Loop elevators might provide some lifting force (was Lofstrom loop enables)

I still fail to see anything to recommend such a nightmarish monstrosity (shudder)!!!

From: hitssquad
Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2012 3:58 AM
To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [spacesettlers] Loop elevators might provide some lifting force (was Re: Lofstrom loop enables)

--- In mailto:spacesettlers%40yahoogroups.com, Ian Woollard wrote:
> On 11 May 2012 03:15, hitssquad wrote:
> > Perhaps the upper stories could be made lighter through the use of Lofstrom loops.
> Lofstrom loops are held up by maglev [which] 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).

Since all tall buildings need elevators (or, at least, vertical freeways) to move people and freight vertically, perhaps the two functions could be combined into one. With many loop-freeways, or loop-elevators, operating at once, the system might be able to accommodate some simultaneous outages without necessarily causing the building to sag.

The top stories wouldn't weigh as much as their masses imply. Even without the assistance of spin, a top story 6,300 kilometers high would only weigh a quarter of its mass. The spin at that height would drop the weight a further 2%, or 20 kilograms for something massing a metric tonne, so such an object would only end up weighing 230 kg at that height. Perhaps the loop elevators could work in conjunction with tensile support from geostationary anchors above (a la Clarke's 3001), further reducing the necessary workload.

If we wanted the loop-elevators to help out with, say, an average of one quadrillion (e15) tonnes of lifting force, we would need e19 watts of continuous power. If we figure the earth's crust has a 200 trillion tonne supply of fission fuel, and that that would be enough to last the current 16 terawatt (1.6e13) global power draw for 32.4 billion (3.24e10) years, then the crust has enough fission fuel to power those loop-elevators alone for 51,840 years.

This ignores the cooling systems, of course.