Here’s a question – if the tower passes through the jetstream, would it be possible to have compact wind turbines that are effectively a jet engine in reverse? Is it possible to harness winds of up to 400 km/h for power generation?

Aleks that’s a very cool concept to create a hydro-electric system taking advantage of the massive drop to ground…[Read more]

Sounds like a two-pronged protection situation would be necessary.

On one hand, you’d need to protect these lands against large corporate type entities which would want to exploit the resources for profit.

On the other hand, you’d need to protect the lands against individuals who want to exploit the resources for survival.

So one prong is a…[Read more]

Timescales are really interesting! 😉

While it’s very true that looking at time spans of six figures and upwards in years has the effect of making almost any event little more than a blip, it’s very hard to relate that to how anybody, during their lifetime, should behave.

It’s absolutely obvious though that our society is suffering from…[Read more]

Would it be fair to say that post IPO corporate culture is about wringing as much juice from the husk of an idea as possible, while startups are about achieving something new?

Richard Branson’s autobiography (Screw It Let’s Do It!) has an interesting chapter about Virgin being floated, then him doing everything in his power to return it to its…[Read more]

This philosophy is alive and well in the corporate world!

Very interesting link!

It seems pretty clear with regards to the economic benefits of all of the projects linked here, to get something like the tall tower project off the ground (no pun intended) is it really a case of economists making the prospect irresistable?

I still can’t help but think that, without the backdrop of the Cold War, the moon landings, and indeed even the whole space program, might not have happened at all.

I do find it interesting to compare the diversity of culture and division of attention today with the relative monoculture and focus of attention of the moon landing era. I think it…[Read more]