Re: Nothing like oil?

In article <ssCdneuUltXNpCTanZ2dnUVZ8ternZ2d@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
Mike Dworetsky <platinum198@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>"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.

	But the original statement didn't have anything to do with "Is 
this reasonable", only "Can we find oil in space."

	In theory, it should be possible to move material from Titan
to Earth with almost no expenditure of energy (in the context of
the Sun, we're downhill and it should be possible to use the potential
energy of material 9 AU out to pay for the cost of hauling it off 
Titan, away from Saturn and down 8 AU, but I have no idea how to 
build such an interplanetary syphon). There are probably more
elegant solutions.  

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

	And I was thinking more in the form of plastics, which are
kind of sequestered.

>> 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.
>
	If you're making hydrocarbons as a fuel, it's probably best to 
think of them as a battery, allowing energy from some large central source
to be converted and trans****ted in a more convenient form.
-- 
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
http://www.cafepress.com/jdnicoll
(For all your "The problem with
defending the English language [...]" T-****rt, cup and tote-bag needs)