Re: Nuclear heater for Expeditions

Michael Lorrey (retroman@together.net)
Tue, 06 Jan 1998 08:04:47 -0500


Hal Finney wrote:
>
> Some iconoclastic futurist (Esfandiary?) suggested that it is silly to
> heat the air and other objects in our houses, when what we want to heat
> is the people. He suggested turning the house into a giant, low-power
> microwave oven. This will heat up the people inside without doing much
> heating to other objects, saving energy.
>
> Maybe your tent could use a similar idea, positioning a few microwave
> radiators around the interior, aimed at your body, to keep you warm without
> trying to heat air and keep a thermal gradient at the thing tent boundary.
>
> Hal

This would only really work well if the occupant did not use any metal
objects, which of course, would absorb the mirowave energy much more
efficiently, and heat up to higher temperatures as a result.