Re: Nothing like oil?

"James Nicoll" <jdnicoll@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message 
news:fp9bn8$so1$1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> In article <u9WdnTN73ddJeCraRVnyigA@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
> Mike Dworetsky <platinum198@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>
>>but I doubt we are gonna find fossil fuels on the Moon, Mars,
>>Asteroids,
>>Ringworlds or anyplace else we are likely to colonize or terraform.
>>No fossils to make fuel.
>
> Titan has craploads of hydrocarbons,
>
> http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/press-release-details.cfm?newsID=814
>
> Our fossil fuels may have a biological stage but there
> are other ways to end up with lakes of what I will for the sake
> of conversation "oil".
>

Due to strange behaviour of Outlook Express, the previous comments
appeared 
to be from me, not the previous poster.  For some reason I could not get 
reply quote > to work on that message.

Though the fact that Titan has lots of hydrocarbons is not disputed, going

to Saturn, landing on Titan, extracting it, and trans****ting it back to 
Earth for consumption on or near the surface by machines doesn't seem 
energetically reasonable to me.  (What energy source provides the
delta-Vee 
needed?)   It sounds a bit like claiming that space travel will solve the 
population problem, by trans****ting our surplus mases as colonists away
from 
earth, when condoms used here are much cheaper.

And it doesn't help with solving the global warming problem either.

> Also, hydrocarbons are made from the most common element
> in the universe and the fourth most common element in the universe.
> It's not like making the stuff requires material that we won't be
> able to find.

True, but creating molecules packed with chemical energy requires energy 
input equal (or greater, given the laws of thermodynamics) to that you
will 
get out later.  It can be done, but the energy source for the process has
to 
be non-fossil fuel in the first place.

-- 
Mike Dworetsky

(Remove pants sp*mbl*ck to reply)