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- Path: sparky!uunet!charon.amdahl.com!pacbell.com!att-out!rutgers!igor.rutgers.edu!planchet.rutgers.edu!nanotech
- From: tomk@netcom.com (Thomas H. Kunich)
- Newsgroups: sci.nanotech
- Subject: Re: tunneling
- Message-ID: <Nov.6.23.13.58.1992.26783@planchet.rutgers.edu>
- Date: 7 Nov 92 04:13:59 GMT
- Sender: nanotech@planchet.rutgers.edu
- Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
- Lines: 19
- Approved: nanotech@aramis.rutgers.edu
-
- (JoSH says)
- > (a) is it even theoretically possible to construct a "submagmarine"
- > which would tool around down below the mantle where the rock *really
- > is* liquid?
- > (b) given a deep enough and cheap enough tunneling capability, there's
- > a hell of a lot of energy down there for the taking...
-
- (a) Where do you dump the excess heat? Anything completely surrounded
- by a very hot substance is going to have a hell of a time to prevent
- itself from reach equilibrium temperature.
-
- (b) There is only energy available if there is a gradient to decend.
-
- [(a) you'd have have something even hotter than the magma inside,
- dumping heat out, and use that heat flow to drive the refrigerators
- to keep everything else inside cool.
- (b) the molten part of the core has to be at least 1540C, and the
- night sky is 3K...
- --JoSH]
-