Billiard-ball nuclear reactor. A few grams of uranium wrapped in carbon fiber the size and shape of a billiard ball. Invented at MIT by a team of Chinese and American scientists. Physically impossible to melt down because the uranium can't get close enough together to overheat and burn through the carbon fiber. Handling is automated by robots. Construction time for reactors is seven years instead of ten-plus for standard reactor designs. Expect these everywhere in the world. Oh, and the largest pile of uranium ore? It's under Tennessee.
Fracking is a thing. Thanks to fracking, the USA is the largest oil exporting nation again. We export more than the USSR. Side effect of fracking is the release of natural gas along with oil and tar droplets. The gas can't really be exported, so that's going to end up a major fuel for domestic use for the next 40 years or so. Fracking is going to last around 40 years, rough estimate. Possibly longer, but probably about that long. Cleanup of the benzene will probably take longer. To be fair, fracking liquids generally go quite a bit deeper than drinking water wells. But some deposits are closer to the surface, and it IS possible to snag the benzene from your own well with carbon filters.
Silica fiber (SiF) is like carbon fiber (CF), but costs a tiny fraction as much to make, which is most of the cost of carbon fiber parts. Silica fiber can be made in a kitchen or garage with common household chemicals you can buy at home depot. No kidding. I don't have the exact process temps and but I have a pretty good idea you start with sand, dissolve it with Drano (NaOH) and alcohol (not sure which one), then add tri sodium phosphate for elasticity and flexibility, then balance the pH with muriatic acid (HCl). Then you draw the threat out of the gelatin that results.
The gelatin is the same stuff you make aerogels from, one of the lightest and best insulators known, and the thread is so strong you can't cut it with shears. It damages steel blades. You have to cut it with a torch. Silica fiber can be woven or knitted for greater strength and the fabric can be used for bulletproof vests, or more importantly, car parts. Car parts that weigh like carbon fiber but doesn't shatter on impact and resists the cracking problem so it actually lasts properly. Silica fiber would revolutionize manufacturing since you don't need steel or aluminum to make it, avoiding the energy costs of those heavy materials. No mining required. You start with sand. And drop vehicle weights by half, so they need half as much engine to go just as fast, or go twice as fast with the same engine. This is a big deal.
3D printing doesn't have to be limited to ABS plastic. ABS is brittle. Attempts have been made to add slivers of carbon fiber to the plastic-resin which is heated by a 3D printer, however the CF damages the nozzle because it is sharp. The tip can also get plugged, ruining the part and the printer nozzle. A better solution is needed, perhaps a printer that weaves spools of silica fiber and deposits epoxy as it goes. That gets around the need for vacuum molds, the other big cost of CF construction. Right now, 3D printers are toys, but every iteration gets better. Eventually they'll get reliable enough to matter in industrial applications. And when that happens they change our world. We won't need China anymore. We can make it here instead. And owning one that's being run by a paid expert would be income generating. A proper business investment with dividends.
Most 3D printers use a heated nozzle. This is not the only way. It is possible to 3D print with metal powder and a laser to melt the metal in place. This is best done in an Argon chamber with a vacuum pump, to avoid oxidation contamination and to recapture the gas. Argon isn't expensive, at $25/cylinder, and is recaptured in a simple process from super-cooling air, however you don't want to waste it. A laser sintered part won't be strong, not at first. Sintering doesn't develop the big metal crystals that are strong in their interlacing. To get those you need to heat treat the part, generally after machining the part to size. 3D printing isn't accurate enough to avoid machining. It might be necessary to heat treat twice, once to make big enough crystals to take the stress of machining, and final for full strength. But the upside there is you can treat in batches, and its simple technology. So imagine you've got an old car part that's broken. You can either weld it together to get a map of the broken part, then correct it back to a working spec and recreate the part with laser sintering, machining and heat treat into proper hardness, or you can repair, machine, and heat treat. A laser sintering 3D printer should be in every modern machine shop, much like a CNC able to do up to engine blocks in size. Put a big V8 or V10 in there to fix it up after adding metal to worn areas via welding or laser sintering. Make new pistons. Replace broken rods. No more centralized auto industry in Detroit's ruins.
RVs and trailers can be made much lighter and stronger with SiF. This reduces the size of the engine needed, improving fuel economy and reducing costs to the point they are cheaper than an apartment, which also justifies more parks for these vehicles and running those parks properly for working couples in careers that justify more mobility. Mobility frees you from a bad boss. Bosses have forgotten how to be decent, probably some kind of human nature flaw. We can't fix people, but we don't have to stand still for abuse. Mobility enabled by RVs and Trailers is justified with the modern economy. Running a good trailer park will be a proper career.
Arsenic-Selenium (AsSe) based solar cells are 44% efficient, compared to around 18% with the best Osmium based panels from China. Naturally, this upsets China, so try and find references to this compound on the internet. I know it exists. I have read white papers on it. Most homes are getting cheap Chinese panels with 12-16% efficiency, and no cooling loop to protect them from heat-degradation. The AsSe panels DO need a cooling loop, sometimes called a hybrid panel, since the waste heat is captured and used to preheat cold water going to your house water heater, reducing heating costs. The raw materials for AsSe are in the San Joaquin River, as runoff from the Sierras and farming waste water from the San Joaquin Valley. And you clean up the environment as you pull the ions out of the water. Being over twice as efficient, you only need half as many panels... or you get twice as much power to use. But wait! There's more.
The basic rounded shape of an Airstream is iconic, but is also very efficient and strong. The curves are strong yet flex. Imagine replacing the aluminum with SiF in the same shape, and then covering the SiF with fake wood trim decals and window covers/awnings so you can secure it while working or travelling. The upside is SiF will also allow for cheaper and more efficient aerogel insulation and removing aluminum from the skin will reduce heat transfer.
Tar is being mined, so asphalt is getting expensive. Eventually only rich communities will have asphalt roads. Most will switch to cast concrete, using natural gas to make the concrete. This is an okay road surface, though bumpy and brittle. Concrete breaks under the pounding of heavy semi trailers with 100 PSI tires. It has to be replaced every 4-6 years. A modern car will need more suspension travel to deal with post-asphalt roads, and all wheel drive to avoid getting stuck. Non-essential roads in poor areas will revert to gravel and dirt roads. Crossing those will get expensive and dusty. Variable ride-height suspension will become important in both vehicles and trailers. Keep that in mind. We have already had the most pavement we will ever have. That's a fact of economics, until such time as a self-maintaining pavement nanite can be created which won't overrun the earth and merely sticks to road surfaces, perhaps fed with a sprayer from a water truck? Something like that. Imagine a really strong and durable mold that binds rocks together. We don't have that yet, but in 40 years? Who knows. Getting that stuff on your car paint might become a maintenance hassle. The Law of Unintended Consequences is not a strongly worded suggestion.
In coastal areas, sailboats are a completely viable RV. Most of the technology for living in an RV also works on a boat. And you still need hookups to remove the waste water. The modern designs made from bent plywood are amazingly clever use of materials, and very strong as well as light. The picture below is under 20 feet long, and will sleep a couple people. I suspect this design would work well in the Gulf and Atlantic, as well as lakes, since its under 500 pounds. You'd want something much larger for the Pacific, since the waves here are huge. I rarely saw swells less than 3 feet, so a 30 foot plus boat would be a good idea. That also gives you more space for galley, sleeping, bathroom and shower, and your water purification system, as well as solar panels on the hull to power everything. Imagine that, designed for two crew, with berths for more people. This is more than just mobility, this is a vessel that opens up the PNW properly, as well as Baja's port-potential, and shipping up and down the coast all the way to Chile and up to Alaska, Siberia, and Japan.
Siberia has a lot to offer the world, starting with its mechanical engineers and to archaeology. It has a river valley that did not freeze during the last ice age, and is known to contain occupied sites dating back 40K years. That's a big deal in science. Siberia is a long way from Moscow, and really deserves its own govt. Its been ruled by distant and largely indifferent czars who only look West. California has more in common with Siberia than it does with most of Europe or New York City.
Baja California and the western coast of Africa are the next big areas for population expansion, when cheap water desalination happens. As much as I like the fantasy of the DeKa solution, its not very efficient and demands a lot of heat, when it really should be using vacuum decompression to lower the boiling point and extract water with less effort and energy. If you could make it more efficient, enough to generate cheap desalinated water you could be piping drinking water for irrigation purposes inland. That only happens with a scalable solution. Deka isn't that solution.
The NE corner of Brazil, near the equator, is flooded half the year, and dry half the year. Its largely unusable land. If you did a LOT of civil engineering, especially soils engineering and drainage, you could probably get 1/3 of it useful growing crops, which would support human settlement. If you can capture the rains into ponds for use in the dry half of the year, this would work. Brazil is mostly rich people exploiting poor people, and poor people murdering each other. Communism was tried and failed. A military junta killed most of them. Brazil is a huge country and would benefit from a trading partner that can help them raise living standards while still making a profit.
Mexico is hopelessly corrupt. Perhaps this can be used. Selling off patches of coastal land might work, provided the owners can be assured it won't be seized like Mexico did to Standard Oil in 1925, a big reason few companies invest in Mexico. They did it before so they'd do it again. If rich companies or families could buy up a few hundred square miles of Baja's coast at a time, and develop the port and land into a city, and keep it, that's employment and improvement Mexico can't do itself. Semi-autonomous cities like Monaco has worked for the Cote D'Azur, and would work in Baja. Club Med already operates like that, with armed guards on the perimeter, keeping out the kidnapping gangs. Repeat this design-autonomy idea in Africa and you get development from the coasts, and trading between those an inland, with a port to provide the secure transit from civilized countries. We are going to have to deal with Mexico in the next few years, and hopefully it will benefit both nations. And maybe stop the illegals.
RVs and trailers can be made much lighter and stronger with SiF. This reduces the size of the engine needed, improving fuel economy and reducing costs to the point they are cheaper than an apartment, which also justifies more parks for these vehicles and running those parks properly for working couples in careers that justify more mobility. Mobility frees you from a bad boss. Bosses have forgotten how to be decent, probably some kind of human nature flaw. We can't fix people, but we don't have to stand still for abuse. Mobility enabled by RVs and Trailers is justified with the modern economy. Running a good trailer park will be a proper career.
Arsenic-Selenium (AsSe) based solar cells are 44% efficient, compared to around 18% with the best Osmium based panels from China. Naturally, this upsets China, so try and find references to this compound on the internet. I know it exists. I have read white papers on it. Most homes are getting cheap Chinese panels with 12-16% efficiency, and no cooling loop to protect them from heat-degradation. The AsSe panels DO need a cooling loop, sometimes called a hybrid panel, since the waste heat is captured and used to preheat cold water going to your house water heater, reducing heating costs. The raw materials for AsSe are in the San Joaquin River, as runoff from the Sierras and farming waste water from the San Joaquin Valley. And you clean up the environment as you pull the ions out of the water. Being over twice as efficient, you only need half as many panels... or you get twice as much power to use. But wait! There's more.
Georgia Tech science labs discovered that you can use quantum well design to make solar panels absorb more energy if you physically make them "taller" or "spiky". Spiky panels absorb the same photon up to 4 times, increasing efficiency drastically in the same physical area. Again, you need cooling for this to work properly and not overheat, but combine spiky with AsSe and a cooling loop and you SHOULD be able to power a whole house on the standard set of roof panels, dumping the excess energy into a battery bank, and the excess from that into a water heater (heat sink). You'd be looking at 75% efficiency. And you could also be charging up an electric car or motorcycle/bike/scooter. Without needing connection to the grid, which is falling apart.
There is no particular reason you couldn't use a pellet stove to heat a trailer, particularly if you run it off a battery bank. They do require some electricity. Excess heat would heat the hot water for bathing and dishes. You still need to buy pellets, but those are cheap and sold at hardware and grocery stores. And they're automated, so long as you fill the hopper. Less work than a big wood stove, and much lighter weight.
Refrigerators work by using a compressor to remove heat from the box and shoving it outside the box. Special kinds of refrigerators run their propane supply through the fridge to absorb the heat, making the compressor more efficient. Since most people are opening the fridge to cook, this makes both items more effective. Now imagine shoving that fridge heat into your hot water heater, or into the heating system rather than dumping it into the kitchen air. Putting heat into the right places is important. A really brilliant trailer/RV would do this with heat sinks and good insulation to take advantage of ambient heat for max comfort in the trailer. This whole idea needs more study.
The basic rounded shape of an Airstream is iconic, but is also very efficient and strong. The curves are strong yet flex. Imagine replacing the aluminum with SiF in the same shape, and then covering the SiF with fake wood trim decals and window covers/awnings so you can secure it while working or travelling. The upside is SiF will also allow for cheaper and more efficient aerogel insulation and removing aluminum from the skin will reduce heat transfer. Tar is being mined, so asphalt is getting expensive. Eventually only rich communities will have asphalt roads. Most will switch to cast concrete, using natural gas to make the concrete. This is an okay road surface, though bumpy and brittle. Concrete breaks under the pounding of heavy semi trailers with 100 PSI tires. It has to be replaced every 4-6 years. A modern car will need more suspension travel to deal with post-asphalt roads, and all wheel drive to avoid getting stuck. Non-essential roads in poor areas will revert to gravel and dirt roads. Crossing those will get expensive and dusty. Variable ride-height suspension will become important in both vehicles and trailers. Keep that in mind. We have already had the most pavement we will ever have. That's a fact of economics, until such time as a self-maintaining pavement nanite can be created which won't overrun the earth and merely sticks to road surfaces, perhaps fed with a sprayer from a water truck? Something like that. Imagine a really strong and durable mold that binds rocks together. We don't have that yet, but in 40 years? Who knows. Getting that stuff on your car paint might become a maintenance hassle. The Law of Unintended Consequences is not a strongly worded suggestion.
Eventually this "global warming" fad will die. Americans already think its hooey. And politicians which support it are getting abused over their religion. Eventually climate will shift again, as the El Nino provides flooding, such as we're seeing in the Midwest this week. We might get flooding here. I'm getting snow every three days, despite it being "clear" in the daytime. We already passed the warm-maximum over 4000 years ago, and its been generally cooling ever since. The ice is going to come back. That means the glaciers will start growing again, and the ice sheet will gradually descent from the northern Rocky mountains in Canada and flow down into Canada and into the Great Lakes, which should probably experience more summer ice again. And that also means ice on the shores in Maine and possibly Cape Cod and Long Island. That means icebergs down to Scotland and Ireland. That means ice in the Baltic much later in the year. The ice is going to come back, as it does. We're pretty well due for that. Whether this happens in 40 years or 4000 I don't know till we get snow on the dry northern rockies. That's how it starts. When enough water is on the mountains in the form of ice, sea levels fall, which requires ports to dredge to keep up. That's not terribly difficult, but it does take effort.
In coastal areas, sailboats are a completely viable RV. Most of the technology for living in an RV also works on a boat. And you still need hookups to remove the waste water. The modern designs made from bent plywood are amazingly clever use of materials, and very strong as well as light. The picture below is under 20 feet long, and will sleep a couple people. I suspect this design would work well in the Gulf and Atlantic, as well as lakes, since its under 500 pounds. You'd want something much larger for the Pacific, since the waves here are huge. I rarely saw swells less than 3 feet, so a 30 foot plus boat would be a good idea. That also gives you more space for galley, sleeping, bathroom and shower, and your water purification system, as well as solar panels on the hull to power everything. Imagine that, designed for two crew, with berths for more people. This is more than just mobility, this is a vessel that opens up the PNW properly, as well as Baja's port-potential, and shipping up and down the coast all the way to Chile and up to Alaska, Siberia, and Japan.
Siberia has a lot to offer the world, starting with its mechanical engineers and to archaeology. It has a river valley that did not freeze during the last ice age, and is known to contain occupied sites dating back 40K years. That's a big deal in science. Siberia is a long way from Moscow, and really deserves its own govt. Its been ruled by distant and largely indifferent czars who only look West. California has more in common with Siberia than it does with most of Europe or New York City.
Baja California and the western coast of Africa are the next big areas for population expansion, when cheap water desalination happens. As much as I like the fantasy of the DeKa solution, its not very efficient and demands a lot of heat, when it really should be using vacuum decompression to lower the boiling point and extract water with less effort and energy. If you could make it more efficient, enough to generate cheap desalinated water you could be piping drinking water for irrigation purposes inland. That only happens with a scalable solution. Deka isn't that solution.
The NE corner of Brazil, near the equator, is flooded half the year, and dry half the year. Its largely unusable land. If you did a LOT of civil engineering, especially soils engineering and drainage, you could probably get 1/3 of it useful growing crops, which would support human settlement. If you can capture the rains into ponds for use in the dry half of the year, this would work. Brazil is mostly rich people exploiting poor people, and poor people murdering each other. Communism was tried and failed. A military junta killed most of them. Brazil is a huge country and would benefit from a trading partner that can help them raise living standards while still making a profit.
Mexico is hopelessly corrupt. Perhaps this can be used. Selling off patches of coastal land might work, provided the owners can be assured it won't be seized like Mexico did to Standard Oil in 1925, a big reason few companies invest in Mexico. They did it before so they'd do it again. If rich companies or families could buy up a few hundred square miles of Baja's coast at a time, and develop the port and land into a city, and keep it, that's employment and improvement Mexico can't do itself. Semi-autonomous cities like Monaco has worked for the Cote D'Azur, and would work in Baja. Club Med already operates like that, with armed guards on the perimeter, keeping out the kidnapping gangs. Repeat this design-autonomy idea in Africa and you get development from the coasts, and trading between those an inland, with a port to provide the secure transit from civilized countries. We are going to have to deal with Mexico in the next few years, and hopefully it will benefit both nations. And maybe stop the illegals.
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