if the road is doing all the work.And if the road itself is gonna be doing all the movements why need a car in the first place? just take a chair and have a seat and let the road take you where you want it to go.

The upkeep on those belts would be enormous… and if you had a tear it would shut down entire sections. Also imagine digging the huge pits needed for the belts to rotate through.

Luci Mary: I doubt the math on that

@Luciamari, you forgot that this country was built on imagination and creativity, driven by the need to survive on your own hard work. Government funding can only go so far before seeing a benefit. You still need private enterprise to come up with the inventions. Solar panels to power the roads is not doable or remotely feasible. You would also have to study the impact on the environment. before getting any funding. How do you determine who gets the money and how much? It’s already been proven that the government can’t even do that much without screwing the taxpayers. Columbus did not get government funding. The Queen used her private collection of jewelery, which had nothing to do with the government. In fact, Columbus had been turned down because the government did NOT have the funds.They were spent on a war to drive out Muslims who had invaded Spain. “Look it up”, as Madonna would say!

Be3sides Heinlein, the notion was also postulated by Asimov in 1953 in “The Caves of Steel” – and played a major plot point as the detective, Lije Baley, was an accomplished “strip-runner” as a youth. A scientist in the novel, who’s afraid of flying, used the “strips” to travel all the way from Washington to New York.

Thanks for all the feedback. Good to get the wheels turnin’…