Re: How much does FTL travel cost?

Scott Clinton wrote:

> >Steam engines are not low tech, and they are still state-of-the-art
for
> >electricity production.
>
> In 150+ years they will be very low tech IMHO and steam engines are
not used
> much today (in first world countries they are used in a few
speciallized
> applications, yes, but that is it).

Where in the first world do you live in if steam engines power less than
a half
of the energy not used in transportation?  While I will admit that
generating
electricity could be considered a specialised application that requires
only a
few thousand steam engines, they are the prime movers of much, if not
most,
economic activity.  They are also used produce electricity, or motive
power,
alongside industrial processes that either require steam or have a lot
of waste
heat.

Steam engines are still being built and new efforts are still going into
improving them.  All US navy submarines and aircraft carriers are
powered by
steam engines, even the newest ones.  Do not overlook a technology
merely
because it is mature.  The steam engine has come a long way since Thomas
Savoury's "Miners' Friend", almost three hundred years ago, and,
although they
are no longer the pre-eminent power source, they will continue to be
used until
our methods of primary energy production become so efficient that they
do not
waste enough heat to boil water.