Self-sustaining colonies built around FF?

[dennisp]

Buckminster Fuller wrote in one of his books that a geodesic sphere a couple miles in diameter, with solar heating making the interior air a couple degrees warmer than outside, would have enough buoyancy to float in the air, even with a whole town built inside it. (Though I think you’re right about “probably later!”)

[Brian H]

As to the costs, after elementary amortization (over 10 years?) of the minimal capital outlay, plus negligible cost of fuel, and you’re pretty much left with staffing. Allocate a hundred thou per year for the part-time services of a supervising/maintaining engineer and techs, and divide by 5 megawatt-years, or about 40,000MWh, or 40,000,000 kwh, and you come up with 100,000/40,000,000 = $0.0025, = 0.25¢/kwh.

Once people have the option of setting up local power sources pretty much anywhere, lots of things are possible. Existing remote communities would likely be among first adopters, btw.

For a sci-fi book, how about stateless floating ocean communities? Also, check out “vertical farming”; it would integrate well into isolated urban clusters with independent power.

[Author]

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