Lofstrom loop enables tall buildings? ( Triple the radius of Earth to give a)

On 11 May 2012 03:15, hitssquad wrote:

> Perhaps the upper stories could be made lighter through the use of
> Lofstrom loops. Can you think of any reason why that might not work?
>

Lofstrom loops are held up by maglev. Although there's not necessarily a
lower limit so far as I am aware, Maglev, in practice, often uses about 10
Watts (give or take a factor of 3) per kilogram. So you would need about
~10kWatts per tonne of building, continuous, plus the weight of the loop (a
kilogram or two per metre).

Most buildings would be hundreds of tonnes? A light story could be tens of
tonnes. It's not completely out of the question, but it's probably a
significant amount of power.

(Some maglev systems use superconductors, they don't take power for
levitation directly, but they need cooling systems that also use
significant power).

Also holding something up with magnets; the magnets are fairly expensive
compared to (say) bolts, they can only carry a tiny fraction of the weight
for the same cost.

--
-Ian Woollard