In 2006, Americans spent roughly $15 billion on bottled water. That’s more than we spent on movie theater tickets and ipods. While $15 billion seems staggering, also consider the fact that we pitched roughly 38 billion plastic water bottles into our landfills.

The ever-growing bottle water industry is not only taking a toll on our wallets, it is also having an impact on our environment. When you consider that 24% of the bottled water we buy is actually just tap water that is repackaged and sold by companies like Coke and Pepsi, we really need to ask ourselves: Is it worth it?

Today, it is difficult to go to the gym, go to the store or take a walk in the park without seeing at least a few people toting around water bottles. Bottled water has become an essential prop for everyday living in the United States. Take a minute to think about the bottled water your buy or are given in the course of a week.

We put it in our children’s lunch boxes, we drink it during meetings at the office, we sip water while listening to a public speaker or watching a little league game. Let’s face it, most of us can find a couple of half full bottles of Fiji Water, Aquafina or Evian rolling around under the seats in our cars. Not only that, but we are bombarded with images of good-looking actors sipping water from a Poland Spring bottle on our favorite television shows.

But why? Just 30 years ago, the bottled water industry was not really an industry at all. In fact, it barely existed.

Photo credit: ekstasis23 via Creative Commons

Most of us can remember drinking water straight from the tap and at water fountains as we grew up. But, now, as many of us have children, we are teaching today’s youth that tap water is not up-to-par. We have switched from getting something virtually for free to paying billions for something that is supposed to be better for our health.

Whether or not bottled water is safer to drink than tap is up for debate and with good reason. Something that we also need to consider is the serious impact the bottled water industry is having on the environment.

If you stop to think about it, when we shell out money for a bottle of Fiji Water at the gas station, we are really paying for the plastic water as well as the actual H₂0. We are also buying into a sly story fed to us by the water company marketing experts — We are told where the water comes from and how healthy it is, and we are told what drinking their water will say about us.

The fact is, however, that regardless what we tell ourselves or allow ourselves to believe, bottled water is not simply a benevolent indulgence. Consider this. In the United States alone, we transport approximately one billion bottles of water each week via semi trucks, airplanes and ships.

While we allow ourselves to indulge in bottled water with fancy names and stylish bottles, one out of six people throughout the world has no safe and reliable source of drinking water. Our priorities, along with the global economy, have inadvertently been denying life’s most fundamental components to one billion people a year. While we have numerous water selections from all around the world to choose from, many people around the world are denied clean drinking water.

Photo credit: Michael via Creative Commons

In today’s world where we expect and demand instant gratification, those many varieties and rows of bottled water in the grocery store cooler are really an ominous symbol of the direction the world is heading. We have allowed a big business to supply us with a product we do not need, and they have accomplished this goal through convincing marketing and attractive packaging.

In truth, if we go to the trouble of tracing the bottled water industry back to its grass roots, we discover a story more convoluted than most of us would ever expect.

Take for instance the Italian town of San Pellegrino Terme. There is a spigot that constantly runs and provides San Pellegrino water for free to the locals. The only catch is that this water is lacking the famous bubbles that are added to the San Pellegrino bottled water that is shipped around the world. This famous bottled water giant has the bubbles trucked to the plant.

Also, you may recall the gentleman who brought the first bottled water to American soil. He agreed to a water taste test, which he shamefully failed.

The intricate and sordid story of the bottled water industry would not be complete if we did not take a look at Fiji. Fiji’s state-of-the-art bottled water company produces in excess of one million bottles of the highly-prized Fiji Water a day. Fiji Water is considered, by many of us, to be the best bottled water on the market today.

I wonder if our perspective would change if more of us knew that over half of the local citizens in Fiji do not have any dependable source of safe drinking water. It is really ironic that I, an American, can obtain pure Fiji H₂0 easier than many of those living in Fiji.

AN OBSESSION WITH A LASTING IMPACT

If asked, many of us will say we drink so much bottle water because we believe it to be healthy. Well, it is. However, under normal circumstances, bottled water is not any healthier or safer than tap water. In fact, the United States is the single biggest consumer of the world’s $50 billion bottled water industry. This is off balance considering that America’s tap water is considered a safe and universally reliable water supply.

While there are exceptions to every rule, American tap water is remarkably safe. It is monitored consistently and all test results are provided to the public.

Photo credit: malla_mi via Creative Commons

Consider San Francisco. The municipal water originates from within Yosemite National Park. This water is actually so clean, San Francisco is not requited to filter the water, which is typically a standard EPA requirement.

It’s interesting that so many of us pay significant dollars for bottled water that may only be rebottled tap water. In reality, regardless of the perception that there is a lot of variety to choose from, the world-wide bottled water industry is dominated by four big corporations.

Pepsi, which has the top selling bottled water product in American, monopolizes 13 percent of the market with its well-known Aquafina. Coke comes in at a close second with 11 percent of the market buying its Dasani water. What might not be well know is that both of these bottled water giants, making up as much as 24 percent of the industry, are selling us purified municipal water — just tap water that has been neatly repackaged. The water they are purifying is already safe and ready to drink.

So, if this is true, than it is worth looking at what impact the water bottled industry is having on our global environment. Take Fiji Water for example. If you trace the journey a bottle of Fiji Water must make to reach our shelves, it is obvious that this industry, as a whole, is having a negative environmental impact.

Photo credit: Dan DeLuca via Creative Commons

Let’s say we start in New York. It is an 18-hour plane ride and a four-hour drive along King’s Highway in Fiji. Bottles of Fiji Water take a similar trip, in reverse, by trucks and ships. And, the plastic for the bottles must be shipped to Fiji first, so the bottles’ journey is considerably longer.

This can explain why roughly half the wholesale cost of Fiji Water is based on transportation costs. This is not the only environmental cost associated with Fiji Water. Take a look at the Fiji Water plant, which is a state-of-the-art facility, that is typically in operation 24 hours a day.

This constant operation requires energy – an endless supply of electricity. Because the local utility system cannot support this demand, the factory provides its own electricity by using three large generators that run on diesel fuel.

In the event that plastic bottles are considered less desirable, look at San Pellegrino’s one-liter glass bottles. These add to the popularity of the product but also weigh about five times what plastic bottles weigh. Because of this added weight, shipping expenses and energy consumption increases. Each bottle is washed and rinsed, with mineral water, before being filled with Pellegrino water. During the rinsing process, about two liters of water is used to clean each one liter bottle.

Of course, one of the most noticeable environmental factors associated with the bottled water industry is the bottles. Plastic water bottles are typically made of totally recyclable polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic so we can have a big impact on our landfills by just tossing the bottles in the trash. Currently, our recycling rate for PET is only around 23 percent. This is not a lot considering how big the bottled water industry is.

Photo credit: Yaniv Yaakubovich via Creative Commons

Although some argue it is not fair to point a finger at this industry. Just look at all of the juice and soda companies, who also produce recyclable plastic bottles. We actually drink close to double the amount of soda as water.

However, the difference is that water runs freely from our taps in our homes and from public water fountains. Juice and soda do not. Even so, we still feel the need to pay, at minimum, 99 cents for water. This is a sign of our level of affluence that we have taken for granted for years.

Drinking bottled water is certainly not a sin. However, maybe it is a choice that we need to look at a little more closely. Maybe we should ask ourselves why we want to pay for something that is available free in this country, and why would we be willing to contribute to the pollution of our environment.

Is it really worth it?

It seemed like a good idea at the time. Let’s make an artificial reef from old tires and let corals establish themselves, creating a new marine habitat. At the same time, we’ll free up space in our landfills.

Ray McAllister, a professor at Florida Atlantic University, organized the project, with U.S. Army Corps of Engineers approval. Goodyear donated tires and equipment to bind them. Volunteers sent money and used their boats and barges to haul the tires. And everyone felt they had done a good deed, benefiting the sea and the land.

Unfortunately it did not work out that way.

Thirty-five years later, the man-made “reef” off Fort Lauderdale is a total flop. The steel clips used on the straps holding the bundles of tires together have melted away, and loose tires are scouring the sea bottom of any life. Tires are washing up on beaches and blocking the growth of a real coral reef further down the shore.

William Nuckols, coordinator for Coastal America, which is involved in organizing a cleanup effort, told the Associated Press, “They’re a constantly killing, coral-destruction machine.”

 Photo credit:Matthew Hoelscher

Tire-reef projects were popular off American coastal states and around the world. Millions of tires have been dumped into the ocean. But whether because the tires are too light and move too much to allow sea life to colonize, or because the tires are secreting some toxic substance, they do not work as a reef base.

The tires are often washed ashore, especially after storms. While some tires wash ashore, others have broken loose from the tire-reef and are doing damage to the sea bed.

Dr. Robin Sherman at Nove SE Oceanographic University obtained a grant to find a way to recover and dispose of the tires.
 Photo credit:Matthew Hoelscher

In Florida, the cleanup is expected to take three years and cost about $3.4 million. Many of the tires are buried in the sand and must be dug out, lest further wave action free them to continue the destruction.

On November 7, 2006, Steve Pothoven and his fellow fisheries biologists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration spotted the latest invader of the North American Great Lakes. The invader is Hemimysis anomala, a half-inch long, bright orange shrimp native to the Black and Caspian Seas.

The Caspian shrimp joins 182 other invasive species, most brought to the Great Lakes in the ballast water of ocean-going shrimps, and a few migrating through the St. Lawrence Seaway. The sea lamprey caused the collapse of the lake trout population to one percent of its previous level in the 1950’s and 60’s, and is controlled at great expense today. The zebra mussel drives out indigenous species and clogs pipes, which then must be unclogged to the tune of a billion dollars a year.

What can we expect from this latest invader?

The new shrimp feeds very aggressively on the tiny plants and animals that comprise the lowest rung of the food chain.

Further, the shrimp are very different from native Great Lakes species. They will have a large impact on the Lakes’ ecology, because the more different an invader is, the more disruptive.

Photo Credit: NOAA, Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory

To prevent such invaders, ocean-going freighters that are headed for the Great Lakes must dump their ballast water and exchange it for sea water in the middle of the ocean. This pumps out most foreign fresh water critters, and the rest cannot survive in the sea water that is pumped in.

But, and it is a big but, fully loaded ships do not have to exchange their ballast water for sea water because they have little or no ballast water to begin with. Such ships make up about ninety percent of the overseas freighters that enter the Great Lakes.

The so-called “empty” ballast tanks are never quite empty. The shallow pools of water and muck make lovely homes for species such as our new Caspian shrimp. The Canadian government has recently begun to require all overseas ships to flush saltwater through their “empty” ballast tanks before they enter the St. Lawrence Seaway. This will hopefully help prevent additional invasive species from entering the Great Lakes, but will do little to mitigate the consequences of existing foreign< organisms that already call the lakes home.

Photo Credit: NOAA, Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory

Lately the U.S. Federal Government has been making a lot of noise about green fuel. It started with President Bush’s comment about “switch grass” in his State of the Union Address. He got a few chuckles out of that. While we’ve all heard of using corn to make ethanol, and the importance of trading our SUVs for hybrids, I don’t know anybody who is talking about using switch grass.

Since January, the photo-ops broadcast on television networks have been touting Bush’s concern for the environment. Since this is the administration that turned the Clean Air Act into the Clear Skies Initiative, while lowering the standards of environmental safety that energy companies are required to uphold, we should probably ask: how green is green anyway?

Take ethanol, for example. There is a refinery in Goldfield Iowa that has been making ethanol since late last year. It’s been hailed as the “clean, renewable fuel of the future.” But it uses fossil fuel to power the ethanol refinery, so just exactly what are we gaining from this experiment in so-called green energy?

According to a report from the Christian Science Monitor, Carbon Cloud Hangs Over Green Fuel, while other ethanol plants use natural gas, the Goldfield plant burns 300 tons of coal a day to make this clean, renewable fuel. In fact, Goldfield is the first of its kind to use coal. In Nevada, Iowa, just south of Goldfield, another coal-burning ethanol plant is currently under construction and there are, reportedly, plans to build at least three more in the mid-west.

There are now an estimated 200 similar plants under construction. So, environmentalists are getting a little worried. As well they should. According to the climate director for the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington, the coal producing ethanol plants may undo the environmental benefits of using ethanol in the first place.

So why would the industry deliberately build plants that feed on coal? The answer: the almighty dollar. It costs too much to use natural gas and it’s relatively cheap to retrofit plants to burn coal instead.

They’re calling it “clean coal” technology, but plants using it produce twice the environmental toxins that plants run on natural gas would create. This was substantiated by a group of scientists at the University of California at Berkeley, who concluded that running the almost 200 ethanol plants now under construction on “clean coal” would mean that all the benefits of running vehicles on ethanol would be eliminated by virtue of the CO2 emitted during the ethanol production process.

So what are the alternatives? According to a spokesperson for the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) it is possible to use methane from cattle dung to fire up the ethanol plants. Apparently, it is also possible to use a variety of plant material as well — which is likely where the switch grass reference came from — meaning it is possible to create ethanol without burning either coal or wood. But even if ethanol is produced by boiling switch grass, you can’t run a vehicle on straight ethanol.

Currently, E85, which uses 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline, is being touted as the fuel of the future. According to the RFA web site, there is growing interest in E85 and the “flexible fuel vehicles” or FFVs that can run on it. But current ethanol/gasoline mixtures are using a much smaller percentage of ethanol–more like 10%.

Still according to a study done by Smog Reyes in 2004, even a 10% ethanol mix will reduce tailpipe fine particulate matter by 50%, and carbon monoxide emissions by up to 30%. So if we can push the industry to use cleaner fuel for firing up the ethanol plants, rather than relying on coal, as the newest plants appear set to do, we may actually see some progress.

The recently enacted Energy Policy Act (EPACT), which was signed into law by President Bush in August 2005, includes a Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) which some believe will considerably impact our dependence on foreign oil and our ability to create jobs, thus strengthening our economy while simultaneously improving our environment.

In a study conducted by LECG, LLC in May 2005, analysts project that adherence to the RFS will, by the year 2012, allow us to reduce crude oil imports by $2 billion and save $64 billion in payments to foreign oil producers. In addition, they are predicting that ethanol production will add $200 billion to the GDP between 2005 and 2012, create close to $240,000 jobs and increase household income by 43 million. All of which sounds great, but it doesn’t appear as if their study took into account just how the growing number of ethanol plants are going to be fueled. And if coal is used in the majority of the new plants being planned for construction in the coming years, who knows how valid any of these predictions will actually turn out to be?

In the meantime, while we struggle to reduce our dependence on foreign oil for powering cars and other gas guzzling vehicles, we mustn’t fail to consider all the other things we use oil for. Here’s a short list of things you might not think to connect to oil consumption. For the full list you can check out the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) web site:

clothing ink, heart valves, crayons, parachutes, telephones, deodorant, pantyhose, rubbing alcohol, hearing aids, motorcycle helmets, electrical tape, candles, denture adhesive, refrigerator linings, hair coloring, toilet seats, loudspeakers, movie film, tires, floor wax, electric blankets, lipstick, eyeglasses, life jackets, insect repellent. . . and the list goes on

This is not to say we aren’t making progress. After all, we can’t expect to rid ourselves of dependence on foreign oil overnight, despite the newest legislation and increasingly frequent lectures by the President about America’s shameful “addiction” to oil.

But I can’t help but wonder, in all the hoopla over green energy–just how green is green, anyway?

Photography By Bastian, Robenalt, Automatt via Creative Commons

A century after Darwin wrote his seminal work, the Galapagos Islands were designated as a National Park and the Charles Darwin Foundation was established to protect the extraordinary ecosystem that has provided the backdrop for so much scientific research and so much enjoyment for so many.

But the people living in the Galapagos Islands today have needs Mother Nature cannot fill: foremost among them, the need for energy. There are now about 6,000 people living on San Cristóbal, the largest of the inhabitable islands in the archipelago. Like the rest of the modern world, residents of the island have growing needs for energy, but are concerned about the environmental impact of their energy consumption.

photo: jasonpearce
Positioned too far from Ecuador to tap into its electrical grid, the islanders have had to rely on oil shipments to provide the fuel needed to run their diesel generators. That has, historically, meant frequent trips using small boats, due to the limited capacity of the island’s generators to store the fuel necessary to keep them burning. And with each trip the oil tankers make, there is an increased chance of accidents. What’s more, every trip taken uses up additional fuel just to power the tankers.

photo: jasonpearce
So, the Galapagos Islands are turning–literally turning, green–with wind power. The project, slated to be completed sometime this year, will install three wind-powered turbines that are expected to reduce the number of oil shipments by half. They should also reduce the carbon dioxide being generated by about 2,800 tons per year.

But some residents of San Cristóbal are not altogether pleased. With wind turbines towering at 170 feet, blades that measure 193 feet in diameter and power lines that stretch for 7.5 miles, they are concerned that the visual impact of the turbines will hurt the tourist trade.

After all, people come to the Galapagos for its natural beauty: diving, bird watching, snorkeling, sea kayaking, wind surfing, surfing and fishing are all on the activity list for the tourists who flock there yearly.

photo: jasonpearce
Jim Tolan, Project Director for the wind farm project, is not concerned. He believes that the residents and the tourists who frequent the islands are committed to renewable energy and will welcome the opportunity to turn the island of San Cristóbal into a “showcase for their concerns about the environment” He’s probably right. After all, the residents of these islands surely have better things to do with their time than fight windmills, wouldn’t you think?

photo: jasonpearce

In 1964, a report produced by the Tennessee Department of Public Health stated that the Chattanooga Creek was “without a doubt, the most grossly polluted stream in the Chattanooga area.”

In 1969, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare determined that Chattanooga, Tennessee had the poorest air quality in the nation. This was due, in large part, to a heavy manufacturing industry that included chemicals and pesticides.

Many cities have faced these same challenges. Many cities still do. But Chattanooga’s responses and solutions have been unique, and very successful.

One of the first things the city did was create, and have approved by the state, the Hamilton County Air Pollution Control Bureau. The Bureau was charged with establishing air quality regulations for the city. In an effort to ensure compliance of these regulations, the Bureau worked directly with the manufacturing sector. At the time, the primary need was for smokestack “scrubbers”, which remove most of the toxic by-products typically released by industrial smokestacks.

The manufacturing sector responded quickly and creatively. Not only did they agree to the $40 million in renovations that was needed, but local entrepreneurs chose to build the scrubbers in town. Today the scrubbers are still being manufactured, and are being exported worldwide. Thus, a profitable industry was created, while simultaneously improving air quality.

The city began holding “community visioning” meetings, seeking resident assistance with the environmental and economic troubles it was facing. One outcome of those meetings was the creation of the Moccasin Bend Task Force. This task force studied the 22-mile long Tennessee River and, with the input of hundreds of local citizens, developed the Tennessee River Park Master Plan. The Master Plan eventually resulted in the development of a 23-mile River Walk. The city maintains it through a yearly River Rescue clean-up effort, and it has enabled Chattanooga residents and tourists to enjoy the river again. The Master Plan didn’t just focus on the banks of the Tennessee River. It also included strategies for cleaning up and beautifying the banks of the creeks that feed into the river. In addition, a water treatment facility was built farther upstream, to aid in purifying the streams and lake. Now, where “no swimming” signs used to be the prominent feature, you can instead see people swimming, boating, or simply walking along the river’s edge.

From the river, the environmental revitalizing moved to the downtown district. Trees were planted along the streets. Not just for aesthetic purposes, but to help reduce pollution. The trees are purchased from a local, private nursery. Street pavers were built to help reduce the effects of storm water run-off. Air and traffic pollution have been reduced with the introduction of an electric mass transit system. The technology and vehicles were developed and built locally, and are now being exported globally. People who work downtown can park in garages at the edge of the downtown district, then take electric shuttles to their final destinations. The money generated from the parking garages helps cover the cost of the electric vehicles.

One of the most aggressive and innovative projects is the South-Central business district. Being built as an eco-industrial park, the goal is zero emissions. This means that the waste products from one industry become resources for another within the district.

Chattanooga has excelled at developing a sustainable community, because it has re-integrated the human element. At the heart of most of its initiatives has been the Chattanooga citizens themselves. The community vision meetings were the cornerstone for most of the changes that have been made. But the citizens don’t just offer ideas, they help implement and maintain them. This is done, not only through clean-up efforts like River Rescue, but also through everyday activities. The Orange Grove Recycling Center is a perfect example.

Though it could use machinery to separate the recyclable materials that come in from the nearly 60,000 homes and municipal drop-off sites, the Center instead employs about 100 developmentally disabled adults. Not only does manual sorting reduce industrial pollution, but it also gives an often-ignored part of the population a sense of purpose and belonging. The workers are paid for their time, and are given the opportunity to become and integral part of this community’s sustained environment.

Chattanooga Neighborhood Enterprise was yet another result of the community vision meetings. It is currently creating a mixed-use, mixed-income development in a part of downtown Chattanooga’s Southside district. Included is an elementary school that will allow children in the area to walk to school for the first time in years.

While most cities, nationally and globally, make an effort to reduce negative affects on the environment; few (if any) have attained the level of success enjoyed by Chattanooga. Here, industry is not the enemy, but instead has offered viable and effective solutions. Here, the citizen and the government official aren’t at odds. Rather, they work together to creatively address the environmental challenges the city has faced.

Chattanooga has become one of the few cities designated as an EPA attainment city. This has been due, in large part, to combined efforts of Chattanooga citizens and city officials.

From “most polluted city in the nation” to one of the best (possibly the best) models of an environmentally healthy and sustainable city, in under 40 years. Not bad.

Sources: Chattanooga Horizon Plan 2010, RiverCityCompany.com, CneInc.org

Photo courtesy of Esthr

There is an additional potential benefit that may make putting arrays of solar cells in outer space worth the cost. An array of solar cells, appropriately positioned between the earth and the sun, can absorb some of the incoming solar energy reducing the earth’s temperature and possibly contributing to relief from the greenhouse effect. However, if we bring the energy down to the ground and use it there, we would help counter the greenhouse effect indirectly, since we would use less fossil and petroleum fuels and thus generate less carbon dioxide.

How can we get the solar cell arrays into outer space economically? Rockets work, but they are anything but economical. Unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge, anti-gravity and inertial drives do not work at all and magnetic drives are too weak. Many years ago I built an inertial drive to turn rotating unbalanced weights into a pulsating unidirectional force, but it didn’t work. The equations describing the inertial drive were based on LaGrange’s equations of motion which are based on the conservation of energy. Later a physicist friend explained to me that momentum is conserved, not energy. When I read the article about Michael Laine’s speech about “Nano bridges may precede space elevator”, I initially categorized the Space Elevator to go in the same file as the inertial drive.

On a trip to Dallas last weekend to do Christmas with part of my family, I kept thinking about the space elevator. It fascinated me. Earlier I had read the news release about Liftport’s planned space elevator and how they plan to shoot a rocket into outer space while spooling out a high strength carbon filament. They intend to build the elevator by shooting up multiple rockets like the Romans shot arrows across a river to build a bridge. They plan a “tethered satellite” with a tether or cable down to the ground keeping it from escaping into outer space. The cable will provide the space elevator function. To keep the tether from breaking the satellite must be in a geo-stationary orbit where its angular velocity exactly matches that of the point on the earth directly beneath it. On the way home I jotted down my ideas about the space elevator and when we got back searched the internet to see what I could find. I was surprised by the huge amount of information available on the space elevator, so I think it worth while to summarize it and to describe one possible approach to building a space elevator and to discuss some of the problems involved in building it.

Apologies to you mathophobes, but I need an equation to explain why I am excited about this. Let’s describe the centrifugal force, fC, on a tethered satellite as:

fC = m ω2 (r + rB)

where m is the mass, ω is the constant angular velocity, r is the difference between the actual radius and rB, and rB is the distance from the center of the earth to the radius where the centrifugal force on the mass of the rocket and cable just balances the force of gravity pulling towards the earth’s center. This is analogous to the parking radius, but takes into account the mass of the cable tether, so rB will be slightly larger than the radius for a geo-stationary orbit. The net lifting capability of the tethered satellite is:

fL = m ω2 r

The angular velocity, ω, has to be constant, so we can’t do anything with it. We can use expensive rockets to send a large mass up into orbit to increase “m” in order to get a larger lifting force for the elevator. But, there is another variable available, r, the distance between the balance point and m. As the tether grows longer r increases and the lifting capability increases. Instead of spending a lot to increase m, you can get the same effect by just spooling out more cable.

Why this is important? Once you get the tether out past the balance point, the larger r, the more the lifting force. Given a cable light enough and strong enough to handle this environment extended up past the balance point; all you have to do to strengthen the cable is to crank more stronger cable up into space.2

As you extend the cable, centrifugal force will act to move the tethered mass back to the original angle. As the cable to which the tethered satellite is attached is gradually let out the cable will move back, away from the direction of rotation, but will gradually tend to speed back up stabilizing at the new maximum distance from the surface of the earth.3

Once a stronger cable is in place, you can crank up a still stronger one and so on. However, as the cable extends and the mass moves further and further outwards the centrifugal force will increase more and more. Eventually, if you keep cranking out cable, centrifugal force will create so much tension in the cable that it will break. But, with an appropriate cable design we should be able to go for a long ways while staying within safe limits for the cable tension.

Some analysts have suggested that the optimum cable design is a gradually tapered one with the largest part at the geo-stationary orbit point where the tension is maximum.4 However, it will probably be much more economical to produce a cable with the same dimensions. In fabricating semiconductors, each parameter you have to tweak costs money to control and takes time to optimize. If we are going to be able to get a stable process operating to generate long segments of high strength carbon filament cable, we need to make the process as simple as possible. Varying the dimensions will complicate the cable fabrication process which is already very difficult. So it makes sense to just make one size of cable. If this cable is light enough and has enough surplus strength to support a reasonably sized mass extended several hundred kilometers beyond the balance point, it could be used to build a space elevator.

Once we get a good functioning space elevator, the resulting space station needs to have enough reserve propulsion capability to correct it’s orbit if the cable is cut. A series of links to other cable stations would be logical. However, if all of their cables were cut, they would need a way to keep from sailing off into outer space. Probably the best thing to do would be to keep the stations near the geo-synchronous orbit and if the cable is cut, cut the upper cable to their ballast masses. That way if the tether cable is cut they will not go sailing off into outer space.

Of course this is a simplistic analysis to illustrate the concept, in real life we should include the effect of the decrease in earth’s gravity as the radius increases and other second order effects such as the moon’s gravity, the oblateness of the earth, etc. My goal for this article is to explain the concept, leaving the details for future articles.

That is what amazed me, the math says it will work! Not only will the Space Elevator work, but depending on the cost, availability, and reliability of light weight high strength cable, it makes good economic sense!

The ideal location for the base of the space elevator would be a high mountain on the earth’s equator in order to start as far as possible from the earth’s center. The higher you start, the less energy you have to spend to climb out of the earth’s gravity well and the less cable you need.

The highest point on the Equator is 4,690 m, at 77° 59′ 31″ W on the south slopes of Volcan Cayambe (summit 5,790 m) in Ecuador. This is a short distance above the snow line, and is the only point on the Equator where snow lies on the ground. 5 Other possible locations include Adam’s Peak in Sri Lanka which Arthur C. Clarke used as a base for a space elevator in his 1978 novel, “The Fountains of Paradise”.6

On the other hand, Michael Laine’s company, Liftport, seems to favor a sea level launching pad according to the news release, this could solve a lot of the political problems of trying to build a the base for the space elevator within some foreign country.

According to Bradley Carl Edwards “some of these challenges would be met merely by locating the elevator’s Earth anchor in the eastern equatorial Pacific, west of the Galapagos Islands, where the weather is unusually calm and the threats from hurricanes, tornadoes, lightning, jet streams, and wind are greatly reduced. This location is also about 650 km from any current air routes or sea lanes, significantly reducing the chance of an accidental collision and making the site easier to secure against terrorists. An anchor in the Pacific obviously implies a floating platform, but such structures are already commercially available, thanks to the offshore oil industry.” 7

Next, assume that we can get the needed ultra light high strength cable, what are the risks involved in the Space Elevator? As my old supervisor used to say, “It’s the questions you don’t ask, that get you”. One potential show-stopper may be Van Allen Belt and other radiation in outer space changing the molecular properties of the cable causing possible fracture. Also, the motion of the cable may cause a phenomenon called strain hardening which can leads to stress fractures. This may be exacerbated by some of the cable crawlers they are postulating which would flex the cable a lot.

Brad Edwards ribbon cable idea with a cable composed of many parallel fibers may reduce flexing by using cable climbers with roller clamps which cause minimum damage to the cable.7 A way is needed to check for developing fractures in the cable before they become catastrophic.

Other risks include: corrosion; airplanes; other satellites; space debris; meteors; mechanical resonances such as they had in the Tacoma Narrows bridge 8; Terrorists/Sabotage; if the cable or part of it is conductive the effect of electromagnetic waves from the sun or from a nearby nuclear event must be taken into account; and finally the political Implications of deploying solar cells between the earth and the sun. This could absorb some of the incoming solar energy reducing the earth’s temperature and relieving the greenhouse effect. But, will some countries be upset or sue if we deliberately change their temperature?

So to conclude, when ultra-light, ultra-strong cable fiber becomes available in large quantity, at a low enough price, we should seriously consider building a space elevator. Before building it, we need to evaluate and minimize the various risks, and to build a robust, redundant system which will not easily fail catastrophically, or have significant vulnerabilities. Given an operational space elevator with a solar array generating plenty of power, we will leave the transmission of the power back to earth for future study.

References
1)	Nano bridges may precede space elevator Michael Kanellos
	CNET News.com

http://news.cnet.co.uk/gadgets/0,39029672,39193526,00.htm

2)	http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/space%20elevator
	"Brad Edwards' proposal"

3)	http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/space%20elevator
	"Launching into outer space"

4)	http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/space%20elevator
	"Cable Taper"
5)	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equator
6)	http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/space%20elevator
	"History"

7)	http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/aug05/1690
	"A Hoist to the Heavens"
	By: Bradley Carl Edwards

  http://www.vibrationdata.com/Tacoma.htm  by Tom Irvine

As a result of its design, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge experienced rolling undulations which were driven by the wind. Strong winds caused the bridge to collapse on November 7, 1940. Initially, 35 mile per hour winds excited the bridge’s transverse vibration mode, with an amplitude of 1.5 feet. At that time engineers did not fully understand the forces acting upon bridges and how they would react with the natural frequency of the bridge structure.

Related Links of Interest

The Space Elevator Challenge
The Liftport Company