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> it doesn't have the complex production complex I wondered about the manufacturing life cycle dynamics of DuPont's Kapton, particularly after reading this in

> it doesn't have the complex production complex I wondered about the manufacturing life cycle dynamics of DuPont's Kapton, particularly after reading this in the article: > Planes built since then generally use TKT, which is Kapton with two thin layers of Teflon to provide better resistance to mechanical abrasion and water intrusion. Would a measurement of the complexity of the production complex include the part where they dump the untreated toxic manufacturing waste into virgin streams in West Virginia, or would that be an externality? I recently saw a film produced by Mark Ruffalo that told the story of the West Virginia farmers whose stream was poisoned. They had to spend 7 years fighting DuPont's lawyers for justice, and then they died of cancer. Dark Waters trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvAOuhyunhY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvAOuhyunhY

PaulHoule 6y ago
Teflon is bad enough in terms of persistent organic pollutants. The PET in BoPet (Mylar) is one of the most environmentally favorable plastics in practice used to make plastic coke bottles that look like coke bottles also as "polyester" fabrics. The "Bo" is the part that looks complex to me in that mylar production involves a careful process of stressing it in two different directions while annealing it. It is funny because I have been tracing out the path to manufacture large Kapton/Al films using asteroid materials. It is not hard at all to find an asteroid with the resources, but the trick is building a 'chemical factory factory' that can turn space hydrocarbons into plastic films, assembling that -- the Chinese think they could build a sunshade at L1 Sunward for $60 Trillion with Long March tech, maybe SpaceX can do $5 Trillion with Starship, but to make it cheaper than that you have to make it from minor planets and turn all the 'difficulties' such as 'working into zero gravity' into opportunities such as 'easily handle films larger than New Jersey'.
- unchocked 6y ago
  I'm also working the planetary sunshade. Any source for the Chinese $60T price point?
  - PaulHoule 6y ago
    This paper describes a sunshade launched from a large expendable rocket of current technology https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1687814017719227 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/16878140177192... The $60T is my number based on the guess that the Long March 5 costs about the same as similar western rockets.

PaulHoule 6y ago

Teflon is bad enough in terms of persistent organic pollutants. The PET in BoPet (Mylar) is one of the most environmentally favorable plastics in practice used to make plastic coke bottles that look like coke bottles also as "polyester" fabrics. The "Bo" is the part that looks complex to me in that mylar production involves a careful process of stressing it in two different directions while annealing it. It is funny because I have been tracing out the path to manufacture large Kapton/Al films using asteroid materials. It is not hard at all to find an asteroid with the resources, but the trick is building a 'chemical factory factory' that can turn space hydrocarbons into plastic films, assembling that -- the Chinese think they could build a sunshade at L1 Sunward for $60 Trillion with Long March tech, maybe SpaceX can do $5 Trillion with Starship, but to make it cheaper than that you have to make it from minor planets and turn all the 'difficulties' such as 'working into zero gravity' into opportunities such as 'easily handle films larger than New Jersey'.

unchocked 6y ago
I'm also working the planetary sunshade. Any source for the Chinese $60T price point?
- PaulHoule 6y ago
  This paper describes a sunshade launched from a large expendable rocket of current technology https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1687814017719227 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/16878140177192... The $60T is my number based on the guess that the Long March 5 costs about the same as similar western rockets.