Erich, this is you?
1. NASA is right. Chen is wrong.
http://www.nanovip.com/forums/showthread.php?t=571
Did they ever
solve the electrode problem?
2. Nano-machines(including PV cells) fry in the palm of my hand.
3. A PV cell powered train would work, if you accepted;
a. slow.
b. PV cells distributed across all the cars of the the entire train along with the drive motors for traction.
c. inability to climb a grade under load.
4. Borealis power chip motors are EXCELLENT! Mate that to a first class electrical generation scheme for a traction electric motored vehicle at the wheel and you indeed improve desired characteristics like torque and throughput work efficiencies. You could run a combine using such motors to capture waste heat and use it for work, but you need the current motors for things like PTOs and the traction. Fuel cells versus PV cells in such a combo? I know where my money goes.
5. Nothing says that we can't use direct solar to electrolysis for hydrogen extraction. I just wonder about scales. We need a LOT of hydrogen.(10 billion cubic liters liquified per year minimum?)
6. When I mention heat pollution, Erich, I mean HEAT as in thermal radiation. When you start discussing generating electricity at the orders of magnitude like a Category Three hurricane and call for that to be done by a collection of fusion plants(100 to 500 such generatiing plants) with working efficiencies that realistically might be 12-18% on the low side to as much as 30-50% on the high end.(There is that much uncertainty:
http://www.fusion.org.uk/techdocs/tofe16_cook.pdf
as to the throughput.), what is not uncertain is the amount of HEAT that you will generate as waste. That heat has to be either released into the environment or it has to be recovered as work. Either way it is a formidable problem to solve.
Aside from this, on goals we would be in complete agreement. Means we may quibble a bit, though I am open to any viable mix of electrical means of production(that doesn't offer the chimera of biomass as one of its elements) that puts oil to its proper use-as a lubricant, a souce for plastics, and as jet fuel; until we figure out how to build a hydrogen powered plane that actually works.(Good luck on that one!).
