BeanStalk Conduction limits

"N:dlzc D:aol T:com \(dlzc\)" N: dlzc1 D:cox :

Dear Ian Stirling:

"Ian Stirling" wrote in message
...
In sci.space.policy Gordon Couger wrote:
....
At some point in a thunder storm it will start to conduct or the dust
and
dirt on it will and the resulting lighting bolt will detach the anchor.

So, you clad the bottom 10Km in sufficient aluminium/copper to conduct
the
bolt.

You'll attract the bolt, and fry the cable with the heat. Better to run
"dust bunnys" along it when it is not otherwise in use.

Odd, I don't see any fried structures out there today when a properly sized
and ground cable is used.

BeanStalks are non-conductors , there is not enought of a current flow for
them to heat up.

Lighting rods with proper sized and grounded cables conduct power with such
low resistance the copper cable does not heat up by much even after repeated
lighting stikes.

Earl Colby Pottinger

--
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In sci.space.policy Earl Colby Pottinger wrote:
"N:dlzc D:aol T:com \(dlzc\)" N: dlzc1 D:cox :

Dear Earl Colby Pottinger:

"Earl Colby Pottinger" wrote in message
...
"Gordon Couger" :

At some point in a thunder storm it will start to conduct or the dust
and
dirt on it will and the resulting lighting bolt will detach the anchor.

Gordon

I noticed you did not answer a single question I ask or address a single
point I raise. If the fibers are embedded in resin why must it start
conducting.

He said "dust and dirt". You were answered.

On a vertical ribbon?


What about rain.
Last time I looked, this was not uncommon around thunderclouds.
Even if the drops don't wet the tether, it still provides a space
for the raindrops to hang in a tighter than usual formation.

Dear Earl Colby Pottinger:

"Earl Colby Pottinger" wrote in message
...
"N:dlzc D:aol T:com \(dlzc\)" N: dlzc1 D:cox :

Dear Earl Colby Pottinger:

"Earl Colby Pottinger" wrote in message
...
"Gordon Couger" :

At some point in a thunder storm it will start to conduct or the
dust
and
dirt on it will and the resulting lighting bolt will detach the
anchor.

Gordon

I noticed you did not answer a single question I ask or address a
single
point I raise. If the fibers are embedded in resin why must it start
conducting.

He said "dust and dirt". You were answered.

On a vertical ribbon?

Yes.

Why would dust collect on a vertical ribbon.

It works for vans, buidling walls and windows, and flagpoles. Do you
think
nature makes exceptions based on your intended use?

Right, now you find me one that has collect enought dust to conduct
power.

Power poles have to be cleaned, or weren't you aware of this? I seem to
recall these are vertical...

When have you
hear/seen that dust collected on the outside of any manmade structure
conducting lighting?

Lightning rods, yes.

I ask for a structure - you a non-conducting one like the BeanStalk is.

What did you say here?

How can dust made of mostly Silicon Dioxide conduct
power?

Since when is dust "mostly silicon dioxide"? Ever heard of doping?
Ever
heard of hygroscopic materials? Lightning follows any path that gets
it to
ground with minimum breakdown voltage. Surface conduction is quite
easy to
induce.

OH, I see! Someone is going to dope the dust on purpose. Again I ask
show
me a real world example of dust collecting on a manmade structure
conducting
power.

Done. For your edification, "doping" is simply the addition of scattered
discontinuities. This would be dust, electrostatically attracted to the
insulative tether material (assuming we are still talking about
kevlar+coating).

You seem to be trying your level best to claim BeanStalks are damaged
by
lighting, but all your claims are based on designs only a child would
built.
Try entering the real world where man-made structures get hit by
lighting
twenty times in a single day and keep on working.

You on the other hand are burying your head in the sand. The tether
will
be prone to lightning strikes. You can minimize the strikes... how?
Cleaning, keeping it dry, keeping it as non-conductive as possible,
seeding the ground around it with a reverse static charge, more?

And who bothers to do any of those things to present non-conducting
structures today?

Now many of them extend more than 1000 feet from the ground? How many of
them have lightning rods that are higher than the structure?

The fact is any well design non-conducting structure needs
no maintainence to survive lighting strikes. The current flows are just
too
small to do any damage.

It melts copper bussbar, 1/2 in diameter. It is hundreds of thousands of
amps, for a very short time. The busscar has to be replaced. You may be
thinking about the stray filaments that pass through those people that get
to "live".

Worse for your claim on things to do to prevent
stikes, Gordon says nothing you do will be good enough - lighting is
going to
turn your structure to plasma and blow it away period. Re-read his post
if
you don't believe me.

You must be selling stock in a company that is "planning" on putting one of
these up. Your blindness has to be intentional.

David A. Smith

Dear Earl Colby Pottinger:

"Earl Colby Pottinger" wrote in message
...
"N:dlzc D:aol T:com \(dlzc\)" N: dlzc1 D:cox :

Dear Ian Stirling:

"Ian Stirling" wrote in message
...
In sci.space.policy Gordon Couger wrote:
....
At some point in a thunder storm it will start to conduct or the
dust
and
dirt on it will and the resulting lighting bolt will detach the
anchor.

So, you clad the bottom 10Km in sufficient aluminium/copper to
conduct
the
bolt.

You'll attract the bolt, and fry the cable with the heat. Better to
run
"dust bunnys" along it when it is not otherwise in use.

Odd, I don't see any fried structures out there today when a properly
sized
and ground cable is used.

The cable has to be replaced after a strike. Or weren't you aware of this?

BeanStalks are non-conductors , there is not enought of a current flow
for
them to heat up.

One of the pro-beanstalk supports was going to wrap the lower end in foil.
And even the plasma adjacent to the tether (such as does occur along a
wet/dirty surface) will damage the tether.

Lighting rods with proper sized and grounded cables conduct power with
such
low resistance the copper cable does not heat up by much even after
repeated
lighting stikes.

They have to be replaced peridocially. Just as your lower end tether will
have to be.

David A. Smith

Dear Ian Stirling:

"Ian Stirling" wrote in message
...
In sci.space.policy Earl Colby Pottinger wrote:
"N:dlzc D:aol T:com \(dlzc\)" N: dlzc1 D:cox :

Dear Earl Colby Pottinger:

"Earl Colby Pottinger" wrote in message
...
"Gordon Couger" :

At some point in a thunder storm it will start to conduct or the
dust
and
dirt on it will and the resulting lighting bolt will detach the
anchor.

Gordon

I noticed you did not answer a single question I ask or address a
single
point I raise. If the fibers are embedded in resin why must it
start
conducting.

He said "dust and dirt". You were answered.

On a vertical ribbon?


What about rain.
Last time I looked, this was not uncommon around thunderclouds.
Even if the drops don't wet the tether, it still provides a space
for the raindrops to hang in a tighter than usual formation.

Yep. Even teflon(r) gets wet, and dirty. Kevlar has more affinity for
water than teflon does.

David A. Smith

In article ,
Earl Colby Pottinger wrote:

Dust collect on everything

Not on Vertical Surface it does not.

You never have to clean your windows?
BTW, something I haven't seen mentioned yet...this is likely to be at
sea, so the dust will contain large amounts of salt...a newly dampened
cable will have a fairly conductive layer of sal****er on it.


and everything develops a charge.

You are walking around with a charge all the time? The Cable is grounded
thus it can't keep a charge.

Actually, it will develop a charge...if it's a good conductor, it will
be close to the charge of the ground. If it's a poor conductor (more
likely, especially over the distances involved), the charge at a given
point on the ribbon will depend on that of the nearby air. Even a dirty,
damp cable will not be a great conductor.


Really? Can you show me a single building, tree, or power pole that shows
any major plasma damage. What you claim does not happen in real life. And I
noticed you still avoided showing any real examples.

Well, I have a scarred tree outside...but that's more from the current
superheating the sap and living tissue. Tree bark makes a much better
conductor than wet dust.

Utility poles don't need to be cleaned to eliminate discharge. The ones
you see may be kept clean just to keep them clean...nobody has ever
cleaned any of the poles around here. And buildings have lightning
rods...and the cables only need to be replaced if they are damaged,
which does not happen regularly.

Corona effects (St. Elmo's Fire) will probably cause slow damage (ozone,
atomic oxygen, nitrogen oxides, etc), and lightning strikes along the
cable are quite possible, but they won't be catastrophic. I suspect
replacing the bottom hundred meters or so due to cumulative damage may
be a fairly regular maintenance procedure. Dumping the counterweight (or
starting up emergency thrusters on it) and reattaching the elevator will
be far less common. Most lightning will probably hit targets around the
elevator...a simple steel tower will be a much better target than a damp
elevator cable.

--
Christopher James Huff
http://home.earthlink.net/~cjameshuff/
POV-Ray TAG:
http://tag.povray.org/

Dear Christopher James Huff:

"Christopher James Huff" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Earl Colby Pottinger wrote:
....
and everything develops a charge.

You are walking around with a charge all the time? The Cable is
grounded
thus it can't keep a charge.

First its made of kevlar, then its made conductive. And yes, human being
have as much as 3000 volts of static electricity on their bodies, just
walking around. That is why anti-static stations have to be used in
electronics assembly.

Actually, it will develop a charge...if it's a good conductor, it will
be close to the charge of the ground. If it's a poor conductor (more
likely, especially over the distances involved), the charge at a given
point on the ribbon will depend on that of the nearby air. Even a dirty,
damp cable will not be a great conductor.

But a better one than the air itself.

Really? Can you show me a single building, tree, or power pole that
shows
any major plasma damage. What you claim does not happen in real life.
And I
noticed you still avoided showing any real examples.

Well, I have a scarred tree outside...but that's more from the current
superheating the sap and living tissue. Tree bark makes a much better
conductor than wet dust.

And the moist interior a better conductor still.

Utility poles don't need to be cleaned to eliminate discharge. The ones
you see may be kept clean just to keep them clean...nobody has ever
cleaned any of the poles around here. And buildings have lightning
rods...and the cables only need to be replaced if they are damaged,
which does not happen regularly.

It will if they are struck by lightning routinely.

Corona effects (St. Elmo's Fire) will probably cause slow damage (ozone,
atomic oxygen, nitrogen oxides, etc), and lightning strikes along the
cable are quite possible, but they won't be catastrophic. I suspect
replacing the bottom hundred meters or so due to cumulative damage may
be a fairly regular maintenance procedure. Dumping the counterweight (or
starting up emergency thrusters on it) and reattaching the elevator will
be far less common. Most lightning will probably hit targets around the
elevator...a simple steel tower will be a much better target than a damp
elevator cable.

I'd go for the bottom 4km, myself.

David A. Smith

In sci.space.policy "N:dlzc D:aol T:com \(dlzc\)" N: dlzc1 D:cox wrote:
snip
They have to be replaced peridocially. Just as your lower end tether will
have to be.

Which is not a really big issue.
The weight of 10Km or so of tether is well within what can be lifted by one
car.
You just hook on a special car, which climbs to 10Km, cuts the old cable,
ties it on to the new one, and then pays out the new one as the ground
reels it in, before tying on the other end and coming back down.

Dear Ian Stirling:

"Ian Stirling" wrote in message
...
In sci.space.policy "N:dlzc D:aol T:com \(dlzc\)" N: dlzc1 D:cox
wrote:
snip
They have to be replaced peridocially. Just as your lower end tether
will
have to be.

Which is not a really big issue.
The weight of 10Km or so of tether is well within what can be lifted by
one
car.
You just hook on a special car, which climbs to 10Km, cuts the old cable,
ties it on to the new one, and then pays out the new one as the ground
reels it in, before tying on the other end and coming back down.

The atmospheric section, as has been correctly pointed out, is serviceable.
The denial by some that the tether will be subject to damage by lightning
strikes is beyond me to fathom. Chances are it would continue to "pick on"
the same one (unless they are conductive), until it parted, so it should be
unlikely that all of the others would fail in a single storm.

David A. Smith

In article ,
Ian Stirling wrote:

You just hook on a special car, which climbs to 10Km, cuts the old cable,
ties it on to the new one, and then pays out the new one as the ground
reels it in, before tying on the other end and coming back down.

Better to have it pay out the new one on the way up. That way, it has
less work to do...it doesn't have to lift the entire mass of the new
portion all the way to the attachment point. It could also just lay a
new layer over the old cable rather than replacing it...though a full
replacement would eventually be required to reduce the cable weight.

Huh...maybe stack the layers, one side being oldest. New layers are
added at one side, old layers removed on the other. When you've moved
all layers of the lower segment to the opposite side of the upper
segment, it's time to replace the upper segment as well. Further up out
of the atmosphere, you just patch as needed.

--
Christopher James Huff
http://home.earthlink.net/~cjameshuff/
POV-Ray TAG:
http://tag.povray.org/