Tech Level

What level of technology should it have? Should it use nuclear power, coal; or solar, biofuel, wind, tital, and Hydro? What should the buildings be made of? How should the crops be grown? Should we try to make the tech look as inconspicuas as possible?

Good questions. Obviously, we're working from a clean-slate, which means everything is on cards. Ideally, we would use this opportunity to do things better from the outset.

For power, we would want something non-polluting, but also cheap to encourage industry. Nuclear power, solar updraft towers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_updraft_tower), regular solar power plants, and tidal power systems would all be potential candidates. Personally, I favor (ultra-modern) nuclear power as the primary source of power, but supplemented with a wide range of other alternatives (including the three mentioned). This is to decentralize the grid and add a level of redundancy to the cities power system.

Hydro and wind power wouldn't really be suitable considering the preferred location of the city-state (on a desert coast), and biofuels wouldn't make economic sense on a large scale (due to the high cost of growing crops in an arid environment). However, schemes such as using the city's waste as fuel would be on the cards.

As far as building materials go, they would probably be your usual mix of concrete and steel for most buildings. And these would ideally be obtained from local mines. The current proposed location in central australia is surrounded by such suitable mine sites (one of several factors that led to the selection of this site). Timber would be available according to supply and demand.

You can read the topic "The Clean-Slate City-State" (https://cleanslate.editboard.com/topics-f2/the-clean-slate-city-state-t19.htm) for more info on this sort of stuff.

- Mike

Building materials haven't really changed in the past 50 years. However, as far as building methods go, we should use the best technology available (for example, greater use of prefabrication and the use of modern airships to aid construction has been mentioned).

The question of tech level is an interesting one. I think the technology we want already exists, it just hasn't been fully implemented yet.

For example: super-efficient and safe, even melt-down proof nuclear power plants are available today, they just haven't been built yet.

At the same time, ridiculously fast data networks offering streaming HDTV and the like is also available with todays technology.

The technology is already there. Building a city from scratch just gives you the opportunity to fully implement these state-of-the-art systems.

But there is even greater benefit when you realize that the clean-slate approach allows you to re-write todays design standards which currently limit the potential of new technologies; thereby enabling a technological revolution of sorts.

For example: the patent system could be overhauled, thereby allowing greater proliferation of technologies. The network systems could be re-designed from scratch, instead of continuing with current designs which are limited by the requirement for backward compatibility. Traffic management systems could be designed from the ground up to take advantage of advances in computer monitoring. The entire politcal and bureaucratic system could be completely redesigned to facilitate all kinds of e-democracy and public participation, etc. etc.

The potential, as you suggest, is huge.

- Mike

If everyone has a computer, and we can get enough network security, voing could be done over the network.

A WiFi net covering the city, perhaps?

Absolutely. Stanford University is working on a theoretical 'Clean Slate Internet' (http://cleanslate.stanford.edu). The main advantage of re-designing a network system from scratch is that you can build security systems which are inherently impenetrable from the start (i.e. without requirement for complex firewalls and the like); ideal for e-voting applications.

- Mike

Wow. These should all have separate threads.

For power, I say nuclear. Starting with fission, we should use molten salt reactors. These can burn up nearly all the fuel they use, reprocess fuel on site, and produce only about 6% of the waste a light water reactor does. They can burn the existing "waste" from light water reactors, and the materials from decommissioned nuclear weapons. They can also be designed to use a thorium fuel cycle, which is proliferation-proof.

This would give us at least 1,000 years even if 12 billion people used energy at America's per-capita rate. In that time we surely could make fusion work. Both inertial confinement and focus fusion show promise.

For agriculture, I like the general idea of the vertical farm. [/url]

This does seem to be a good plan- and without a doubt it would be more like 2,500 years- which would give us definitely enough time to develop fusion, which should last us quite a while.

Actually, I have thought of a way to start up a nuclear economy (develop fissile material, not make it popular) with maybe 300 Megawatt-years (300 megawatts for one year, 150 megawatts for 2 years etc etc). The thing is, I kind of hesitate to put it on the internet, for obvious reasons.

Actually, the reasons aren't obvious. It's not like you're telling people how to build Nuclear Weapons, is it?

actually...

the only real barrier to a nuclear bomb is fissile material. Pretty much every country has the necessary 300 MWy, and the simple supplies. So what's the consensus? PM to all interested, post, or nothing?

Post it. Knowledge is power.

If you say so...

using voltage jumpers, create an electric current with 2 million volts of power. Each electron will have 2 MeV of energy.

It will be pretty much a cothode ray tube arrangement, with the exception that the cathode (That is the part electrons come put of, right), pretty much has to be made of copper, while the anode (and this is vital) needs to be made of Beryllium. (Or, an anode made of copper would work, if covered by deuterium, with the electrons having 2.5 MeV each. Since it has to be in a vacuum, Be is easier).

Anyway, when hit with a 2 MeV electrion, Be-9 (the only stable isotope of Beryllium)decays to 2 alpha particles, and a neutron. The neutron is used to make thorium 232 into thorium 233, which decays to Uranium 233, which is fissile. All needed materials can be bought online (I think). At the CSCS, we definitely could do it.

I think it would be a lot easier to use a research reactor, like most existing nuclear states did.

for that, though, you have to acquire uranium. Think about it: Who would allow a radical startup city nobody has ever heard of, in an area of the world that isn't really that stable (SE asia, see location poll thread) to have uranium, with the intent of using it in a reactor? We could, however, probably buy some thorium from India, and use that.

How much power would be needed for a test? Although I'd hesitate about geting a university to test it, to avoid the government finding out and banning it. But now everyone here knows, so if it works there'd be no way of hiding the secret

Two million volts is attainable, but not something you could whip up in your garage.

perhaps not in your garage, but certainly even a small city (50,000 to 100,000 people?)could easily. I would like to point out that Gaza has 2.4 million people, Iran, Jordan, Taiwan, Zimbabwe, North Korea, Cuba, any country with a grudge against another one could easily make a nuclear bomb. Even many extragovernmental groups could make one pretty easily.

The CSCS would, of course, fit into this category, of course for very different reasons.

Orion Shall Rise!

Those countires could get Uranium easily anyway. It's not that hard, if you have the right contacts. Look at Iran and North Korea. They alread have some.

but since it's so hard to separate fissile uranium from regular, and takes such large facilities, a nuclear program is pretty easy to spot. This would be a much simpler and low profile operation.

One volt*one amp=one watt, right? So that's two megawatts at one amp, and two kilowatts at one milliamp. Hmmm...

yeah. This would be 200 MW at 2 MV, and 100 amps.

Oops, my bad- calculation error! It seems that, assuming 100% efficiency in everything, only 1 MW year would be needed. However, it seems likely to me that Alpha particles/protons would be preferable to betas, so call the particle accelerator 65% efficient, that's 1.5 megawatt-years.

1.5 megawatts is the amount of energy used by about 130 people in the US. (Admittedly, the US has the highest energy useage per capita in the world, but even in Bangladesh (The lowest power per capita, 200 watts per person), the number is 7500 people.

Either way, the CSCS (and, scarily enough, and organization, be it major or minor) could do this with little difficulty.