Has Weber gone Ecofreak on Us? CoG Spoiler Alert!

namelessfly wrote:I am just about finished with CoG. It is far better than ART or SoF.

However; some of the references and assumptions are absurd.

Take Chapter 35 where the cruise ship is sunk, . The authors use a couple who are suffering from seasickness as POV characters to describe events. Fine. Then they state that the latent energy of planetary Ocean impacted by winds dwarfs the energy output of a modern civilization.

The classic article THE ENERGY RESOURCES OF THE EARTH published in Scientific American lists the wind, wave and tidal energy of the Earth as about 400eex12 Watts. I have found no significant, credible dispute to this number.

If you have a planetary population of 10 Billion people, this is works out to only 40 kW per person which is within an order of magnitude of the US energy consumption rate.

Honorverse technology is far, far more energy intensive than modern technology. Example is a small, 2 million ton tramp freighter using fusion rockets to pull 20 gees.

That is 2eex9 Kg x 200 N/Kg = 4eex11 Newtons


The power of a rocket misgiven by P = 1/2 x T x Ve = 1/2 x 4eex12 x 3eex7 m/s = 6eex19 Watts.

The latent energy of your planetary ocean doesn't even come close to the power output of Honorverse fusion technology.

Equally absurd are the comments about high population density cities being desirable because they are more energy efficient with lower ecological impact than suburbs and the inhabitants being better educated. If you have aopulation of 10 billion living in suburbs at say 1,000 square meters per home and a typical occupancy rate of 4 people per dwelling unit, you get 4,000 people per square kilometer and need 2.5 million square kilometers which iscomparable to the State of Texas.

I would love to know if Weber and Flint considered waste heat from mega cities where aside from the main fusion reactors each building has itsown fusion reactor. Concentrate the population so severely and they will boil a river.

pokermind wrote:Given Eric Flint's heart attack, And David Weber's wife's medical problems CoG did not have the time needed to properly proof either by the authors nor by Baen. Some due to pressure by us clamoring fans and, I include myself.

Again we see the truth of the old saw, "Life is what happens to you to foil your plans." Our favorite authors are only human with human frailties and, concerns other than writing. Good luck guys we enjoy your story telling.

Poker

namelessfly wrote:

pokermind wrote:Given Eric Flint's heart attack, And David Weber's wife's medical problems CoG did not have the time needed to properly proof either by the authors nor by Baen. Some due to pressure by us clamoring fans and, I include myself.

Again we see the truth of the old saw, "Life is what happens to you to foil your plans." Our favorite authors are only human with human frailties and, concerns other than writing. Good luck guys we enjoy your story telling.

Poker

This news really lays a guilt trip on me.

I knew about Weber's wife getting surgery but not Flint's heart attack.

runsforcelery wrote:

namelessfly wrote:I am just about finished with CoG. It is far better than ART or SoF.

However; some of the references and assumptions are absurd.

Take Chapter 35 where the cruise ship is sunk, . The authors use a couple who are suffering from seasickness as POV characters to describe events. Fine. Then they state that the latent energy of planetary Ocean impacted by winds dwarfs the energy output of a modern civilization.

The classic article THE ENERGY RESOURCES OF THE EARTH published in Scientific American lists the wind, wave and tidal energy of the Earth as about 400eex12 Watts. I have found no significant, credible dispute to this number.

If you have a planetary population of 10 Billion people, this is works out to only 40 kW per person which is within an order of magnitude of the US energy consumption rate.

Honorverse technology is far, far more energy intensive than modern technology. Example is a small, 2 million ton tramp freighter using fusion rockets to pull 20 gees.

That is 2eex9 Kg x 200 N/Kg = 4eex11 Newtons


The power of a rocket misgiven by P = 1/2 x T x Ve = 1/2 x 4eex12 x 3eex7 m/s = 6eex19 Watts.

The latent energy of your planetary ocean doesn't even come close to the power output of Honorverse fusion technology.

Equally absurd are the comments about high population density cities being desirable because they are more energy efficient with lower ecological impact than suburbs and the inhabitants being better educated. If you have aopulation of 10 billion living in suburbs at say 1,000 square meters per home and a typical occupancy rate of 4 people per dwelling unit, you get 4,000 people per square kilometer and need 2.5 million square kilometers which iscomparable to the State of Texas.

I would love to know if Weber and Flint considered waste heat from mega cities where aside from the main fusion reactors each building has itsown fusion reactor. Concentrate the population so severely and they will boil a river.

I will say only t'wasn't me who did the scene, although some of its hardware aspects were mine, and that (for reasons which have been adduced elsewhere) there was insufficient time for the sort of editing which would have given me the opportunity to look at it and say "Hmmmmm, that doesn't sound right . . . ."

Northstar wrote:I shudder to contemplate the sewer requirements of these towers, the water treatment, the garbage.... eew, just eew, not to mention the live in a hive aspects. More eew... but then I am not an urban type person.

How do you supply the incoming food requirements, other logistics... or are we in Solent Green territory... urm ... more eew.

I try to quickly gloss over the bits of story that squick me out and concentrate on the bits I like a whole lot.

I liked parts of CoG a lot, other bits not so much. Ah well. I do wish we'd gotten more of Mike's Arrival and fun events pertaining thereto. Perhaps in a future book. I hope. I admit I like more payoff and less enduring squick involving characters I will never see again.

This is a flip side to RFC's character creation magic. He gets me interested very easily in his people. Then if he drops them into never never hear about them again land ...

To answer the title of the thread, no, RFC has not gone all ecofreak. I am mildly ecofreaky. RFC is not. Well, not so's I notice anyway.

Northstar wrote:I shudder to contemplate the sewer requirements of these towers, the water treatment, the garbage.... eew, just eew, not to mention the live in a hive aspects. More eew... but then I am not an urban type person.

How do you supply the incoming food requirements, other logistics... or are we in Solent Green territory... urm ... more eew.

I try to quickly gloss over the bits of story that squick me out and concentrate on the bits I like a whole lot.

I liked parts of CoG a lot, other bits not so much. Ah well. I do wish we'd gotten more of Mike's Arrival and fun events pertaining thereto. Perhaps in a future book. I hope. I admit I like more payoff and less enduring squick involving characters I will never see again.

This is a flip side to RFC's character creation magic. He gets me interested very easily in his people. Then if he drops them into never never hear about them again land ...

To answer the title of the thread, no, RFC has not gone all ecofreak. I am mildly ecofreaky. RFC is not. Well, not so's I notice anyway.