Iceland?

[Ciaras]

I'm at work so my ability to research this is limited at the moment...but does anyone have an knowledge of the government system in Iceland? Are we talking democracy?

This will sound a bit odd probably, but depending on how the 2008 election and first 100 days go...I may be looking for a rather scenic view from another country.

Any info would be appreciated, I'll share whatever I find when I get off work later if anyone cares to read it.

[Arakasi Takeda]

Maybe this will be helpful, at least for descriptive basis:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Iceland


AT

[Ciaras]

Thanks Ara, I guess more than anything I'd be looking for that ideal government that doesn't really exist out there lol. Not many places a captialist/objectivist can find freedom these days. It would be one thing to stay here if the people opposed the socialism being suggested by most of the candidates...but I couldn't stand to sit here and watch people hand over the reigns and say "Sure, you're the president. If you say its not socialism, we'll believe you. Now how much of my paycheck did you say you wanted?" Or the other wonderful alternative of a ever increasing mixture of church and the executive branch.

[Arakasi Takeda]

but depending on how the 2008 election and first 100 days go

Might I be so bold as to inquire - do you live in the United States?

AT

[Sylvia Lafayette]

says under his name Location: Sacramento, CA

[Arakasi Takeda]

says under his name Location: Sacramento, CA

Then I have proof positive that I have not had enough caffeine in the past four hours


AT

[Sylvia Lafayette]

don't worry about it. I am surprised myself that I managed to find that

[Petter Sandstad]

I'd reckon it is the same welfare-state as usual. I know CCP has several times been hindered by the icelandic state in their business, which was much of the rationale for establishing the US-office.

[Ginuad Amarasen]

Hong Kong used to be one of the few places you could do business without the government constantly breathing down your neck and bleeding you dry.

Then the Chicoms took over. Joy.

So, who's up for building an underwater city? =P

[Arakasi Takeda]

So, who's up for building an underwater city? =P

I don't know about an 'underwater city' (other than in a certain video game that shall go unnamed), but I did once run across a semi-serious proposal to create a large artificial island by mining magnesium nodules from the ocean depths, using the metal to form a frame, then artificially inducing coral growth on the frame to create livable structures. I thought it was a bit fantastic at the time, but recent studies on using 'natural' materials in building, along with the strides Dubai is making in artificial island construction, make it sound more plausible. Further, by building such an island in 'international waters', you completely escape the issue of having to break a piece of land from the control of another sovereign state. You can literally build your own mini-country and run it however you like, provided your 'likes' include underwater-mining, ocean-farming, etc.

I wonder if I can find those references again.....

AT

[Ginuad Amarasen]

That could have the potential for major coolness. Especially if one could build an island near some sweet, sweet oil deposits.

That or just somewhere with lots of tasty crustaceans!

(And yeah, I was making a smartass reference to Bioshock )

[Arakasi Takeda]

That could have the potential for major coolness. Especially if one could build an island near some sweet, sweet oil deposits.

That or just somewhere with lots of tasty crustaceans!

Well, the idea seemed to center around a sustainably economy - it had to be independent in order to avoid sovereignty issues due to entanglements for critical supplies. Rather than fossil fuels, it was proposing alternate forms of energy generation.

I also vaguely remember something about the idea in reference to a 'free banking' zone - kind of like the idea of setting up a Swiss style neutral bank on the island. I remember thinking that such an island would also probably fit into the kind of 'IT data haven' suggested by some more notable cyberpunk authors. And, of course, it's complete uniqueness makes a good tourism pull.


AT

[Ginuad Amarasen]

I think that if you set up a viable sovereign nation on an artificial island, it wouldn't remain unique for very long.

What sort of alternative energy generation could you do on an island, anyway? Geothermal, maybe, but that would be better done under the sea anyhow.

Besides, what's the point of generating a lot of energy far, far away from where it's going to be used? Transmission line loss is going to be a big problem until we develop cheap, sturdy room temperature superconductors.

[Arakasi Takeda]

What sort of alternative energy generation could you do on an island, anyway? Geothermal, maybe, but that would be better done under the sea anyhow.

Besides, what's the point of generating a lot of energy far, far away from where it's going to be used? Transmission line loss is going to be a big problem until we develop cheap, sturdy room temperature superconductors.

I believe the idea was to use what is referred to as Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) to generate power. Basically, you use the ocean as a heat engine to generate electrical power based on the thermal difference between water at shallow and deep depths ( you extend on intake pipe a short distance, and another far down).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_ther ... conversion

I think the idea is still theoretical in its implementation stage.

One could use the surplus power generated to convert ocean water into oxygen and hydrogen, which could be compressed into liquid fuels. Basically, you transfer your excess energy production out as rocket fuel, which doesn't suffer from the transmission line problem.


AT

[Ginuad Amarasen]

That looks like a hell of a lot of effort and infrastructure for very little gain. I'll be very surprised if it ever becomes viable.

Also, if you think a gas pipeline of hydrogen several thousand kilometres long wouldn't present a fiendish engineering challenge, you musn't know very much about what a difficult gas it is to transport and store. It leaks like a bitch and has an annoying tendency to make metals brittle. IIRC, because the atom is so small, it can actually slip between metal crystals fairly easily and cause all manner of merry havoc.

Hydrogen, in short, is a hell of a lot more dangerous than its proponents realise.

[Arakasi Takeda]

That looks like a hell of a lot of effort and infrastructure for very little gain. I'll be very surprised if it ever becomes viable.

Well, as I said, I only remember coming across a reference to the idea. I never followed up to see if any progress towards viability had been made.

Also, if you think a gas pipeline of hydrogen several thousand kilometres long wouldn't present a fiendish engineering challenge, you musn't know very much about what a difficult gas it is to transport and store. It leaks like a bitch and has an annoying tendency to make metals brittle. IIRC, because the atom is so small, it can actually slip between metal crystals fairly easily and cause all manner of merry havoc.

Hydrogen, in short, is a hell of a lot more dangerous than its proponents realise.

You don't need a gas pipeline. You can create metal containers from the undersea mining and ship it on a conventional freighter. Probably more cost effective in the long run.

As far as hydrogen being more dangerous - I think even the proponents are aware of the example of the Hindenburg. There are a lot of technical challenges in the transport of hydrogen to be overcome. Of course, the exact same is true of transporting oil, and we do a reasonable job at that so far.

The real question for me is the energy density of hydrogen. Is it economical to use electricity to break down the water, ship it, then use the hydrogen for fuel (most proponents think use of hydrogen 'increases' energy - it doesn't. It's nothing more than a storage mechanism)? The question is one of efficiency - it may just not be profitable in the long run, after factoring in production and transport costs.

AT

[Ginuad Amarasen]

Ergh. I do get annoyed when people say "Oh, well we've already done X, then Y shouldn't be a problem". It's not comparing apples with apples.

Hydrogen is far more combustible and explosive than oil. Pressurised hydrogen is particularly nasty, as it's prone to BLEVE which is pretty much the most catastrophic failure mode known to engineering short of runaway nuclear fission.

Plus there's the matter of hydrogen undermining the strength of metals, which oil doesn't do.

I'm not hostile to alternative energy, but I'm quite tired of people ignoring the multitude of very serious engineering problems that will need to be solved before it's a viable alternative. And I'm also quite sick of people waving their hands and dismissing these problems with an "Oh, well engineers will wave their magic engineer wands and somehow solve the problem quickly, cheaply and easily". Most of the solutions will involve technologies and materials with physical properties that have yet to be discovered. Simply put, we can't do this yet and we're not even at the point where many people could even give a reasonable estimate as to how long it'll be before it's possible, let alone feasible.

[Arakasi Takeda]

Ergh. I do get annoyed when people say "Oh, well we've already done X, then Y shouldn't be a problem". It's not comparing apples with apples.

Then let me hastily assure you that by no means is it my intention to state that storing and transporting hydrogen is somehow the same as oil. I realize very well that these are two different substances with some very different properties.

All I was trying to convey is my perhaps overly optimistic appraisal of human ingenuity. If we can solve the problems of transporting oil, I think were up to the task of resolving the difficulties with hydrogen. No magic wands involved - just applied physics and engineering.

And, again, these are just proposals I came across - I take no responsibility for relating their practicality at current time with current technology. I'm sure as heck not scheduling myself to create a hydrogen-producing artificially-created coral island in international waters tomorrow afternoon.

AT

[Ginuad Amarasen]

LOL Good-oh.

I guess I just get too easily exasperated because too many people are making energy policy based on technology which is at best immature and at worst nonexistent.

I'm quite optimistic about human ingenuity as well. But, being in training as an engineer, I'm already quite aware that optimism has no place in engineering. Immature technologies are to be approached with caution because they're not well understood and there's little field knowledge of their failure modes and failure half-life. Also, failure is to be considered inevitable and planned for, so that when it does happen (and it will) it won't maim or kill anybody.

I'm particularly cautious about this sort of thing as it pertains to energy infrastructure as the grid is often critical to many basic operations of society and runs at energy levels which can vapourise people. That's not the sort of application where I'm enthusiastic about throwing in a lot of unknown variables.

FYI, one of the reasons I'm rather cautious about immature technologies is I can see the difference in teaching between mature aspects of engineering like metallurgy and immature aspects like computer programming. Computers, though very useful, are still a very immature technology (they've really only been around about 65 years). As a result of this, hardly anyone knows how to teach it (most CS teachers just seem to throw problems at students and hope they'll figure it out). Also, much about computers is still very unknown, unpredictable and in a state of constant change. Not so in metallurgy, which has a body of knowledge accumulated and refined over millenia, so a person who studied metallurgy in the 60s will have a fairly similar understanding of it to someone who studied it in 2008.