IP: For PA area people: Robert Kennedy * A Deep-Space Fix for Global Warming * CSL Colloq. W4:15 Gates B03

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Stanford University
>
>             Computer Systems Laboratory Colloquium
>
>              4:15PM, Wednesday, November 14, 2001
>                Gates Computer Science Building
>                    NEC Auditorium, Room B03
>
>
> Topic:    Mirrors & Smoke, and Other Shady Schemes
>
> Speaker:  Robert G. Kennedy III, PE
>           President, The Ultimax Group, Inc.
>
>
> About the talk:
>
> 390,000 sq.km of solar sails, placed in non-Keplerian orbits around
> the Sun-Earth L1 Lagrange point, can intercept enough (~0.25%)
> sunlight to offset global warming and concomitant rapid climate
> change due to anthropogenic CO2, or if you will, a mirrored Maunder
> Minimum. Such mirrors can also provide total planetary electricity
> demand, estimated at 300 quads (quadrillion BTUs) by 2050, displacing
> all terrestrial carbon-burners.
>
> The capital cost of solar sails is at least an order of magnitude
> less than the sum of economic, social, and environmental damages/
> externalities due to unmitigated climate change over the next
> century, rough order of magnitude (ROM) estimate US$200 trillion in
> 1999 dollars. The capital cost may also be less than the already
> budgeted replacement/expansion cost of the world's energy generation
> plant (ROM est. US$20 trillion through 2050).
>
> This world-saving concept is:
>
>    o scalable (twice the mirror produces twice the effect),
>    o uncoupled (each mirror works independently of the others),
>    o incremental (pay as you go with immediate benefit),
>    o unobtrusive (umbra does not reach Earth, so the sails are
>      essentially invisible), and finally
>    o reversible (sails can be moved off-axis to restore insolation).
>
> Who should attend? Students interested in:
>
>    o advanced control systems,
>    o energy generation and transmission,
>    o physical optics,
>    o orbital dynamics,
>    o engineering economics,
>    o systems science, and
>    o climate change issues and public policy.
>
> Basic models will be used to demonstrate the concepts and a short CG
> animation prepared for European broadcast television will be shown.
>
> Note: Material included in this presentation appeared in part in the
> summer 2001 issue of Whole Earth Review magazine.  See:
>
>     <<  http://catalog.com/ultimax/whitepapers/2001_3c.html  >>.
>
>
> About the speaker:
>
> Robert G. Kennedy III, P.E., is president of The Ultimax Group Inc.
> (http://www.ultimax.com), a registered professional engineer in
> California and Tennessee, and '86 alumnus of Cal Poly's mechanical
> engineering program. He "minored" in Russian studies and went on to
> earn a special M.A. in national security studies at Cal State San
> Bernardino.
>
> In 1994, he was appointed as a Congressional Fellow by the American
> Society of Mechanical Engineers to work for the United States House
> of Representatives Subcommittee on Space, under the overall chairman-
> ship of the late George Brown (D-42-CA), where he worked on Milstar,
> commercial remote sensing, and Russian/American space issues.
>
> Robert has designed special transmutation machines to produce
> artificial superheavy elements like californium 252 in gram
> quantities for the Oak Ridge National Laboratory; designed robots for
> military, nuclear and industrial applications; and manufactured and
> distributed Russian space software worldwide, making the Russian
> evening news on the Sputnik anniversary in October 1997. These days,
> Robert telecommutes to various network security or counter-cracking
> gigs around the world from his home office in Oak Ridge, Tennessee,
> where he resides with his wife, numerous cats, a Tennessee walking
> horse, and a yard full of trees and Detroit iron.
>
>
> Contact information:
>
> Robert G. Kennedy III, P.E.
> The Ultimax Group, Inc.
> 112 Mason Lane
> Oak Ridge, TN  37830-8631
> 865-483-7097 / voice
> 865-483-6317 / fax
> robot () ultimax com
>
> http://catalog.com/ultimax/about/rkresume.html
>
>
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> ####################################################################


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