[UltraTech] Layering protections on a nanostasis tank?

[Daigoro]

Is there a thermal gradient in the geology to allow a geothermal power plant?

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Coal, if kept thoroughly sealed from atmospheric oxygen.

That applies to some petrochemicals too. Choose a reasonably stable single-chain hydrocarbon (Octane, say), and if sealed well it should be good for millions of years. Of course, anyone finding such a thing on a ringworld is going to know and that someone put it there intentionally, which might trigger digging up the whole area to find out why. Also, if the tanks crack, it all leaks away (and if they're inside the facility proper, you risk getting the fuel all through your stuff.

A ringworld should have a nice thermal gradient between the surface, or even the rock under the surface, and a radiator on the underside (seeing as that never sees the sun), so this facility as well as any number of other routine maintenance systems could use that to provide power, and having lots of little systems use this would make the hotspot on the ring's underside unremarkable, one of millions.

[DataPacRat]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

Is there a thermal gradient in the geology to allow a geothermal power plant?

Oddly compared to most modern-day systems, the techno-tomb is probably deep enough that it would only need a token borehole to run a working fluid and exchange heat with the stable thermal mass of the mountain (or mountain-like feature) that it's buried in; the hard part would be getting access to the warmer-or-colder surface air temperatures, in order to produce any useful work. Especially in a way that's not particularly obvious (like simply laying pipes down the walkable access shaft) and is reasonably reliable (such as preparing for if an avalanche takes out the far end of the surface-temp pipes, turning a closed-circuit loop into a pair of useless drains).

Still, I'm now googling articles on such related topics as pumps with no moving parts, such as applying magnetic fields to ferrofluids...