sethoflagos

I was unaware of this body of work, so thanks for that. Googling, it seems that the sci-fi novels were inspired at least in part by practical concepts developed by architect Paolo Soleri, so no flux capacitors or time portals required. Just finance and willpower.

Pretty much as I saw it. Hobbit holes! Nice idea in a middle England bucolic nostalgia sort of way but a little too low density for dealing with the bulk of the population. Taking the original OP scenario of high ambient temperature, low humidity. It would be nice if we could make use of the general principles, but construct them above ground in multi-story medium to high density accommodation units each suitable for populations oto 10,000 individuals. Basically a version of a scaled up termite mound. Let's run with it a while. Since hot, dry areas tend to have cool nights, natural convection can exhaust the internal heat of the structure (and critically, a large central water supply also) out through a central 'chimney' by (in principle) natural draught alone if you get the engineering right. During the day air inflow reverses (due to the reversal of thermal gradient) and is tempered by the high thermal inertia of the structure itself augmented by, say, underfloor cooling by the cooled water store, and further augmented by evaporative cooling which can also up the humidity into an appropriate comfort zone. In principle, temperatures within the structure will float between somewhat above the night time low and somewhat above the daytime wet bulb temperature without recourse to heat pumps at all. At least this is should be sufficient for people to exhaust their body heat without sweating like the proverbial christmas goat. Where does the cooling water come from? Recycled effluent plus a structure of this scale has potential for economic condensate recovery via eg. gas/gas heat exchange etc. In 'the best of all possible worlds', the community would not have individual cooking stoves, refrigerators, freezers etc, but centralised communal facilities that exhaust their waste heat directly outside of the structure (ie not overheating the living/working spaces). It looks to have possibilities. If you don't mind the termite social model. But then they have had well over 100 million years of practice and seem to be doing okay..

Btw... Why has this hijack thread been shifted to the Politics forum rather than say Climate Science? Are these concerns now solely the province of the political left? I sincerely hope not.

As regards having a major rethink on architecture and lifestyles, I couldn't agree more. There's nothing like committing some serious public money into upgrading the housing stock for giving a much needed boost to GDP. Maynard Keynes for the environment yay! (not totally a joke) Our ancestors built stone vaulted rooves that could last a millenium and more. It's just a matter of raising the building codes to what is easily achievable by appropriate engineering. Razor wire topped security wall with a tented fabric roof. Standard Lagos approach.

Lagos matches your Kansas July daily high pretty well 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Plus our humidity is higher. And yet I've grown habituated to it and can manage mainly without aircon albeit at the cost of an occasional outbreak of prickly heat (solution = cold showers). My pool hall (Tipsy Bar, Bodore Road, Ajah) has no aircon, but a two foot gap between the walls and the ceiling stop it from becoming too stifling. I can't help thinking that the OP is asking the wrong question. It assumes as a given that the OP has a right to enoy optimal comfort in a location where the ambient conditions are beyond his comfort zone. Relax that assumption and ask why the majority of the world's population (who manage to survive within the range of their own cimate variations without undue resource consumption) should bear the brunt of the OP's disproportionate demands for fossil fuels and fresh water. Should he not consider relocating to a location more in tune with his own particular physical requirements? It's easy to pick on the southern end of California because it is such an ecological disaster zone for so many reasons, but one must question whether any of these most hostile high population density areas (eg northern end of the Persian Gulf that can reach 500C near saturated in August-September) are worth maintaining as areas of human settlement. Better to put survival of the most before optimal comfort of the privileged I think.

Having just finished reading Richard Dawkins' The Ancestor's Tale for I think the third time, I think that he would express a subspecies as something along the lines of: The term 'fixed' distinguishes subspecies from 'morph' which would apply to a phenotypic character that only occurs in a part of a given population.

How comfortable are you with poverty? A salutary lesson for me was that I earned the same hourly rate designing drainage systems for oil refineries etc as the guys designing the most high-tech refinery units. Only while their technologies were aging, drain systems stayed as they were and I stayed employable while their speciality areas were eclipsed by more advanced technologies. If you cement yourself into a rigid specialisation in the current technological spectrum, you risk graduating into a field that is obsolete. The key exit from this trap is flexibility. I'd recommend graduating with a general technological degree and adding a BA in microeconomics or business administration. It's a crappy ladder, but every project needs a project accountant and at least you remain relevant to your field of interest even if everyone hates you. If you can show real technical abilities in the field, you have as good a chance as anyone of slipping back into the more academic realm simply by being there. It's a cynical view I know, but you do have to earn a living whilst realising your dreams.

And yet the policy seemed to be 'working' with Urals holding steady at around $57/bbl for the first six months of the year. Granted, Japan seemed to have forgotten they agreed to the measure almost as soon as they left the meeting.

Rather depends on the type of meat and whether or not you like it dry and tough. I found rather a good (imho) article at https://www.theculinarypro.com/meat-and-poultry-cooking-methods.

Back in December last year to much western media trumpeting the G7 nations imposed a price cap of $60/bbl on Russian crude oil exports to be policed by the once all-powerful shipping insurers Lloyds of London (see here). Today I notice on https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/urals-oil that Urals Crude - Russia's flagship product - is quietly trading at $73.26/bbl yet we hear not a whisper of indignation or explanation from the powers that be (ie Rupert Murdoch). Why suddenly so shy about such a bold inspirational policy.

Yes and no to both. There's a spectrum here between a simmer and a roiling boil. Simmering is frequently a little (sometimes a lot) below boiling point, with correspondingly extended cooking times, but less thermal damage to proteins especially. Hence stews are finished on a lengthy slow heat. At the other end of the spectrum, an extreme roiling boil can raise the base of the pan quite a bit above boiling point with the liquid contents only partially insulated from this by a thin vapour film. This does definitely shorten cooking time but seems mainly to be used where the contents need to be broken apart by strong agitation.

They're isentropic or polytropic efficiencies for the turbine cycle, not overall thermal efficiencies. 90-10 CuNi is the 'book' material for sea water piping systems, with blind-flanged tees at every elbow to facilitate periodic rodding through. But that's by the by. As others have pointed out, sea water toilets are quite viable but only where sea water is readily available, and fresh water is not.

Based on personal experience, the major technical challenge to pumped sea water systems is that it is considerably more nutritious than fresh water. Large channels rapidly attract colonies of mussels and oysters etc, and small channels (eg cistern fill valves, filters) get blocked by salps. Not insurmountable problems, but expensive to solve. Anding nitrogenous waste to the mix will escalate these biological issues even further.

His programme made a little less sense after John Maynard Keynes published 'The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money' in 1936. This and rapid technological development gave post-war democratic left-leaning governments the opportunity to provide many of the benefits of a socialist ideal to the bulk of society without the need for violent takeover of the state.

Me too. Das Kapital is essentially the algebra of capitalist microeconomics and should imho be essential reading in any education system. It is not particularly 'political'. The Communist Manifesto should also be essential reading in view of its historical impact and amazing prose, but it is definitely a child of it's time.

Much my understanding. +1 for fielding @Genady's post for me with a clarity I would struggle to match.

You seem to be cherry picking one definition of several given in that reference. Statism vs collectivism?

This statement seems to confuse a desired end (some idyllic utopia) with a specific means to that end (a societal transition via the Marxist-Leninist model). It is a confusion that serves the purposes of not only the political right but also many on the political left. A better 'fundamental' starting point may be the principle 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs', which is Marx's version of an idea that can be traced back in western tradition to at least classical Greece. How you achieve that end is really a quite different proposition to what constitutes the desired end.

+1 Lamb or Love waves are variations on this theme. Orbital waves seem synonymous. A more general term might be spherical surface wave (as opposed to spherical wave which is something quite different).

Much of what has been previously posted (@studiot in particular) is of course true. However, I believe the main reason for using wider tyres is to gain maximum possible cornering forces without exceeding the limits of adhesion of any given tyre. During safe, controlled cornering, the contact patch of the tread, which is aligned with the instantaneous direction of travel, is rotated relative to the main body of the wheel by what is called the 'slip angle'. The elastic forces created by this rotation sum to generate the 'cornering force' which provides the lateral acceleration profile necessary to rotate the vehicle without skidding out of control. Within limits and all other things being equal, the cornering forces are proportional to both the slip angle and the width of the contact patch - ie. tyre width. As excessive slip angles lead to sudden loss of adhesion, the highest safe cornering forces could be generated by wider tyres providing the consequent reduced frictional force per unit area problem could be overcome for these wider contact patches. Since the 1960s, the incorporation of significant aerodynamic downforce into sports car design mitigated this loss of contact pressure by adding greatly to the gravitational downforce (hence restoring the higher available friction force per unit area) without unduly compromising acceleration and braking performance. ie the available traction force for a sports car is not proportional to weight but to weight + aerodynamic downforce. Post '60s this has tilted the balance in favour of wider tyres despite the increased mass and drag.

Not excessively so I think and it's recycled within the process. As stated in the OP, siderite must be handled and stored in anaerobic conditions. Could be critical. Is there a dynamic equilibrium balance between iodide/iodate which could regenerate iodide when its concentration falls? Not sure what you're trying to say here. Solar electrical power?

Getting shot of huge amounts of CO2 requires proportionately huge quantities of sequestrant. One sequestrant that could fit the bill is Fe2O3 (haematite) that comprises the much of the extensive banded iron formations which are globally distributed. My thoughts on this drifted to the following schemata which needs input from a proper chemist to evaluate. Fe2O3 + 6HI(aq) > 2FeI2 + 3H2O + I2 Note Fe3+ reduced to Fe2+ 4NaOH(aq) + 2CO2 > 2Na2CO3 + 2H2O Stripping process from rich CO2 stream 2FeI2 + 2Na2CO3 > 2FeCO3 + 4NaI Precipitation of siderite (desired product) for anaerobic disposal 4NaI(aq) + 4H2O > 4NaOH(aq) + 2H2 + 2I2 Electrolytic regeneration of NaOH H2O > H2 + 1/2O2 Further electrolysis of NaOH(aq) to balance H2 demand 3H2 + 3I2 > 6HI Regeneration of HI (fuel cell?) The overall reaction sums to Fe2O3 + 2CO2 > 2FeCO3 + 1/2O2 ... which I'm sure is endothermic but not I think in the ballpark of the exothermy of carbon combustion. What are the howlers I need to address? Is there a better reducing agent than iodide (eg scrap iron)? Any other positive input welcome of course.

I'm not surprised. It is a very poorly structured question and the above post by @TheVat shows that much of it's premise seems to be factually inaccurate. So how do you tackle a question like this? The best results should be gained by reproducing verbatim the texts provided on the topic during your coursework. This is what the examiners will be expecting. However, if you have missed many of your classes, and have been unable to catch up for one reason or another, that option is unavailable to you. If you decide to attempt the question (a case could be made for skipping it), your first challenge is to decide whether the 'this' in the last sentence applies to only the preceding sentence, or the two introductory sentences as well. It isn't at all clear. The second sentence is a partial answer to the opening statement. But we can add a little to that and maybe gain an extra mark. Mainly we should focus on expaining the third sentence. I would present something like this: Probably, not exactly what the examiners were looking for but I'd be reasonably confident of getting a couple of marks for that.