[TML] [Merchant Shipping] Some ideas I came up with to make merchant shipping more interesing

[shadow at shadowgard.com]

On 13 Apr 2008 at 0:25, Jerry W Barrington wrote:

> On 4/12/08 11:01 PM, "shadow at shadowgard.com" <shadow at shadowgard.com> wrote:
> 
> > Heck, some power systems have built huge reserviors and use off peak
> > power to pump water into them. Then at peak power times they use the
> > water to generate power.
> > 
> > Not real practical in Kansas, but any place that has sufficent water
> > and decent hills or mountins can make good use of it.
> > 
> > If the real world ever gets decent, relatively cheap high capacity
> > batteries that can handle a lot of charge/discharge cycles, we'll
> > likely see power demand leveling off because businesses will be able
> > to switch to the cheaper rates avilable if you pay extra for drawing
> > during peak times and les at off-peak. They can use the batteries as
> > a load leveler.
> > 
> > Heck, it'd probably be worth it to the utilities to give breaks to
> > folks who install them in their homes.
> > 
> > A nice side benefit would be supplying backup power if there's an
> > outage.
> 
> Not to mention a global power grid.  Averaging usage across all time zones
> would level demand too.  Of course, you need damn *big* cables between
> continents.  :)

There are reasons you don't see a lot of *really* long distance power 
transmission. I think the links from BPA to California are pushing 
things.

After a while transmission losses eat up the advantages.

And as I've said in the past, with the sorts of power plants avaible 
in Traveller, colonies are apt to start out with each "house" or 
small cluster of them generating their own power and then grow a 
power grid to share excess power.

--
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
shadow at shadowgard dot com