Timeline for answer to Is a habitable desert planet with large fossil fuel deposits possible? by Amadeus
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
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| Jun 16, 2020 at 11:03 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
Commonmark migration
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| Sep 4, 2017 at 23:50 | comment | added | Amadeus | Have to cut this short lest be we moved to chat. Look at axial tilt on Earth, for example USA vs Australia, day length in Summer/Winter, and temp differential between day/night in summer & winter. You don't have to stray from that if your story doesn't demand it. Nightly low can be 30F cooler than daily high, for example. The oblique angle of sun for the tilted-away South means less radiation hits the South, so colder, but light still gets there. days are shorter but not terribly shorter if not too close to the poles. See timeanddate.com/calendar/june-solstice.html for a pic. | |
| Sep 4, 2017 at 23:23 | comment | added | H3R3T1K | What would be the day/night difference be like in the north/south? | |
| Sep 4, 2017 at 23:16 | comment | added | Amadeus | @H3R3T1K The south could be pretty tolerable; in the 90F range I think. It is a desert because of the salt, not the temperature (and we have some cold deserts on Earth: swifty.com/destinations/4527/… ). We might think that is uncomfortable, but it less than normal body temperature and in the range of continuously survivable. Certainly in 1870 they soldiered through their summers. | |
| Sep 4, 2017 at 21:20 | comment | added | Amadeus | P.S. Or rotary motion could be transferred by a chain drive, you have that tech too (like a bicycle chain on gears; but heavier duty). | |
| Sep 4, 2017 at 21:12 | comment | added | Amadeus | The lenses focus on a boiler that produces steam. The sun is the heat source. A big enough area focused on a point can melt iron; but you just want to get a lot of water to about 400F to run a steam engine. The lens array has to move like clockwork with the sun; but you have weight-driven clock tech (grandfather clocks, cuckoo clocks). The steam engine produces rotary motion which is transferred by long steel rod to a pump at the bottom of a well, to drive rotors. See the link for how the pump works; I'd suggest the 4th vane pump: 1st patent in 1874. youtube.com/watch?v=plxFeszbQD0 | |
| Sep 4, 2017 at 20:45 | comment | added | H3R3T1K | Very interesting. I don't know how a machine for pumping water using steam produced with glass lenses would function in detail but I can certainly mention that people do it which will add depth. Thank you! | |
| Sep 4, 2017 at 18:48 | comment | added | Amadeus | @H3R3T1K I would also add that lenses were already well researched and known in 1870; there is no reason you cannot have glass lenses. In a desert, this offers you an alternative source of fuel: Solar power. A large lens (or a grid of smaller lenses) can be focused on a point to boil water for steam distillation; with a ready water supply, a lot of "moonshiner's stills" can be set up for a continuous, unattended way to produce hundreds of gallons of distilled well water daily. This could even power a small steam engine to pump the water up from the well. Have to clean out salt periodically. | |
| Sep 4, 2017 at 15:25 | comment | added | Amadeus | @H3R3T1K Sure, I should think so. But if the South has a lot of salt (even normal ocean salt which is our table salt), the ground water there would probably be salty; the underground aquifers could be salt water. But if you can use coal (perhaps imported) to boil and steam distill it, easily within the scope of 1870, then you have drinking water; and waste water (urine and other forms) is fine for crops. You wouldn't want to keep big open bodies of water; keep it covered or in pipes (metal or ceramic) to prevent evaporation. | |
| Sep 4, 2017 at 14:18 | comment | added | H3R3T1K | But underground water would be available and accessible in both north and south? So people could live in both areas if they transport the soil from the north to the south? How much cooler would the south be? | |
| Sep 4, 2017 at 14:04 | comment | added | Amadeus | @H3R3T1K I would grow crops in the cooler south, but you can't transport just the seeds: You must transport the unsalted soil, too. Read about French Intensive Farming: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_intensive_gardening in raised beds of special soil, requires less water. There are easy (non-electrical) ways to distill water (from wells) to eliminate the salt; just steam distillation which your people should be expert in considering their high dependence on steam engines. Unlike 1870, they would capture 100% of their expelled steam as clean distilled water. | |
| Sep 4, 2017 at 13:58 | comment | added | Amadeus | @H3R3T1K No, the South is desert due to salting, nothing will grow there (unless humans remove the salt and grow crops in raised beds; that could happen, with a source of water). The North is where things can naturally grow for 90,000 out of 100,000 years: but they are currently halfway through a 10,000 year period in which daytime temp is 120F plus and all plants are gone. People and their crops must seek the shade (about 100F): Caves, buildings, etc. Simple evaporative water cooling would still work and lower temps another 15F; steam engines can provide circulation of air and water for that. | |
| Sep 4, 2017 at 13:56 | comment | added | Doomed Mind | This is a great answer,, gives me fantastic ideas (well, that's debatable, but they're ideas at least) for my universe. | |
| Sep 4, 2017 at 13:48 | history | edited | Amadeus | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
correction of a statement; left as a strikeout.
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| Sep 4, 2017 at 12:48 | vote | accept | H3R3T1K | ||
| Sep 4, 2017 at 12:46 | comment | added | H3R3T1K | You have me in awe again, Amadeus! Too bad I cannot contact you personally on this site to thank you. So the North would be semi-arid? People could harvest seeds in the North and grow them in the South even when the North gets "scorched" using underground water and water harvested from the air. What temperatures are we talking about in the North during the "scorching"? Could people living there move underground and survive or would they move South? It'll be fun coming up with animal species to populate the desert. I'm guessing they'll be similar to prominent desert dwelling animals on Earth. | |
| Sep 4, 2017 at 12:14 | history | answered | Amadeus | CC BY-SA 3.0 |