You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

gilch comments on Crazy Ideas Thread - Less Wrong Discussion

5 Post author: James_Miller 18 June 2016 12:30AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (92)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: gilch 30 June 2016 10:47:34PM *  0 points [-]

Liquid nitrogen costs something like $0.20 per liter, if you produce it at scale. If you buy if from someone else in small amounts it's naturally more expensive, but probably comparable to the cost of milk.

My question isn't how much it costs to fill the tank in the first place, but rather how much boils off per unit time. A vacuum flask is a great insulator, so it might not be that much. If superconductors are necessary for enough efficiency to make this work, do we lose all our efficiency gains in cooling costs?