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

[Tom B]

>  > So 200 MW might support reasonably 200 homes. That is neighborhood
>  > generation, but not true microgeneration.
>
>  Your numbers are off by about an order of magnitude, should around 2000
>  households.

Um, yes. 1000 * 1000 = 1 million in your fancy math. I think I'll
subscribe to it since my theory that 100 * 1000 = 1 million is
apparently not as good for producing usable results.... <*grin*>

 >  > But this ignores one reality: Possible issues of
>  > security/terrorism/threat posed by having nuclear plants all over the
>  > place.
>
>  You mean like the current situation here in the US?

You have a nuclear plant for every 2000 homes? That's impressive. I
rather suspect not.

In Ottawa, where I am from, that would mean something around 100 of
these plants (assume 5 persons per household). That's a *lot* of sites
to secure and insure the safety of.

There are approximately 103 nuclear plants operating in the US, with a
population of over 300M. That's one per 30M. Now, obviously you get a
lot of power elsewhere, but you have a limited number of nuclear
locations to protect. 100 is a lot, but manageable.

If you tried to do it with solely nuclear and with your 2000 houses
supported (assume 5 people per home) power plant, you'd need 30,000 of
them. Try to secure 30,000 sites. Good luck with that. 100 vs. 30,000.
(And even if we assumed only 10% of current US power was from nuclear
- too lazy to look it up - that'd still only be 1000 sites, not 30K).

My point is that if there are any dangers to having powerplants
around, and the fact that starships need competent engineers and that
some sort of security (if just to protect them from vandals or
electricity thieves, never mind terrorism) is required, securing
30,000 sites and manning them is just going to be painful.

Ergo, larger reactors, more centralized power.

I do think you'll see wind and solar microgeneration to help lighten
the loads on enlightened worlds of appropriate tech. But I don't see
centralized power going away. In many unstable or authoritarian
places, control of power is another form of control of the populace.
How many government codes 6+ exist in the OTU? Ummm LOTS! More
argument for centralized power.

>  Yes, and no, really depends on the efficiency of transmission and
>  production.  And the type of energy being converted to electricity.

I said nothing about transmission. I'm talking strictly about
production. And perhaps about Traveller powerplant rules.