Well, I liked the sets in Dune but the screenplay and the complete bastardising of the story at the end were fairly breathtakingly awful. And am I alone in thinking that the casting of Sting and Kyle McLachan (assuming they were the only two available) was the wrong way round? Waterworld just exists really.
I can tell that you think a bit off-the-wall, like I do all the time! Imagine being able to harness earthquake power to drive a generator! Or lightning, for that matter.
MM
I suppose it isn't actually power as such that shifts the surface of the earth we happen to be on at the time when an earthquake or tremor happens, but simply the effect of gravity on very large masses of rock miles down.
MM
In San Francisco the footings have to be exactly 49 foot deep.
A 15km deep atomic bomb would have had the same effect by and large.
Google 'tallboy' bomb and the earthquake bombs that Barnes Wallis developed.
Used to get tremors all the time like this in Johannesburg. Blasting in the mines and rock bursts..
And thats just for the garden shed..
Lightning power has been done. But the strikes last an extremely short time, yet the equipment has to handle the full strike energy, and theres a lot of time between strikes. Those make for marginal economics at best. The nearest thing I can think of to practicality with lightning strikes is to use them to heat a pool. This minimises equipment cost, and the large thermal capacity of the pool can work with such an intermittent energy source. There is some place, I forget where, where strikes are frequent, several per day, and thats where these techs have been played with. But nothing is economically competitive yet.
NT
yes, both mortar types are. The crush strength of sand is far greater than that of lime or cement, those just hold the sand in place so it takes the compressive forces.
FWIW lime mortared walls actually are more likely to survive movement. Its one of the reasons SPAB et al advise its use in buildings with little or no foundations.
NT
Do the houses withstand the constant buffeting? This the night before last in Lincolnshire was once in 25 years.
MM
Well, unleaded went up another 2p today where I live (near Spalding). Now 106.9p in some places. Sooner or later, a 1000 litre oil tank refill (domestic heating oil) will cost £1000, and people will be becoming desperate for ANY alternative. Anyone who can design an alternative power system now could be quids in later, even if SOME leccy/mains gas still has to be burned to even out the cold/warm periods.
MM
However the tensile strength of cement approaches that of bricks..
And of you have ties in it..its even better,
They semed to, Its no worse than having and underground station under you, or living 20 yards away from a motorway..
Mind you whete the shocks were worst was the commercial area..all steel and concrete. I didn't see any brick at all in Joburg. Concrete block, or poured concrete, or wood.
They already are quids in. I am up 30% on my British Energy (coal/Nuclear) shares..
At these prices Nuclear is already cheaper by about 25-30%..
At about 1 quid a liter, nuclear electric heating will be cheaper than oil.
Just think. No more burners, fans, flues, pilot lights, CO2 checks, CO checks..Just a nice fat immersion heater.
I can't wait.
Nor can the landlords who have to pay CORGI each year for a certificate.
Adam
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Doctor Drivel" saying something like:
That's a miner issue.
Fuel cells? What about them? Don't we keep getting told that these will be the power of the future and our car exhaust pipes will pump out steam and nothing else?
MM
What about them? The fuel to run them has to come from somewhere.
And they don't run cool either..
Cement is only used as concrete or mortar, but it's irrelevant as tensile strength of both is too low to be used in building. Walls flex because they fail in tensile strength.
Its far higher than lime, but mortar tensile strength doesnt seem to have much effect on building survival in movement in UK. I really doubt British earthquakes are strong enough to move a building fast enough to put it in tension, not when its a brick house weighing a hell of a lot. If that did happen, loads of old lime mortared houses would be collapsing in quakes, and they dont, so I conclude it doesnt happen.
Timber frame structure compressed joints go into tension in countries with hurricanes and quakes etc, but even with those here it not necessary to use ties round the joints. Re brick wall ties in UK, I'm not sure they would make a lot of difference.
The fact that so little building collapsing occurred in the quake tells me the only things that fell down were things where the mortar was totally and utterly shot, with nothing more than gravity holding the chimney bricks in place.
NT
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