The geothermal gradient is the measure of the increase in ambient temperature relative to the depth inside the Earth. The increase is roughly one degree of heat for every seventy feet of depth. (WIKI: Geothermal gradient)
Note: this one we had backwards with the thought temperature decreases with depth but this is why the design team goes over the project for ten years before turning over so much as a teaspoon of dirt to build it.
Since we're allocating one hundred floors to our masterpiece, let's go with twenty feet per floor so the total descent into the Earth will be two thousand feet. That means the lowest floor will be 28.5 degrees hotter than the highest floor.
For our answer, we're going to turn the entire Rock City into a giant radiator and water cool it. We have the enormous water needs of a city with a million people in it so we need to run that water into a collecting reservoir from where it will be circulated through the city to cool it. The return water from that circulation will be heated but that has to be offset with how much cool water is coming into the system to keep the temperature of the water for the end user at a stable level.
We also need a clever pumping system since each floor will have slightly different cooling needs with none needed at the top and maximum at the lowest floor. When Bell engineers can design a switching system for a global telephone network, we have no doubt of the ability of humans to handle a switching problem of this relatively simple nature.
This change also revises our nuclear reactor plans since we were going to use the heated cooling water from the nuke to heat the city but that will hardly be necessary. Therefore that primary liability of nuclear reactors remains. Further thought is needed on this one since existing reactors do not seem to overburden natural systems with overheated water but we need some solid knowledge of that to go forward.
Another aspect of heat is how much is generated by a million humans simply existing. Our bodies are one-hundred-degree heat factories and there are one million of them down there so it's another consideration toward the overall cooling requirements. Since the ambient temperature is probably about seventy degrees, humans become walking, talking thirty-degree heat pumps.
In general, heat is the enemy because it means wasted energy unless we harness the heat for some useful purpose. One part of the heat reduction is the elimination of cars since internal combustion motors are incredibly inefficient. If you don't believe that, put your hand on the engine block sometime but don't expect anything less than third-degree burns from it.
This aspect of the project is sexy like comparing different brands of catsup but it's necessary to validate the viability of the project. It doesn't matter if I believe it's viable, it's whether you believe it.
In project planning, you need to be aware maybe large chunks of your project won't work for whatever reasons. If you have been clever enough, your project is relatively modular so you can pull out the heating / cooling system to send the design boys back to come up with another one while still moving forward on other aspects of the project. If you were really clever, you anticipated problems in that development and you allocated enough time so you still get to Zero Day (i.e. project end date) with all the parts complete.
- Insert editorial on Lockheed Martin project planning in which you get to Zero Day and hardly any of the parts are complete ... except the press release -
For this project, give it ten years to plan it and this has to be stellar because there are no do-overs. Likely it's at least five years past that before anyone could even think of living inside it at any level so you can bank on twenty years minimum before this has a chance of production. As part of your project you also need to consider how much residual growth will take place on the flat lands because there can't be any overlap during the development because then you get fighting.
Oh, and if you're still questioning Crazy Eddie, maybe consider again how many animals would have died and horribly painfully if we had not switched to stay-put pop tops on cans. Yevette didn't know the reason for the switch so likely others do not as well: animals would eat the pop tops, I guess because they're shiny. You can imagine what that sharp thing did to their guts.
Crazy Eddie has some damn good ideas, in fact.
Note: Crazy Eddie is from "The Mote in God's Eye" which is almost required reading for Ithaka. The story makes for a swashbuckling read but the sociological considerations are deep and I see it as one of the most important books I ever read in terms of uncontrolled population growth, impressionistic problem solving, and the drive toward a continually-warring society.
Note: this one we had backwards with the thought temperature decreases with depth but this is why the design team goes over the project for ten years before turning over so much as a teaspoon of dirt to build it.
Since we're allocating one hundred floors to our masterpiece, let's go with twenty feet per floor so the total descent into the Earth will be two thousand feet. That means the lowest floor will be 28.5 degrees hotter than the highest floor.
For our answer, we're going to turn the entire Rock City into a giant radiator and water cool it. We have the enormous water needs of a city with a million people in it so we need to run that water into a collecting reservoir from where it will be circulated through the city to cool it. The return water from that circulation will be heated but that has to be offset with how much cool water is coming into the system to keep the temperature of the water for the end user at a stable level.
We also need a clever pumping system since each floor will have slightly different cooling needs with none needed at the top and maximum at the lowest floor. When Bell engineers can design a switching system for a global telephone network, we have no doubt of the ability of humans to handle a switching problem of this relatively simple nature.
This change also revises our nuclear reactor plans since we were going to use the heated cooling water from the nuke to heat the city but that will hardly be necessary. Therefore that primary liability of nuclear reactors remains. Further thought is needed on this one since existing reactors do not seem to overburden natural systems with overheated water but we need some solid knowledge of that to go forward.
Another aspect of heat is how much is generated by a million humans simply existing. Our bodies are one-hundred-degree heat factories and there are one million of them down there so it's another consideration toward the overall cooling requirements. Since the ambient temperature is probably about seventy degrees, humans become walking, talking thirty-degree heat pumps.
In general, heat is the enemy because it means wasted energy unless we harness the heat for some useful purpose. One part of the heat reduction is the elimination of cars since internal combustion motors are incredibly inefficient. If you don't believe that, put your hand on the engine block sometime but don't expect anything less than third-degree burns from it.
This aspect of the project is sexy like comparing different brands of catsup but it's necessary to validate the viability of the project. It doesn't matter if I believe it's viable, it's whether you believe it.
In project planning, you need to be aware maybe large chunks of your project won't work for whatever reasons. If you have been clever enough, your project is relatively modular so you can pull out the heating / cooling system to send the design boys back to come up with another one while still moving forward on other aspects of the project. If you were really clever, you anticipated problems in that development and you allocated enough time so you still get to Zero Day (i.e. project end date) with all the parts complete.
- Insert editorial on Lockheed Martin project planning in which you get to Zero Day and hardly any of the parts are complete ... except the press release -
For this project, give it ten years to plan it and this has to be stellar because there are no do-overs. Likely it's at least five years past that before anyone could even think of living inside it at any level so you can bank on twenty years minimum before this has a chance of production. As part of your project you also need to consider how much residual growth will take place on the flat lands because there can't be any overlap during the development because then you get fighting.
Oh, and if you're still questioning Crazy Eddie, maybe consider again how many animals would have died and horribly painfully if we had not switched to stay-put pop tops on cans. Yevette didn't know the reason for the switch so likely others do not as well: animals would eat the pop tops, I guess because they're shiny. You can imagine what that sharp thing did to their guts.
Crazy Eddie has some damn good ideas, in fact.
Note: Crazy Eddie is from "The Mote in God's Eye" which is almost required reading for Ithaka. The story makes for a swashbuckling read but the sociological considerations are deep and I see it as one of the most important books I ever read in terms of uncontrolled population growth, impressionistic problem solving, and the drive toward a continually-warring society.
2 comments:
I dont see how not driving cars eliminates the heat of bodies from your rock city.
If you limited your rock city 15to20 feet, the temp remains fairly constant at 55 degrees
Eliminating the cars won't change the problem of the hot bodies since they're going to be animated heat pumps anyway. I should be able to work up the math for the heat produced by a million heat sources each with a thirty degree gradient but that's got to be some serious calories.
Ambient temperature is something I need to understand better since I get it with the temperature gradient going down but I'm not clear on whatever cooling forces may be in play.
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