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

[Timothy Little]

On Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 09:56:09AM -0400, Jerry W Barrington wrote:
> It's a simple step to synchronize and wire up the neighborhoods, to
> even out the demand more.

Simple in concept, maybe.  I suspect that it would be expensive and
would require more maintenance in practice.  I suspect that beyond the
neighbourhood area, the demand will be about as level as it will ever
get.  The gains from load-balancing to larger grids would be minor and
outweighed by even quite small extra costs and risks.


>  Same logic takes you right up the scale to a continental grid.
> [Assuming sufficient population density, but look at where *we've*
> run wires.]

*We* have totally difference economics.

Some of our forms of power are extremely dependent upon location -
e.g. hydro-electric.  For this type we *have* to run great long wires
to where the power is needed.  Other types are quite polluting and
consume enormous amounts of fuel, e.g. coal.  Again, we don't want
them within populated areas and we also want to reduce transportation
costs.  Fission plants produce radioactive waste and are viewed with
some abhorrence by a significant fraction of the public.

For all types efficiency is extremely important, since our energy
sources are expensive and/or limited in availability.  That promotes
much larger and much more expensive plants.  Compared to those, the
cost of transnational connectivity is small, and the gains (though
minor in comparison) are worth the extra capital, land, and
maintenance costs.


*None* of these are true for the power plants in Traveller.  The only
economy of scale beyond small suburb level seems to be in maintenance
- but that is only true up to a point.  I suspect that point would be
quite a bit less than city sized, certainly not state or national
sized.  Relying on a grid larger than that would just bring greater
costs and risks outweighing the minor benefits.


- Tim