From: Howard C. Berkowitz (hcb@gettcomm.com)
Date: Tue Oct 29 2002 - 14:01:00 GMT-3
At 3:13 PM +0000 10/29/02, Rah Hussain wrote:
>Thank god it's not rocket science ;-)
>
>-Rah
When I taught a course at Kennedy Space Center, the guy in the next
room was talking about the Shuttle propulsion system. I thought I
heard him say, in some frustration with his students, "Hey, this
isn't BGP!"
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Brian Dennis [mailto:brian@5g.net]
>Sent: 29 October 2002 03:25
>To: ccielab@groupstudy.com
>Subject: RE: RE: Unique Fuel Cell Feasibility Request
>
>This e-mail is clearly a violation of the NDA. Also Cisco is dropping
>the fuel cell feature after Nov 4th anyways. ;-)
>
>Brian Dennis, CCIE #2210 (R&S/ISP Dial)
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: nobody@groupstudy.com [mailto:nobody@groupstudy.com] On Behalf Of
>Michael Snyder
>Sent: Monday, October 28, 2002 6:13 PM
>To: 'Steve Cobb'
>Cc: eyewdall@gonzaga.edu; ccielab@groupstudy.com
>Subject: OT: RE: Unique Fuel Cell Feasibility Request
>
>Thanks, Dr. Cobb.
>
>I didnt realize that my request would go directly to your college
>students. My email would have been in a different form had I had.
>
>
>
>Can I ask your students three questions?
>
>1) How much of the worlds oceans come from the Carbon14 cycle? I
>cant find a reference to this subject in the material I can access.
>
>Yet we know that the cycle takes neutrons from deep space and then
>releases them as hydrogen on earth. And because the carbon14 is always
>bound to something, I believe that the space neutron to earth hydrogen
>cycle, produces water in our environment. With a net mass gain for
>earth.
>
> Possible Subquestion(s)
>
>a) How long has the neutron to hydrogen cycle operated on earth?
>b) Has the rate always been constant?
>
>
>
>2) Couldnt a normal fuel cell operate from hydrogen released from
>Cabon14? Also could you capture the charge released during the change
>from C14 to N14?
>
>
>
>Possible Subquestion(s)
>
>a) How much charge is released during of the conversion of C14 to
>N14?
>b) How much hydrogen?
>c) Please express the answers in watts per pound per year.
>
>
>3) Which of following C14 production strategies would product the
>most amount of C14 fuel over a hundred year period?
>
>
>a) Low pressure Nitrogen balloons in the Suns orbit. Assume a 1
>mile balloon radius with 4 pounds of pressure. Are some places in near
>earth space better than others to capture slow neutrons?
>b) High pressure Liquid Nitrogen tanks in the Suns orbit, heat
>shielded. Assume 10 tons of Nitrogen.
>c) Liquid nitrogen tanks placed in nuclear fission power production
>plants. Assume that the thermal shielding will slow the needed
>neutrons. Assume safe venting and beneficial thermo properties during
>nuclear emergences. An -210.1 0C bath could be a good thing to have as
>a last resort in an emergency. Lets assume 10 tons of nitrogen.
>d) Military grade fission material stored in a normal pressure total
>nitrogen atmosphere. Assume one thousand years with one pound of
>fission material, with neutron slowing shielding. Assume safe hydrogen
>venting and C14 recovery operations.
>
>
>These are the questions I wanted to ask a pair of your Physics students.
>I truly think I have a unique idea with a Carbon-14 fueled battery
>connected to a hydrogen powered fuel cell. I believe C14 could be
>produced in the amounts needed, or removed from the yearly yield of
>naturally produced C14 in the atmosphere.
>
>After all, the Earth is a neutron attractor because of its mass and we
>do have a 78% nitrogen atmosphere.
>
>Heck, let me point out that would couldnt stop C14 production if we
>wanted too. Now that time needed may be measured in human life times,
>but then, the energy output from such a cell could be in thousands of
>years. Imagine a fuel cell that takes two hundred years to collect the
>needed fuel for, but then produces 1 kilowatt for two thousand years.
>The more we produced, the easier it would be make more fuel. Also we
>have tons of military fission material that will be around for the
>foreseeable future. We have all the time, and slow neutrons needed for
>such a project.
>
>Other points I can think of.
>
>a) C14 is very safe material, easy to shield. Mobile power
>production is quite possible.
>b) C14 is present in every human. Its hard to protest a nuclear
>fuel cell fuel when youre made of some of the fuel.
>c) I can imagine a space propulsion drive that uses fission material
>to boil liquid nitrogen to drive generators, uses deep space condensers
>to cool the nitrogen back to liquid. It also collects the C14 and uses
>it to produce hydrogen for the life support systems, and uses any extra
>hydrogen at driven at sub C speeds for propulsion. Imagine a 50,000
>year trip using such a system. Even a semi closed fission -> C14 -> H
>-> fusion loop comes to mind.
>d) Man already changes the C14 ratio on earth by using fossil fuels
>on a daily basis, the ratio as been dropping for the last 100 years not
>counting the nuclear tests in 1950s which raised the ratio. The 1950
>tests also prove that large scale C14 production is possible. In the
>proposed fuel cells, C14 releases could be avoided by careful shielded
>battery design. Remember we only want to collect the charge and the
>gas, building a very strong enclosure to house the fuel is quite
>acceptable. Human hands never need access the cells once produced.
>e) Also note that Mars only has a 3% nitrogen atmosphere and no
>visible water on the surface. Wouldnt it be strange that nitrogen
>turns out to be the Earths greatest natural resource? It clearly
>affects evolution by producing C14 that limits maximum cell life, by
>breaking down the needed cell dna, it forces cells to copy dna on a
>regular basis. Wouldnt not be funny that if it also produced the some
>of the hydrogen needed for the life processes on earth over the last 4
>billion years.
>
>
>Well, thats about it. I may be completely off base with these ideas.
>I may also be reinventing the wheel. Their may be ten well know books
>in print focusing on similar ideas. If this is so, Im sorry for taking
>up your time. Then again, thats the reason I requested the feasibility
>study. Nearly all my questions can be worked out using basic college
>math to figure out the long term energy yields.
>
>My expertise is in another field, and it will be a few years before I
>can attend college again to get my own answers. Thats the reason I
>emailed you.
>
>Thanks Again for Your Time,
>
>Michael Snyder
>
>P.S. Please feel free to forward this email to anyone you think would
>be interested. I do reserve my rights for commercial processes using my
>ideas, but educational and non profit research is very welcomed. BTW,
>my price for using my ideas in a commercial field is .001 % of the net
>profit. Its been my experience that ideas are cheap; making them work
>is the expensive part.
>
>Also I carbon copied this email to some of my friends in order to
>document the time and date I composed it.
>
>To the Groupstudy list, Im very sorry for this spam. Talk about way
>off topic email. Thought I think Ive seen worst and less worthy spam
>posted. Please think of it as a please delete test message.
>
>Paul I wont send anything like this again to the list, I just needed to
>document that I composed the above email. If anyone wants to flame me,
>please do it directly, off the list. Otherwise please delete this email
>and get back to studying. (smile)
>
>msnyder@revolutioncomputer.com
>
>
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Steve Cobb [mailto:steve.cobb@murraystate.edu]
>Sent: Friday, October 25, 2002 11:16 AM
>To: Michael Snyder
>Subject: Re: Unique Fuel Cell Feasibility Request
>
>Mr. Snyder:
>Sorry for the delayed response. I had a faculty member bring this
>before our advanced thermodynamics students, but no one felt that they
>had the background, expertise, or time to tackle another project at this
>time. The students are very busy with their assignments and courses, so
>there was little interest in taking on additional responsibilities. It
>is also out of my area, so I am not much help either. You might try the
>ME program at PCC, where there are more mechanical engineering faculty
>than we have here.
>Best wishes as you pursue your ideas.
>Steve Cobb
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