See? I told you so!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070926/sc_nm/clinton_goodall_forests_dc
You can't produce enough crops to meet the demands of fuel consumption without decimating the land. Only a new crop with astronomical biomass yields for a small area will have a chance of meeting demand without ruining arable land. This crop must also stabilize land and not deplete the soil of nutrients.
Ahem... kudzu once again...
Or the other solution; reduce the surpluss human population. >:3
Face the facts, there are too many people and recources are being stretched to the limit. The Earth cannot support much more growth. And it cannot support a population of even current numbers at the level of US consumption. Look what's happening in China as they modernize for a perfect example. Their environment is going to be destroyed in a few decades.
People can imagine all these happy little miracles of science to fix all the problems, but so far none of those miracles has happened. It's all grasping at straws that always prove too brittle to hold under the weight of real population demands.
The only real solution is to reduce the demands, and the only way to do that is to reduce the population. That's the nasty reality no one seems capable of facing, except for China ironically, where the population control program has actually started working.
MMORPG's may help, as everyone is too caught up in game play to bother with having kids. :P
"Biofuel isn't the answer to everything; it depends where it comes from," she said. "All of this means better education on where fuels are coming from are needed."
i've been sauing this for years. in junction with my support of biofuel.
Quote from: Alondro on September 27, 2007, 12:05:54 PM
See? I told you so!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070926/sc_nm/clinton_goodall_forests_dc
You can't produce enough crops to meet the demands of fuel consumption without decimating the land. Only a new crop with astronomical biomass yields for a small area will have a chance of meeting demand without ruining arable land. This crop must also stabilize land and not deplete the soil of nutrients.
Ahem... kudzu once again...
Or the other solution; reduce the surpluss human population. >:3
Face the facts, there are too many people and recources are being stretched to the limit. The Earth cannot support much more growth. And it cannot support a population of even current numbers at the level of US consumption. Look what's happening in China as they modernize for a perfect example. Their environment is going to be destroyed in a few decades.
People can imagine all these happy little miracles of science to fix all the problems, but so far none of those miracles has happened. It's all grasping at straws that always prove too brittle to hold under the weight of real population demands.
The only real solution is to reduce the demands, and the only way to do that is to reduce the population. That's the nasty reality no one seems capable of facing, except for China ironically, where the population control program has actually started working.
MMORPG's may help, as everyone is too caught up in game play to bother with having kids. :P
alcohol on the other hand, can be produced easily and on an industrial scale.
ethenol is alcohol.
"Okay, everyone... the Earth is good and populated/filled/subjugated, you can stop now..."
Ah, but that's everybody else's problem, I guess.
Quote from: lucas marcone on September 27, 2007, 01:30:46 PM
ethenol is alcohol.
Nope.
eth
anol is
an alcohol. So is methanol, propanol, butanol, pentanol, hexanol, etc. Ethanol is simply distinctive in being the only one that is less (immediately) lethal than the others when ingested, particularly in any quantity.
Quote from: llearch n'n'daCorna on September 27, 2007, 01:40:55 PM
Quote from: lucas marcone on September 27, 2007, 01:30:46 PM
ethenol is alcohol.
Nope.
ethanol is an alcohol. So is methanol, propanol, butanol, pentanol, hexanol, etc. Ethanol is simply distinctive in being the only one that is less (immediately) lethal than the others when ingested, particularly in any quantity.
exactly, ethanol is commonly found in all liquors, and can be produced easily via either fermentation or distillation processes.
hydrogen's another option, mass production, containment, and idiot-proofing it's another matter.
it's worth noting that hydrogen's just as flammible as normal petroleum, but safer due to any "spills" dispersing upward into the atmosphere, rather than forming a pool where all havoc can occur.
Actually, Hydrogen is more prone to explosion/fire when there's a leak due to oxygen in the area.
EDIT: The fires themselves are also more dangerous since they're hard to see without another substance being introduced to the fire.
Biofuels are totally the answer, after all...
(http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/organic_fuel.png)
Quote from: Valynth on September 27, 2007, 02:25:52 PM
Actually, Hydrogen is more prone to explosion/fire when there's a leak due to oxygen in the area.
EDIT: The fires themselves are also more dangerous since they're hard to see without another substance being introduced to the fire.
fuel vapor's just as deadly, otherwise internal combustion wouldn't work. and you'd need quite a lot as hydrogen burns VERY quickly.
Hm... Plant wise, how about Algae? As anyone with a fish tank or even a computer water-cooling system knows, Algae grows just about anywhere there is light and heat. Of course, for mass production, you would need some source of food for it.
Light wise isn't a problem; just use vats that are open to the top/have a transparent cover,.
Heat wise, well, how about nuclear reactor waste? Everyone says its such a problem to get rid of, and is radioactive for a *very* long time, how about having a couple underground tanks with reactor waste, you have some water cycling through it which goes through a heat exchanger to transfer the heat into the vats.
Food wise, if we are talking about using it only for fuel, what about human waste? Cities have *lots* to get rid of, and you wouldn't need much, plus, by the time the algae-oil got to your tank, it would be pretty much harmless, at least disease wise.
Once you implement this on a *large* scale, it would definitely produce lots of oil, and the cost would be virtually nothing. It would take care of some human waste, use the power of spent nuclear power plant fuels, and produce lots of oil!
You could also use something like this for human food(soylent green style!), but you would need a cleaner food source, but that wouldn't be all that hard.
-RobbieThe1st's cynical views
What I want to know about hydrogen (and I've never heard this addressed) is whether they've solved the issue of hydrogen containment. Hydrogen tends to leak right through metal.
COAL is a BIOFUEL!
It is plants that have been compressed and converted for a few million years.
The United States has enough coal to supply energy for at least 700 years and that is all the really great coal, there is lots more less than top quality coal.
Besides...MEXICO NEEDS TORTILLAS! Stop burning it for fuel you Yanqui Puercos!
robbie has a point. though my question is wether or not alge forments?
superluser, i think they already have that figured out otherwise they wouldn't be showing them off and driveing them and such. i think they either use a glass or latex membrane inorder to contain it. better yet to preven a leak we all know glass can hold it under regular fuctioning conditions but if you get in a wreck coat the inside with latex so that you have time to escape before the fire starts.
that is rather odd though don't you need something to ignite the hydrogen? i don't think it just burns on contact with O2.
let me see....
2H2+O2 > 2H2O
would hydrogen break it's bonds that redily? and would oxygen? i dunno im just sayin is all. im tired and i really should be sleepin.
Thatis indeed the biggest problem with hydrogen. It takes alot of energy to produce it from any material. It's the big thing all the advocates of it never talk about, because there is no workable solution at this point. You either have to hydrolyze water or crack hydrocarbons, and both methods require energy. Plus cracking hydrocarbons produces just as much CO2 as simply burning the hydrocarbons in the first place.
Once more, the simplest answer is getting rid of humans. And to make that environmentally sound, they should be fed to lions, tigers and polar bears. >:3
Pfft. Feed the humans to the mould. Much more effective, and there's more of it to feed.
well if we were useing solar power, something I dearly wish to see in the future, then makeing hydrogen wouldn't be that much of a set back co2 wise.
Solar panels have drawbacks. They cost alot to produce and the best ones only have a useful life of about 20 years. Then you have to dispose of them, which is very difficult as they're basically silicon sheets doped with heavy metals.
We need a new and better type of solar power technology altogether.
Wind farms could take care of some of the electricity requirements, but there are few locations that are suited, and then there's always the crowds of NIMBYs who protest everything.
NIMBYs = Not In My Back Yard people
Quote from: Alondro on September 28, 2007, 12:47:28 PMAnd to make that environmentally sound, they should be fed to lions, tigers and polar bears. >:3
Oh my. :[
We needs more geothermal and hydroelectric power. :<
I have to agree though, this planet is starting to get a wee bit overcrowded. As much as it sounds a horrible thing, the people have got to go somewhere else. Be it the moon, Mars, or... well, dead.
Or maybe Soylent Green. :B
If the earth was over crowding we'd be in the middle of a famine. China is the way it is because they employ practices that are highly ineffectual in terms of farming.
Well, there are 2 billion people globally who don't have enough food, but that's mainly due to waste and corrupt local governments/warlords who steal everything they're given in foreign aid.
Fresh water and energy are the two big concerns. If everyone on earth was raised to the American or European standards of living, the fresh water supply would be depleted in a few years. Just look at Lake Chad as it is, and the Aral Sea. Farmland in the US is even suffering as aquifers are being emptied faster than they can refill.
We're reaching the limit of what the planet can support in human population, unless we wish to exterminate all other life to make room for ourselves, which is inevitably what will happen. History proves conclusively that when its humans vs other critters, the other critters lose.
And then what? At maximum, with all other large mammals exterminated and all arable farmland in use, the Earth might manage 12 billion humans (assuming we can stretch fresh water that much or find other sources, like using magic to bring icebergs inland. :P ) What will happen then if humanity hasn't figured out that it's gotten too big?
The problem should be dealt with now BEFORE it's too late, not after as is usually the case with the human race (which is inferior to my supreme geniusness). >:3
The problem isn't water, it's -fresh- water. What we need to focus on is removing impurities from salt water, or yanking some ice from the poles. Both of which are -very- doable with our current technology. It just hasn't gotten to the point where just drilling for ground water is more expensive than grabbing pole ice/distilling sea water.
And who is going to pay for this expensive water? The costs involved in providing fresh water to the entire population once it reaches that point would reach into the trillions every year. And how much energy is all that water distillation and/or polar ice shipping going to take? Thus, once more we're hitting on other limited resources.
And not to mention this entire proposal rests on technology that doesn't exist yet. It's called counting ones chickens before they're hatched.
DEAL.... WITH... POPULATION... NOW... before it gets too late. It's very simple. People should stop having 12 children, especially if they live in a desert. That's just absurdly stupid.
Do you even realize how fast resources like fish and forests are vanishing? There is a very real possibility that before I am old, forests will have reached critical losses in almost every continent except Europe and North America, where the population density is still relatively low. And all but the fastest reproducing, easiest farmed, and most inedible fish will be extinct. Fisheries have had very low-yield catches in the past decade, which there had been warnings of since the early 80's.
But as usual, no one listened to the marine biologists who were actually studying the effect of chronic overfishing. They were too concerned about local fishing economies in the short term. Well what the hell do they expect to catch when they've fished every damn fish? I recall a Serendipity book about this.
Ah yes, "Maui-Maui", which told how the foolish creatures the Amomonies whose wasteful ways nearly used up all the fish in their seas. But I was wrong about the year. That book was published in 1979. The printing I have is the 7th, from 1983.
What do you think is really going to happen if we add even another 2 billion people? Quit with the fanciful dreams and start dealing with the reality that humans are as a whole are selfish and stupid and will act to serve nothing but themselves. That's what you plan for, not dreamy peachy-keen visions of the future where everyone is happily working together to save the planet. I know humanity too well. It ain't happening.
Just look at how whaling keeps coming back, even though there is absolutely no need for it whatsoever. Just look how the rich in China and other Asian countries still fuel the demand for tiger, rhino and other endangered animal parts, not even because they believe the ridiculous claims, but merely as a status symbol.
No, I'll not put my faith in humanity. And I'l not put the stakes of the future upon something that doesn't exist. If these wonder technologies can be made, then make them. Once you have them in hand, then we'll talk. Until then, humanity, stop breeding like rats.
Quote from: Alondro on September 28, 2007, 01:06:57 PM
Wind farms could take care of some of the electricity requirements, but there are few locations that are suited, and then there's always the crowds of NIMBYs who protest everything.
NIMBYs = Not In My Back Yard people
Quote from: Alondro on September 28, 2007, 12:47:28 PM
Once more, the simplest answer is getting rid of humans. And to make that environmentally sound, they should be fed to lions, tigers and polar bears. >:3
An even better idea: Set up wind farms, and feed the NIMBY people to the lions, tigers and polar bears. That would be doubly environmentally friendly! >:3
Or even just build wind farms all you want and call anyone who complains a terrorist(Actually, you can call them eco-terrorists. Just like the A.L.F.). That seems very practical.
-RobbieThe1st
Quote from: Alondro on September 28, 2007, 01:06:57 PMWe need a new and better type of solar power technology altogether.
``We need a new and better type of solar power technology!'' :B
Anyways, it's not true. PV solar has been crap since people started thinking about it, and I don't think we're ever going to make it work. Solar thermal works, but it takes up a lot of land. Wind is the way to go, IMHO. Geothermal, hydroelectric, and a variety of other green energy sources are far more promising than solar PV.
Fresh water and fish are actually really serious problems, but I'm not willing to believe Malthus.
Fresh water really isn't that much of a problem. If Israel can separate the salts and minerals in the dead sea from each other, then we sure as hell can separate minerals from water.
Also, there are other sources of food other than fish, if the fish go, hey, everyone will just have to eat something else.
Another point, the world's most productive farmland is in the U.S. Heck, we produce enough food now to feed not only ourselves, but the Chinese as well if their government would let us.
Finally, of the species that have wandered the earth, 99.9% of them went extinct on their own. So you'll forgive me if I say leave the animals, save the humans.
Also, the whole "We need to control the population" fear mongering crap has been around longer than I have, yet we still have positive birth rates, the only lands that are starving have governments that want them to, and much of North America is still forests.
Quote from: Alondro on September 28, 2007, 01:06:57 PM
Solar panels have drawbacks. They cost alot to produce and the best ones only have a useful life of about 20 years. Then you have to dispose of them, which is very difficult as they're basically silicon sheets doped with heavy metals.
We need a new and better type of solar power technology altogether.
Wind farms could take care of some of the electricity requirements, but there are few locations that are suited, and then there's always the crowds of NIMBYs who protest everything.
NIMBYs = Not In My Back Yard people
in the netherlands they've installed a massive wind farm on water, which saves precious land being taken up by the mammoth wind turbines.
Solar panels need to be kept clean as well, any dust that collects on them reduces their efficiency, greenies go on about how solar energy is the answer, but really, in any practical sense, it isn't.
putting some sort of solar energy collection system to help heat/cool large buildings is a reasonable way to save on energy costs, but it's a band-aid measure at best.
they're still toying with Fusion reactors at oxford right now.
Hydrogen, they're still looking for an effective means of mass production that doesn't come from byproducts of the petrochemical industry.
another thing about solar panels, is that they're only really good on sunny days.
Electric cars, well, they're wonderous and all, but have a limited effective range, and heavier than normal internal combustion engine types.
Biodiesel, or recycled deep frier oil, is wonderous and all, but really once the market starts, people will charge through the nose for it anyway.
Nuclear power is the only "atmospheric friendly" thing i can think of, potential chernobyls notwithstanding. Waste is a big issue, though.
Quote from: Turnsky on September 29, 2007, 05:18:31 AMElectric cars, well, they're wonderous and all, but have a limited effective range, and heavier than normal internal combustion engine types.
(...)
Nuclear power is the only "atmospheric friendly" thing i can think of, potential chernobyls notwithstanding. Waste is a big issue, though.
they've already calculated the average daily run on 30-50km for a car, and they already achieved 40% that mark with batteries alone.
and for nuclear power, ona must find out how to make one that is small and light enough to put in a car.
to me, the future lies on electric power AND smaller vehicles. there's no need for people to walk around every day on cars with room for 5 people, when most of the time only one person is using it
Quote from: Valynth on September 29, 2007, 03:40:45 AM
Fresh water really isn't that much of a problem. If Israel can separate the salts and minerals in the dead sea from each other, then we sure as hell can separate minerals from water.
I don't think their methodology will work for us, since it involves putting the water/mineral solution in large shallow pools with a high surface area to volume ratio, and letting the water evaporate. :B
For the algae power source... I was watching a special on power sources on Discovery a while ago, and there's a power plant in... Texas? that is experimenting on growing algae as a source of oil. That's right, oil. Apparently, the algae they are growing can be processed into a sort of crude oil, and are grown in vertical plastic cylinders that only require aeration and a fresh water feed(and probably enough other food to grow).
Quote from: Reese Tora on September 29, 2007, 06:48:36 AM
Quote from: Valynth on September 29, 2007, 03:40:45 AM
Fresh water really isn't that much of a problem. If Israel can separate the salts and minerals in the dead sea from each other, then we sure as hell can separate minerals from water.
I don't think their methodology will work for us, since it involves putting the water/mineral solution in large shallow pools with a high surface area to volume ratio, and letting the water evaporate. :B
For the algae power source... I was watching a special on power sources on Discovery a while ago, and there's a power plant in... Texas? that is experimenting on growing algae as a source of oil. That's right, oil. Apparently, the algae they are growing can be processed into a sort of crude oil, and are grown in vertical plastic cylinders that only require aeration and a fresh water feed(and probably enough other food to grow).
As I said:
Quote from: RobbieThe1st on September 28, 2007, 01:11:32 AM
Hm... Plant wise, how about Algae? As anyone with a fish tank or even a computer water-cooling system knows, Algae grows just about anywhere there is light and heat. Of course, for mass production, you would need some source of food for it.
Light wise isn't a problem; just use vats that are open to the top/have a transparent cover,.
Heat wise, well, how about nuclear reactor waste? Everyone says its such a problem to get rid of, and is radioactive for a *very* long time, how about having a couple underground tanks with reactor waste, you have some water cycling through it which goes through a heat exchanger to transfer the heat into the vats.
Food wise, if we are talking about using it only for fuel, what about human waste? Cities have *lots* to get rid of, and you wouldn't need much, plus, by the time the algae-oil got to your tank, it would be pretty much harmless, at least disease wise.
Once you implement this on a *large* scale, it would definitely produce lots of oil, and the cost would be virtually nothing. It would take care of some human waste, use the power of spent nuclear power plant fuels, and produce lots of oil!
You could also use something like this for human food(soylent green style!), but you would need a cleaner food source, but that wouldn't be all that hard.
-RobbieThe1st's cynical views
Of course, if we could just get some powerful heat to electricity conversion device that works at room temperature, all our energy problems would be solved.
At worst, you could take a whole lot of these devices(would be better if they were "active" energy generation, such that they could remove enough heat to lower the surrounding temperature, as then you could turn a few deserts into cold deserts which produce lots of electricity!
Solar and wind wise, things would be much more practical if each house had its own energy generation system: No transmission losses, no power grids to cause problems, and not much, if any wasted space(we have these large roofs, they should be producing energy!).
-RobbieThe1st
Quote from: Valynth on September 29, 2007, 03:40:45 AMFresh water really isn't that much of a problem. If Israel can separate the salts and minerals in the dead sea from each other, then we sure as hell can separate minerals from water.
Yes. Very expensively. I'd much rather spend that money on anything else.
Quote from: Valynth on September 29, 2007, 03:40:45 AMAlso, there are other sources of food other than fish, if the fish go, hey, everyone will just have to eat something else.
I'm sure we can find something else to eat, but aren't you in the least bit fazed by the possibility that there will be no more fish in the world?
Quote from: Turnsky on September 29, 2007, 05:18:31 AMin the netherlands they've installed a massive wind farm on water, which saves precious land being taken up by the mammoth wind turbines.
Copenhagen, as well.
The US, too, if we can get Teddy Kennedy to shut up about how it depreciates his land value.
Quote from: Turnsky on September 29, 2007, 05:18:31 AMgreenies go on about how solar energy is the answer, but really, in any practical sense, it isn't.
I'd like to say that this is changing, but I think it's actually getting worse. I hear that California recently provided incentives for home solar panel use.
New designs on nuclear power plants solve many of the meltdown and waste problems. My father has done work decommissioning old plants and is always looking at new designs. The new types would have standardized parts, instead of the stupidity in the US of having nearly every plant unique, and thus the parts have to be designed for only that one particular plant, making replacement parts absurdly expensive. They are much smaller, and though they don't produce as much power, you can build several of them more cheaply than one of the big expensive ones.
They cannot melt down. The nuclear fuel pellets are never close enough to achieve critical mass, and the failsafe system for any 'just in case' occurrences is gravity fed, versus injection, and thus cannot simply stop working. Plus, the new design of the fuel pellets makes them much easier to remove and reprocess, retrieving almost all the remaining uranium for re-use. This leads to much less waste material.
The only problem is that we'd have only 200 years of power if we switched all electricity production to nuclear. Then we'd run out of known uranium deposits. But still, that's 200 years to hopefully find something that will work indefinitely, and 200 years of lower CO2... not that I care about global warming. My house and my grandmother's down the street would be on beach front property in a subtropical climate if the sea rose, as we're on the NJ central ridge (a peninsula). Heh heh, my property values would skyrocket! :mwaha
Quote from: Alondro on September 28, 2007, 12:47:28 PM
Once more, the simplest answer is getting rid of humans. And to make that environmentally sound, they should be fed to lions, tigers and polar bears. >:3
That is
not an environmentally sound solution to the overpopulation problem. There are hardly enough lions, tigers, or bears left in the world to consume that many humans, and essentially domesticating them with free food would impair their natural survival habits and disrupt their native ecosystems. >:]
Quote from: Valynth on September 29, 2007, 03:40:45 AM
Fresh water really isn't that much of a problem. If Israel can separate the salts and minerals in the dead sea from each other, then we sure as hell can separate minerals from water.
Desalination, even with the newer and more efficient reverse osmosis technologies, consumes eight times as much energy as reclamation, and that doesn't even count the costs of transportation or waste disposal. Are you suggesting that people build pipes from the coast to water crops in the middle of the country when the water tables there drop below usable levels? City planners around the world are worried about their fresh water supplies because they know how much they're using, they know how much they have available, and they know that the former is going up while the latter is going down. Bringing water in from elsewhere is expensive and merely offloads the problem to the next guy down the line. Your "solution" involves playing a giant game of whack-a-mole with the country's water and energy supplies.
Quote from: Valynth on September 29, 2007, 03:40:45 AM
Also, there are other sources of food other than fish, if the fish go, hey, everyone will just have to eat something else.
It's not just that there won't be anymore fish. There won't be any more of the things that eat the fish, or the things that eat them. And potentially bad things that the fish used to eat will flourish unchecked.
Besides, without fish, there would be no sushi. And then Tezkat would be a sad kitty. :<
Quote from: RobbieThe1st on September 29, 2007, 07:23:13 AM
Of course, if we could just get some powerful heat to electricity conversion device that works at room temperature, all our energy problems would be solved.
At worst, you could take a whole lot of these devices(would be better if they were "active" energy generation, such that they could remove enough heat to lower the surrounding temperature, as then you could turn a few deserts into cold deserts which produce lots of electricity!
There's a little thing called the Second Law of Thermodynamics getting in the way of that idea. Entropy doesn't move in that direction--heat is a
waste product of energy production and consumption. Cooling something below the level of its surroundings
consumes energy. Just take a look at your electricity bill after running an air conditioner all summer. :3
Quote from: RobbieThe1st on September 29, 2007, 07:23:13 AM
Solar and wind wise, things would be much more practical if each house had its own energy generation system: No transmission losses, no power grids to cause problems, and not much, if any wasted space(we have these large roofs, they should be producing energy!).
-RobbieThe1st
In the entirety of their useful lifespan (and we're talking about more than a decade here), current solar panel technologies barely recoup the energy put into manufacturing them. Like hydrogen, solar power is not really a way to save or generate energy; it's merely a relatively "green" way of
storing energy and transporting it to areas where it can be used without dependence on an electrical grid.
Solar and wind power also have issues with the variability (not to mention intermitency) of their energy production (in both time and space), which may not (indeed, frequently doesn't) follow the pattern of consumption. While those aren't insurmountable deployment issues, they do present a strong case against the practicality of gridless homes and businesses.
Tidal power systems -might- fill some of the gap. But again, they depend on numerous variables being just right...
I'm not saying we -should- desalinize water, I'm saying we'd do that before killing each other for sake of "saving the race."
Quote from: llearch n'n'daCorna on September 29, 2007, 07:26:08 PM
Tidal power systems -might- fill some of the gap. But again, they depend on numerous variables being just right...
Much like solar and wind power. No wind? No power. Too cloudy? No power. :U
I have to agree with the comments about no more fish. See, the planet is a delicate thing. Ecosystems aren't just something you can take apart like a child's toy. You remove the fish, and things that rely on those fish die. Then things that rely on the things that relied on the fish die. Then the things that relied on the fish to keep under control flourish out of control and become a serious problem for everything else. Look at the predator/prey cycles. Remove the predator entirely. What happens? The prey has nothing to curb it's populations.
Ironically, I think that's pretty much what has happened with us. We have hardly any natural predators any more. The only things reducing our numbers are human stupidity (perhaps the only major "predator") and poor living conditions or the inevitable point at which our internal organs pass their expiration date. Thus we spread and thrive. :B
Oh? So this situation has only occurred within human times? I seem to recall that such extinctions occurred long before Humans came to be.
The world will change, yes, but we will also change to survive as we have done since the very begining. After all, the earth is a far from stable place.
That doesn't mean it should be encouraged. Our presence is causing adverse effects, or acceleration of the process, which is not ideal.
Quote from: Valynth on September 29, 2007, 08:37:12 PM
Oh? So this situation has only occurred within human times? I seem to recall that such extinctions occurred long before Humans came to be.
The world will change, yes, but we will also change to survive as we have done since the very begining. After all, the earth is a far from stable place.
That they have. And it didn't go so well for creatures around at the time, either. >:]
Remember that our species, and those upon which we feed (and so on down the line), have spent many thousands of years adapting to and optimizing for our environments. When human intervention drastically changes the parameters of said environment, Bad Things can happen to all of the organisms dependent on said ecosystems. Although life will go on, as it is wont to do, significant recoveries will not be evident in the scale of human lifetimes. Our quality of life would drop... due largely to factors which we seem able but unwilling to prevent.
Regardless, the special effort we're now making to drive all these tasty critters to extinction does not represent a viable long-term business model--it's merely a race to use up scarce resources before the next guy does. :dface
Show me a resource that isn't scarce by economic definitions (it commands a price by having a limited supply at one time) and I shall declare you god.
There is an answer to this situation of the fish, but no body wants to acctually work on it so they just sit around and whine about the problem all the while buying the fish coming from the very industry they're whining about.
The answer is simpler than one would think (geee, I wonder where we grow and raise animals for human consumption.... oh wait).
Quote from: Tezkat on September 29, 2007, 07:11:53 PM
Quote from: RobbieThe1st on September 29, 2007, 07:23:13 AM
Of course, if we could just get some powerful heat to electricity conversion device that works at room temperature, all our energy problems would be solved.
At worst, you could take a whole lot of these devices(would be better if they were "active" energy generation, such that they could remove enough heat to lower the surrounding temperature, as then you could turn a few deserts into cold deserts which produce lots of electricity!
There's a little thing called the Second Law of Thermodynamics getting in the way of that idea. Entropy doesn't move in that direction--heat is a waste product of energy production and consumption. Cooling something below the level of its surroundings consumes energy. Just take a look at your electricity bill after running an air conditioner all summer. :3
Well, I have to disagree with you; Just look at thermocouples. The problem is, they work fine at high temperatures, but you don't get very much at all at room temperatures.
They are working on better ones, but they aren't to that point yet.
Quote
Quote from: RobbieThe1st on September 29, 2007, 07:23:13 AM
Solar and wind wise, things would be much more practical if each house had its own energy generation system: No transmission losses, no power grids to cause problems, and not much, if any wasted space(we have these large roofs, they should be producing energy!).
-RobbieThe1st
In the entirety of their useful lifespan (and we're talking about more than a decade here), current solar panel technologies barely recoup the energy put into manufacturing them. Like hydrogen, solar power is not really a way to save or generate energy; it's merely a relatively "green" way of storing energy and transporting it to areas where it can be used without dependence on an electrical grid.
Solar and wind power also have issues with the variability (not to mention intermitency) of their energy production (in both time and space), which may not (indeed, frequently doesn't) follow the pattern of consumption. While those aren't insurmountable deployment issues, they do present a strong case against the practicality of gridless homes and businesses.
Well, my point was that a central large solar power plant is less efficient than a bunch of house-hold systems, if only because with a house system you can use your roof for it.
I have a bit of experience in off-grid systems; For the first 10 or so years of my life we had no PUD power. We really didn't have much that needed power constantly though. As it was quite a ways to work, we simply used a more powerful alternator, and charged a couple extra batteries during the day which provided plenty of power for lights at night. That, plus on weekends or whenever we needed to run something like power tools, we had a generator. Heat was provided by propane, and a wood-stove.
We could, during all of that time, had power hooked up; there was a pole about 500 feet from the house, but it would have cost several thousand dollars, and for that you can buy quite a lot of off-grid stuff.
We weren't really that bad off, it was just that we were able to use very little power compared to most.
Back to my story, a couple years before we moved we got two solar panels, of the amorphous-crystal type. They don't provide quite as much power during clear days, but even when it was cloudy, we were getting full output out of them(Remember, I live in the pacific northwest, where its cloudy like 70% of the time). They produced quite a bit of power and reduced needing to charge up batteries off the truck alternator by quite a bit, although by this point we had a nice propane trailer-furnace which consumed quite a bit of power(those blower motors do take quite bit).
Honestly, if you know how, you don't need all that much power, and heck, even now after a move, we are running on a 30-amp service and perfectly comfortable.
Once you start thinking in terms of needing a lot less power, a lot of these options become way more feasible.
Think about that.
Now, I am not saying that solar panels are going to save the world, but give them credit where credit is due, as they *do* work.
-RobbieThe1st
Quote from: RobbieThe1st on September 30, 2007, 08:10:54 AM
Quote from: Tezkat on September 29, 2007, 07:11:53 PM
Quote from: RobbieThe1st on September 29, 2007, 07:23:13 AM
Of course, if we could just get some powerful heat to electricity conversion device that works at room temperature, all our energy problems would be solved.
At worst, you could take a whole lot of these devices(would be better if they were "active" energy generation, such that they could remove enough heat to lower the surrounding temperature, as then you could turn a few deserts into cold deserts which produce lots of electricity!
There's a little thing called the Second Law of Thermodynamics getting in the way of that idea. Entropy doesn't move in that direction--heat is a waste product of energy production and consumption. Cooling something below the level of its surroundings consumes energy. Just take a look at your electricity bill after running an air conditioner all summer. :3
Well, I have to disagree with you; Just look at thermocouples. The problem is, they work fine at high temperatures, but you don't get very much at all at room temperatures.
They are working on better ones, but they aren't to that point yet.
-- snip --
-RobbieThe1st
Ah, thermocouples. They don't work like that; they produce current via a thermal gradient. IE: one und has to be cooler than the other.
Theoretically, you could use this to reclaim energy from a point heat source (such as an engine or a furnace) by means of a thermopile, but you wouldn't be able to catch energy from uniformly hot environment with them.(in fact, they have been used in this fasion on space craft too far from the sun for solar panels to be effective, according to the wikipedia entry on thermocouples)
Quote from: Valynth on September 29, 2007, 08:31:39 PM
I'm not saying we -should- desalinize water, I'm saying we'd do that before killing each other for sake of "saving the race."
*Charles instructs Jason the telepath what to tell Professor X* Kill the humans... kill all of the humans... >:3
I don't think their methodology will work for us, since it involves putting the water/mineral solution in large shallow pools with a high surface area to volume ratio, and letting the water evaporate.
Like maybe...Eastern California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada and Utah? :)
Quote from: RobbieThe1st on September 30, 2007, 08:10:54 AMWell, I have to disagree with you; Just look at thermocouples. The problem is, they work fine at high temperatures, but you don't get very much at all at room temperatures.
They are working on better ones, but they aren't to that point yet.
Thermocouples won't get you around entropy.
You can turn heat into energy, but it comes at a great cost, and you'll wind up with a net loss of usable energy.
Quote from: RobbieThe1st on September 30, 2007, 08:10:54 AMWell, my point was that a central large solar power plant is less efficient than a bunch of house-hold systems, if only because with a house system you can use your roof for it.
I respectfully disagree. With large central plants, you can use solar thermal energy, which is a heck of a lot more efficient than solar PV (20-55% efficiency vs 12-20% efficiency).
Quote from: superluser on September 30, 2007, 11:07:03 PM
Quote from: RobbieThe1st on September 30, 2007, 08:10:54 AMWell, I have to disagree with you; Just look at thermocouples. The problem is, they work fine at high temperatures, but you don't get very much at all at room temperatures.
They are working on better ones, but they aren't to that point yet.
Thermocouples won't get you around entropy.
You can turn heat into energy, but it comes at a great cost, and you'll wind up with a net loss of usable energy.
True, if you are using heat which costs you money, like from burning fuel. However, if you could use ambient heat like the difference in temperature between a slab of sun-warmed metal and the ground, which would work in a lot of cases, or even the great temperature difference between the rocks in an old mine-shaft a long ways down and a few feet under the surface(only problem I see is bringing the differences in temperature close enough to use efficiently).
Quote
Quote from: RobbieThe1st on September 30, 2007, 08:10:54 AMWell, my point was that a central large solar power plant is less efficient than a bunch of house-hold systems, if only because with a house system you can use your roof for it.
I respectfully disagree. With large central plants, you can use solar thermal energy, which is a heck of a lot more efficient than solar PV (20-55% efficiency vs 12-20% efficiency).
Hm, how exactly would you turn solar thermal energy into electricity. I can, and do, see it being used for heating water for warming a house/bathwater/whatever, but unless you concentrated it a huge amount, I am not sure how you would get much electricity out, especially using Thermocouples, which, as you said, produces a net loss of energy.
Also, I would think that, depending, you might be able to do the same thing on a smaller scale with house-systems, and then you have much less loss from transmission of the energy.
The main problem with PV systems is that you only are converting a couple of frequencies into electricity. I would think you could get greater efficiency with either multiple layers that convert each one or more frequency, or simply several layers all attuned to one frequency, and then a coating/layer that changes the frequency of incoming light to the frequency needed(not just a colored piece of plastic that simply absorbs any other colors).
An example of this is phosphors, like are used in fluorescent lights, although those phosphors need ultraviolet and while these phosphors could be one component of the stuff, we would need more than just that.
Edit:
Also, according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaic#Power_costs , PV panels, standard ones now have a 25-year warranty and will still be fully functional after 30-40 years. Of course, wind and hydro are even better sources of electricity, with hydro being very efficient and a great way to produce electricity, but that being said, having a roof full of PVs is still a good source of energy, and it looks better than 3-tab roofing which is what most roofs are, around here anyways.
The main problem with solar and wind is you need a large battery bank for times when the wind isn't blowing or the sun isn't shining. The need for a battery bank is lessened with hydro, as you can simply use the water before it goes into your generator as an energy storage device.
With PV, while it may not be the most efficient use of solar-derived energy, its better than simply wasting all of it, like with a roof.
One other thing, is that while you don't get a huge amount of electricity from a roof of PV's, if you don't use electricity for heating, cooking, or running wasteful devices, the cost per how much you need to run your house is greatly lessened.
For us, even though we, where we are right now have a grid hookup, its only a 30-amp connection, and we don't use much of that.
Our biggest use of electricity is our computers(yes, we do have LCD screens), followed by either the washer/dryer motor(though, those aren't on very long time-wise, and the dryer is a propane dryer), or lighting(98% of all our lighting is fluorescent).
I do admit I am getting a bit off topic here, but the point I am trying to make is that if you cut down on the amount of electricity you need to use, things that weren't practical before suddenly become much more practical.
PVs as well as wind generators become less costly as things are done cheaply in china(although, the quality of work suffers, and im not saying its a good idea), and once large super-capacitors become cheap enough, it will be easy for people to be completely off-grid, which means less power needs to be generated via conventional means, like oil plants, and who knows how many more years the uranium supply would last.
Also, if the regulations were less, and more dams like the Grand Coulee dam (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Coulee_Dam) were built, a lot of this would be moot, as that one dam generates a massive amount of energy, which does not need to be made using other means.
I seem to be rambling and not making a huge amount of sense, but try to understand the various, sometimes contradictory, points I am making.
-RobbieThe1st
Quote from: RobbieThe1st on September 30, 2007, 11:34:52 PMHm, how exactly would you turn solar thermal energy into electricity. I can, and do, see it being used for heating water for warming a house/bathwater/whatever, but unless you concentrated it a huge amount, I am not sure how you would get much electricity out, especially using Thermocouples, which, as you said, produces a net loss of energy.
I'm talking about SEGS (http://rainbowboys.blogspot.com/2007/03/power-of-sun_10.html).
Quote from: Zorro on September 30, 2007, 10:19:16 PM
I don't think their methodology will work for us, since it involves putting the water/mineral solution in large shallow pools with a high surface area to volume ratio, and letting the water evaporate.
Like maybe...Eastern California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada and Utah? :)
Well, my point was that you lose the water to the atmosphere with thier methodology. You could go around and build a large building over the ponds to condense the water and capture it.
Now, desalination
can provide a good deal of water in general...
Report regarding water use and conservation in a city local to me:
http://www.ci.huntington-beach.ca.us/files/users/planning/EIR%2000-02%20attachment3.pdf
Quote from: superluser on September 30, 2007, 11:57:06 PM
Quote from: RobbieThe1st on September 30, 2007, 11:34:52 PMHm, how exactly would you turn solar thermal energy into electricity. I can, and do, see it being used for heating water for warming a house/bathwater/whatever, but unless you concentrated it a huge amount, I am not sure how you would get much electricity out, especially using Thermocouples, which, as you said, produces a net loss of energy.
I'm talking about SEGS (http://rainbowboys.blogspot.com/2007/03/power-of-sun_10.html).
This could be scaled down.
Speaking of something like this, a few years ago, at a RE fair, I saw an interesting device. This device had a parabolic dish, and at the focal-point of the dish a carbon(I believe) rod. The rod would get extremely hot, and it seems it would cause air to expand, driving this tiny little engine. Basically, this device was a solar-heat powered engine. The only problem was it needed concentrated heat and if a cloud went over, it wouldnt work too well at all. Also, it didn't provide much torque, though compared to the size of the engine, I am not sure how much torque it provided. The engine was a bit larger than my hand, and I could stop the little output flywheel with my hand easily. It was also a bit noisy, which is why I never mentioned it before.
Quote from: RobbieThe1st on October 01, 2007, 12:35:50 AMQuote from: superluser on September 30, 2007, 11:57:06 PMI'm talking about SEGS (http://rainbowboys.blogspot.com/2007/03/power-of-sun_10.html).
This could be scaled down.
I suspect that you'd lose quite a bit of efficiency.
Quote from: RobbieThe1st on October 01, 2007, 12:35:50 AMSpeaking of something like this, a few years ago, at a RE fair, I saw an interesting device.
[...description snipped...]
That sounds like a Stirling Engine, which is indeed going to be the future of solar thermal energy. I just don't know if that's going to be the energy source of the future.
Quote from: Valynth on September 29, 2007, 10:21:08 PM
Show me a resource that isn't scarce by economic definitions (it commands a price by having a limited supply at one time) and I shall declare you god.
Stupidity? There's a seemingly endless, renewable supply that can be tapped to cause capital to flow in the direction of smart people. >:]
Seriously, though... until we mange to pollute it beyond unfiltered usability, air still respresents a very important non-scarce resource. Sunlight is potentially non-scarce as well, though making use of it may currently be limited by other factors (e.g. costs of land and manufacturing).
And all resources being scarce is hardly an excuse to deplete the ones that would ordinarily have been renewable.
Quote from: RobbieThe1st on September 30, 2007, 11:34:52 PM
True, if you are using heat which costs you money, like from burning fuel. However, if you could use ambient heat like the difference in temperature between a slab of sun-warmed metal and the ground, which would work in a lot of cases, or even the great temperature difference between the rocks in an old mine-shaft a long ways down and a few feet under the surface(only problem I see is bringing the differences in temperature close enough to use efficiently).
Reese and superluser already addressed it, but since you seem to have misunderstood somewhat: Basically, you can't harness "ambient" heat for positive energy production. Any system will have a net loss of usable heat. It's a fundamental law of physics. It's not the thermocouples that create net losses. They'd merely serve a recyclers of heat waste rather than a primary source of energy. The relatively "free" sources of heat (solar, geothermal) can be tapped more easily through other means (typically using mechanical energy as an intermediary for power generation).
Quote from: RobbieThe1st on September 30, 2007, 11:34:52 PM
Hm, how exactly would you turn solar thermal energy into electricity. I can, and do, see it being used for heating water for warming a house/bathwater/whatever, but unless you concentrated it a huge amount, I am not sure how you would get much electricity out, especially using Thermocouples, which, as you said, produces a net loss of energy.
Also, I would think that, depending, you might be able to do the same thing on a smaller scale with house-systems, and then you have much less loss from transmission of the energy.
You're grossly overestimating the transmission losses from an electrical grid, which are usually on the order of only a few percent of the original output unless the destination is quite far from the generation plant (which, admittedly, it sometimes is, but average transmission losses typcally fall between 1% and 10%). In terms of efficiency metrics, central power generation usually wins out. For instance, using the solar thermal plants that superluser mentioned (rather than PV) requires bulky thermal power generators you probably wouldn't want in your backyard (and would also be much less efficient than those in a larger facility), but the cost savings of using a larger, more efficient power plant more than offset the small losses in transmission.
Given the density of our major population centers, energy distribution is not a serious problem at the moment. In fact, increased population density increases the overall efficiency of energy use, but it also greatly reduces the power density per individual for something like plastering one's home with solar panels, making gridless living much less attractive.
I'm not knocking solar power, per se. Ultimately, most forms of energy on earth constitute solar power with varying degrees of processing along the way. Solar thermal power currently costs about as much to generate as wind power, although it suffers from similar issues regarding geography and variability. Both of those emission-free power sources cost about twice as much per kWh as the modern nuclear plants Alondro mentioned, which in turn costs about twice as much as burning fossil fuels. (Hydroelectric usually falls somewhere between the last two, but it's obviously very geography dependent.) Solar panels, by contrast, cost more than any of those, and their manufacturing is often not all that eco-friendly. Sure, developing self-assembling carbon-based solar collectors to spread over rooftops and road networks could conceivably make all of our energy problems go away, but we're still a ways off from making that feasible.
(And before the smartasses chime in... Yes, there are already "self-assembling carbon-based solar collectors" spread all over our agricultural land. Y'all know that's not what I'm talking about, right? :3)
Quote from: Reese Tora on October 01, 2007, 12:11:40 AM
Quote from: Zorro on September 30, 2007, 10:19:16 PM
I don't think their methodology will work for us, since it involves putting the water/mineral solution in large shallow pools with a high surface area to volume ratio, and letting the water evaporate.
Like maybe...Eastern California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada and Utah? :)
Well, my point was that you lose the water to the atmosphere with thier methodology. You could go around and build a large building over the ponds to condense the water and capture it.
Now, desalination can provide a good deal of water in general...
Huh?
Modern desalination plants use a method more along the lines of high pressure filtration than evaporation. Even those that still rely on (more expensive) thermal methods employ systems slightly more complicated than evaporating giant pools of water...
Quote from: Tezkat on October 01, 2007, 01:42:32 AMQuote from: Reese Tora on October 01, 2007, 12:11:40 AM
Well, my point was that you lose the water to the atmosphere with thier methodology. You could go around and build a large building over the ponds to condense the water and capture it.
Now, desalination can provide a good deal of water in general...
Huh?
Modern desalination plants use a method more along the lines of high pressure filtration than evaporation. Even those that still rely on (more expensive) thermal methods employ systems slightly more complicated than evaporating giant pools of water...
Addressing the techniques by which the Israel extract minerals and salts from the dead sea, which was brought up earlier in the thread by Valynth as something which could be converted for desalination purposes. (Atleast, that was my impression of why he brought it up.)
Quote from: Tezkat on October 01, 2007, 01:42:32 AM
Quote from: Valynth on September 29, 2007, 10:21:08 PM
Show me a resource that isn't scarce by economic definitions (it commands a price by having a limited supply at one time) and I shall declare you god.
Stupidity? There's a seemingly endless, renewable supply that can be tapped to cause capital to flow in the direction of smart people. >:]
Seriously, though... until we mange to pollute it beyond unfiltered usability, air still respresents a very important non-scarce resource. Sunlight is potentially non-scarce as well, though making use of it may currently be limited by other factors (e.g. costs of land and manufacturing).
And all resources being scarce is hardly an excuse to deplete the ones that would ordinarily have been renewable.
Quote from: RobbieThe1st on September 30, 2007, 11:34:52 PM
True, if you are using heat which costs you money, like from burning fuel. However, if you could use ambient heat like the difference in temperature between a slab of sun-warmed metal and the ground, which would work in a lot of cases, or even the great temperature difference between the rocks in an old mine-shaft a long ways down and a few feet under the surface(only problem I see is bringing the differences in temperature close enough to use efficiently).
Reese and superluser already addressed it, but since you seem to have misunderstood somewhat: Basically, you can't harness "ambient" heat for positive energy production. Any system will have a net loss of usable heat. It's a fundamental law of physics. It's not the thermocouples that create net losses. They'd merely serve a recyclers of heat waste rather than a primary source of energy. The relatively "free" sources of heat (solar, geothermal) can be tapped more easily through other means (typically using mechanical energy as an intermediary for power generation).
I think you misunderstand. By ambiant heat, I mean the heat that is in the air, indirectly added by the sun. The atmosphere(and ground/water) is a gigantic energy storage device of solar and some earth-core-heat, which we can tap(although quite a bit is getting radiated off into space). Yes, if you are attempting to draw heat out of a closed source, just like a battery, it will eventually run out of energy, however in this case, the energy is being replenished every day(literally!), and, as in most places the air doesn't freeze during most of the year, you can still draw energy out.
And, in this case, the energy is "free" as in it doesn't cost us anything to replenish(thanks to the sun), which means that even at low efficiency, its still a good tap-able resource.
Quote
Quote from: RobbieThe1st on September 30, 2007, 11:34:52 PM
Hm, how exactly would you turn solar thermal energy into electricity. I can, and do, see it being used for heating water for warming a house/bathwater/whatever, but unless you concentrated it a huge amount, I am not sure how you would get much electricity out, especially using Thermocouples, which, as you said, produces a net loss of energy.
Also, I would think that, depending, you might be able to do the same thing on a smaller scale with house-systems, and then you have much less loss from transmission of the energy.
You're grossly overestimating the transmission losses from an electrical grid, which are usually on the order of only a few percent of the original output unless the destination is quite far from the generation plant (which, admittedly, it sometimes is, but average transmission losses typcally fall between 1% and 10%). In terms of efficiency metrics, central power generation usually wins out. For instance, using the solar thermal plants that superluser mentioned (rather than PV) requires bulky thermal power generators you probably wouldn't want in your backyard (and would also be much less efficient than those in a larger facility), but the cost savings of using a larger, more efficient power plant more than offset the small losses in transmission.
Given the density of our major population centers, energy distribution is not a serious problem at the moment. In fact, increased population density increases the overall efficiency of energy use, but it also greatly reduces the power density per individual for something like plastering one's home with solar panels, making gridless living much less attractive.
I'm not knocking solar power, per se. Ultimately, most forms of energy on earth constitute solar power with varying degrees of processing along the way. Solar thermal power currently costs about as much to generate as wind power, although it suffers from similar issues regarding geography and variability. Both of those emission-free power sources cost about twice as much per kWh as the modern nuclear plants Alondro mentioned, which in turn costs about twice as much as burning fossil fuels. (Hydroelectric usually falls somewhere between the last two, but it's obviously very geography dependent.) Solar panels, by contrast, cost more than any of those, and their manufacturing is often not all that eco-friendly. Sure, developing self-assembling carbon-based solar collectors to spread over rooftops and road networks could conceivably make all of our energy problems go away, but we're still a ways off from making that feasible.
(And before the smartasses chime in... Yes, there are already "self-assembling carbon-based solar collectors" spread all over our agricultural land. Y'all know that's not what I'm talking about, right? :3)
True, although its not nearly as good in the suburbs/country, so I would think that you would have a couple big plants for the citys, and for the country, most people being gridless.
Also, although creating PV's isnt harmless to the environment, being that they will last for 30+ years, and, according to wikipedia they are working on ways of recycling them after they fail, which may shift the calculation a bit.
-RobbieThe1st
Quote from: Reese Tora on October 01, 2007, 02:32:23 AM
Addressing the techniques by which the Israel extract minerals and salts from the dead sea, which was brought up earlier in the thread by Valynth as something which could be converted for desalination purposes. (Atleast, that was my impression of why he brought it up.)
Oh, heh... That's more a way of collecting the
salt than the water. :animesweat
Quote from: RobbieThe1st on September 30, 2007, 11:34:52 PM
I think you misunderstand. By ambiant heat, I mean the heat that is in the air, indirectly added by the sun. The atmosphere(and ground/water) is a gigantic energy storage device of solar and some earth-core-heat, which we can tap(although quite a bit is getting radiated off into space). Yes, if you are attempting to draw heat out of a closed source, just like a battery, it will eventually run out of energy, however in this case, the energy is being replenished every day(literally!), and, as in most places the air doesn't freeze during most of the year, you can still draw energy out.
And, in this case, the energy is "free" as in it doesn't cost us anything to replenish(thanks to the sun), which means that even at low efficiency, its still a good tap-able resource.
Thermocouples are still grossly less efficient (both in terms of manufacturing costs and power density relative to surface area) than other solar collection technologies. I'm not aware of any serious efforts to deploy them as a large scale power generation systems...
Quote from: RobbieThe1st on September 30, 2007, 11:34:52 PM
True, although its not nearly as good in the suburbs/country, so I would think that you would have a couple big plants for the citys, and for the country, most people being gridless.
Well... rural populations do tend more towards self-sufficiency due to lower population densities. While gridless homes out in the middle of nowhere would certainly be expected, I'm not convinced that we're headed towards a gridless countryside. Agriculture, for instance, consumes a tremendous amount of energy (for irrigation, machinery, etc.). In the absence of fossil fuel sources, economies of scale might still point towards local power plants serving the surrounding area. Not to mention that land for solar power generation would compete directly with agricultural use unless said farmers' properties included a lot of otherwise unused, non-arable land.
Quote from: Tezkat on October 01, 2007, 04:13:31 AM
Quote from: Reese Tora on October 01, 2007, 02:32:23 AM
Addressing the techniques by which the Israel extract minerals and salts from the dead sea, which was brought up earlier in the thread by Valynth as something which could be converted for desalination purposes. (Atleast, that was my impression of why he brought it up.)
Oh, heh... That's more a way of collecting the salt than the water. :animesweat
Quote from: RobbieThe1st on September 30, 2007, 11:34:52 PM
I think you misunderstand. By ambiant heat, I mean the heat that is in the air, indirectly added by the sun. The atmosphere(and ground/water) is a gigantic energy storage device of solar and some earth-core-heat, which we can tap(although quite a bit is getting radiated off into space). Yes, if you are attempting to draw heat out of a closed source, just like a battery, it will eventually run out of energy, however in this case, the energy is being replenished every day(literally!), and, as in most places the air doesn't freeze during most of the year, you can still draw energy out.
And, in this case, the energy is "free" as in it doesn't cost us anything to replenish(thanks to the sun), which means that even at low efficiency, its still a good tap-able resource.
Thermocouples are still grossly less efficient (both in terms of manufacturing costs and power density relative to surface area) than other solar collection technologies. I'm not aware of any serious efforts to deploy them as a large scale power generation systems...
Yes, that I know, and one main reason is they don't work well with low temperatures. One of the universities is trying to rectify that problem though.
Well, if you got the temperatures down to being able to get a reasonable amount of electricity out of only a few degrees temperature difference, then you could use them in combination with other technologies, for example you stick a layer of Thermocouples on the back of a PV panel, to both generate more heat and to cool the PV.
Quote
Quote from: RobbieThe1st on September 30, 2007, 11:34:52 PM
True, although its not nearly as good in the suburbs/country, so I would think that you would have a couple big plants for the citys, and for the country, most people being gridless.
Well... rural populations do tend more towards self-sufficiency due to lower population densities. While gridless homes out in the middle of nowhere would certainly be expected, I'm not convinced that we're headed towards a gridless countryside. Agriculture, for instance, consumes a tremendous amount of energy (for irrigation, machinery, etc.). In the absence of fossil fuel sources, economies of scale might still point towards local power plants serving the surrounding area. Not to mention that land for solar power generation would compete directly with agricultural use unless said farmers' properties included a lot of otherwise unused, non-arable land.
Well, true, however I seriously doubt most farms could cope without some sort of liquid fuel for power, no matter how cheap electricity is, its the difference in energy density.
However, having a farm that has solar/wind/micro-hydro for lights, water pumping, and, if there is a farmhouse there, for any house-related electrical needs, and then running tractors and other equipment on some sort of fuel, be it algae based or who-knows-what based, is cirtainly feasible.
Hm, also, for large slow-moving equipment, you could also use steam, and run the boiler on dried grass, wood, coal, or whatever is convenient. It would also be reasonably easy, as you could simply waste the used steam like they did on trains, as it would be easy to fill up with water whenever needed.
-RobbieThe1st
Storage of electricity might have a solution, depending on how credible this one company is that claims to have an ultracapacitor in development. I dunno if I buy it. There's very little known about that company, not even a website, and it may just be a fraud.
If it comes out on the market and works, then I'll believe it.
hey what if we take those super capacitors and hook like 10 of them up to the lightning rod on the empire state building... it alone gets zapped more than 300 times a year so shouldn't it produce enough electricity to power it and a few buildings around it? and if it works then we could just put that in every sky scraper from here to Tokyo. and as an added bonus we could deck the sides with solar panels and put up retractable wind mills if you need more then we could always set up a few metal things that collect heat which turns water into steam which will move a turbine it's like the ultimate in green fuels.
that or search into plasma reactors it's really easy to make plasma you do it practically every time you put metal in a microwave.
Quote from: gh0st on October 01, 2007, 11:34:52 AM
hey what if we take those super capacitors and hook like 10 of them up to the lightning rod on the empire state building... it alone gets zapped more than 300 times a year so shouldn't it produce enough electricity to power it and a few buildings around it? and if it works then we could just put that in every sky scraper from here to Tokyo. and as an added bonus we could deck the sides with solar panels and put up retractable wind mills if you need more then we could always set up a few metal things that collect heat which turns water into steam which will move a turbine it's like the ultimate in green fuels.
that or search into plasma reactors it's really easy to make plasma you do it practically every time you put metal in a microwave.
Also, you get glow plasma when you first start a fluorescent light.
-RobbieThe1st
What we need to start off with is someone raid all the documents oil companies keep secret and release them to the public. If no answers are found there... YA MULE!!! YA!!! Back to good ol' horses once the oil runs out.
Quote from: gh0st on October 01, 2007, 11:34:52 AM
hey what if we take those super capacitors and hook like 10 of them up to the lightning rod on the empire state building... it alone gets zapped more than 300 times a year so shouldn't it produce enough electricity to power it and a few buildings around it? and if it works then we could just put that in every sky scraper from here to Tokyo.
Lightning bolts are very energy dense, but it's not easy to capture such massive power surges, and there isn't that much energy in the end because they only last a fraction of a second. A typical lightning bolt contains only a few hundred kWh of energy. 300 zaps a year wouldn't even power a single floor of the Empire State Building, let alone all the surrounding structures.
Lightning could certainly be a viable (and relatively cheap) supplemental energy source in some areas, however.
Quotethat or search into plasma reactors it's really easy to make plasma you do it practically every time you put metal in a microwave.
Being easy to make doesn't necessarily make it a good power source. Remember: Entropy. No matter what you do, you will lose energy forever at every stage of processing. Thus, when you're investing energy in power generation, you want it to do one of two things for you: 1) Tap into otherwise "free" sources of energy (e.g. solar, geothermal, weather phenomena, energy stored over millions of years in fossil fuels...) for net positive energy production, or 2) Transport energy (at a loss) to a location that wouldn't ordinarily have it. Plasma does not accomplish the former (at least not until nuclear fusion technologies become viable), and it's far from the best option for the latter in most cases.
Which isn't to say that plasma doesn't have other neat applications. Because it can get so hot, its perfomance in high temperature applications (e.g. smelting, waste disposal) can exceed that of fossil fuels. And it's relatively emissions free, which is a bonus. I expect we'll see a lot more industrial plasma use in the near future.
Quote from: Kuari on October 02, 2007, 06:47:19 AM
What we need to start off with is someone raid all the documents oil companies keep secret and release them to the public. If no answers are found there... YA MULE!!! YA!!! Back to good ol' horses once the oil runs out.
Answers to what?
We know that oil is running out.
Oil companies know that oil is running out. Most are already investing heavily in alternate energy sources, which should tell you something.
Oil companies do like screwing taxpayers and such, but then that's hardly a secret, now is it? >:]
isn't the law of entropy come to everything will degrade and eventually die unless an outside force, aka humans, acts upon it?
No.
Everything will decay and degrade DESPITE anything done to it. You cannot beat the third law.
The entropy of a closed system will always increase.
Humans can intervene by expending energy to put things back together into a more ordered state, but that process won't be 100% efficient. So there's a net loss of usable energy in the process.
That's basically the big issue in energy economics. As I wrote above, energy sources need to provide us with a net positive output relative to our costs and/or a convenient way to transport said energy. Oil provides both. Millions of years worth of geological activity compressed dead plants and animals into nice, energy dense compounds for us to burn. The energy cost to make it was essentially "free"--paid by the planet millions of years before we were born. Something like hydrogen fuel cells provide only the latter, because hydrogen isn't "free" in this part of the universe. Thus, they can only replace half of what oil does for us. We still need energy to make the energy we store in the fuel cells (or batteries, or whatever will run our cars once oil goes away).
Quick way to remember the laws of thermodynamics:
Laws of Thermodynamics:
1. You cannot win.
2. You cannot break even.
3. You cannot stop playing the game.
Quote from: Tezkat on October 02, 2007, 08:05:11 PM
Answers to what?
We know that oil is running out. Oil companies know that oil is running out. Most are already investing heavily in alternate energy sources, which should tell you something.
Oil companies do like screwing taxpayers and such, but then that's hardly a secret, now is it? >:]
I'm actually of the firm belief that oil companies already have something... they just want to wait until the panic begins, but before everything crashes into the ground. That way no one would have any choice but to update to their new fuel source, thus HUGE profits.
Quote from: superluser on October 02, 2007, 11:55:03 PM
Quick way to remember the laws of thermodynamics:
Laws of Thermodynamics:
1. You cannot win.
2. You cannot break even.
3. You cannot stop playing the game.
Well then, I guess we will just have to find a way of breaking the Laws of Thermodynamics. :P
That, or open a wormhole to another universe, and steal their energy to power our own! >:3
-RobbieThe1st
Quote from: Kuari on October 03, 2007, 12:25:20 AM
I'm actually of the firm belief that oil companies already have something... they just want to wait until the panic begins, but before everything crashes into the ground. That way no one would have any choice but to update to their new fuel source, thus HUGE profits.
Ya know... I somehow doubt that would be in their best interests. The value of a network grows with its size. Conversely, even a super wonderful technology won't sell if the infrastructure to support it isn't available. If oil companies do indeed have access to some unknown Next Big Thing in energy resources, wouldn't they want to start hyping it up early so that there's awareness, demand, and a support network ready for them when they finally deploy it on a wide scale?
Quote from: Tezkat on October 03, 2007, 01:55:52 AM
Quote from: Kuari on October 03, 2007, 12:25:20 AM
I'm actually of the firm belief that oil companies already have something... they just want to wait until the panic begins, but before everything crashes into the ground. That way no one would have any choice but to update to their new fuel source, thus HUGE profits.
Ya know... I somehow doubt that would be in their best interests. The value of a network grows with its size. Conversely, even a super wonderful technology won't sell if the infrastructure to support it isn't available. If oil companies do indeed have access to some unknown Next Big Thing in energy resources, wouldn't they want to start hyping it up early so that there's awareness, demand, and a support network ready for them when they finally deploy it on a wide scale?
In most cases, yes.... but in this case, think about it. A majority of people rely on their cars. If they brought it out before the oil is gone, people would move into it a little at a time...
However, if they released it right as it was absolutely needed, they could charge ridiculous prices and get away with it. People would HAVE to find a way to buy it if they wanted to survive.
You'd be right for any other product, but for something that has become such a necessity, they have pretty much the ultimate control over the economy.
There is nothing. I've studied fuel alternatives for a long time. Nothing right now works better. We're already seeing the problems with ethanol, you need too much crop production, sugar cane and palm oil production in the tropic are stripping the fagile soil at a completely unsustainable rate, and it drives food prices up so the poor can afford even less.
Hydrogen takes too much energy to produce. Natural gas has the same problem of global warming fear as oil... plus it asplodes alot. Wouldn't want to be in a bad car wreck with a tank of methane. :B
Electric cars have problems with battery life, car performance, charging time, and then the excess energy required to produce the electricity.
Once more... getting rid of 3 billion people is the answer. There is no way to avoid that as the most efficient solution. Think of all the resources it would save... all the extra room for endangered species... just take out everyone on the lower half of the IQ curve... we don't need all those excess people... they're all going to die eventually, what's the real harm when it accomplishes so much? It's logical, flawlessly logical...
*steeps in evil* >:3
I personally think that if you took a hybrid car and added solar panels, it'd do quite a bit to conserve fuel. When there is no sun, there's always the other options.
Though one thing I've gotta wonder about the electric option: Subway trains and some of the faster monorail trains... how much electricity do they take I wonder.
And Aldondro, unless you're a scientist who has been studying, there is very little reason to believe that there isn't the possibility that there might be something that isn't being thought about too closely.
Quote from: Kuari on October 03, 2007, 03:18:35 PM
And Aldondro, unless you're a scientist who has been studying, there is very little reason to believe that there isn't the possibility that there might be something that isn't being thought about too closely.
... he is.
A biologist, but still a scientist. (unless I'm incorrect in my memory of what Alondro does for a living...)
Yes, I'm a biologist. And I've been trying for so long to come up with a viable renewable alternative energy source so I can get rich.
Unfortunely, I haven't come up with anything but a long shot with kudzu gassification.
So far no oil companies have been trying to buy me out. :P
You should probably stop eating the kudzu, then.
It's probably an inferior method of gassification, anyway... ;-]
Quote from: Kuari on October 03, 2007, 02:19:39 AM
Quote from: Tezkat on October 03, 2007, 01:55:52 AM
Quote from: Kuari on October 03, 2007, 12:25:20 AM
I'm actually of the firm belief that oil companies already have something... they just want to wait until the panic begins, but before everything crashes into the ground. That way no one would have any choice but to update to their new fuel source, thus HUGE profits.
Ya know... I somehow doubt that would be in their best interests. The value of a network grows with its size. Conversely, even a super wonderful technology won't sell if the infrastructure to support it isn't available. If oil companies do indeed have access to some unknown Next Big Thing in energy resources, wouldn't they want to start hyping it up early so that there's awareness, demand, and a support network ready for them when they finally deploy it on a wide scale?
In most cases, yes.... but in this case, think about it. A majority of people rely on their cars. If they brought it out before the oil is gone, people would move into it a little at a time...
However, if they released it right as it was absolutely needed, they could charge ridiculous prices and get away with it. People would HAVE to find a way to buy it if they wanted to survive.
You'd be right for any other product, but for something that has become such a necessity, they have pretty much the ultimate control over the economy.
This doesn't really work from a logistics point of view, though.
Whatever new technology is invented will ahve to go through a government approval process to be allowed to legally drive on the roads, which can take time.
The companies will have to design the cars that use the power source, whatever it may be, and car design is a long process, two or three years atleast. The cars in the dealership lot today were in the design process four or five years ago. The process of designing a production car (as opposed to concept car) needs to be long for various types of testing.
Once you ahve the car designed and ready fro production, you need to go through a retooling process, or build a new factory to handle the construction. You need to make or order the parts for assembly, and you need to re-train the factory operators. (especially with a new power source in play!)
Once you've reached this point, you also still need to spend the time building the cars, shipping them, advertising, and so on.
And before any of this can take place, the oil companies would have to sell thier assumed new power technology to the car companies, and an infrastructure to support them would need to be put in place.
This is a process involving hundreds, thousands, maybe tens of thousands of people, through it's various stages. You would need to keep all of these people in the dark or silent for half a decade.
I'm going to borrow this from Arthur C Clarke regarding moon landing conspiracy myths:
Quote
Remembering how quickly Watergate unraveled, how could any sane person imagine that a conspiracy involving hundreds of thousands of people over more than a decade would not have done the same? Ben Franklin put it well: "A secret known to three people can be kept — as long as two of them are dead.
(full text from which I quite can be found here: http://www.randi.org/jr/07-20-01.html )
Yeeeah... thing is, if they did it that way, I could see things being rushed in a mass panic and such. I mean I seriously doubt anyone could win a law suit against oil companies... unfortunately... otherwise they'd have been gotten for price gouging by now..
As for that last line there... yeeeeeah, not completely accurate. I mean, how else would top secret files be kept... well.. top secret. They quite often are for at least quite a long while. Hell, last I heard, the Abram tank's armor is still classified. I somehow doubt you'll find too much info about it publicly.
This is true.
However, much of what is classified is:
1) public knowledge in it's general form, and
2) known only to a few in it's specific form.
You are talking about a small number of military personel and NDA restricted contractors keeping specifics of a system secret vs a huge number of people who may only be tangentially involved keeping the existence of an entire technology secret.
You would especially have problems keeping the infrastructure people silent: whatever this wonder technology's equivalent of gas station owners and attendants ends up being, and the service and support personel who will be maning the service stations and repair shops dealing with these vehicles.
Also, don't forget that the delivery of cars itself depends on vehicles ultimately dependant on oil: tractor trailers burning diesel fuel. (yay for the tools that make the tools!)
In any case, there's not going to be any sudden cut off in oil supply that would allow this sort of thing; oil is a scarce resource, but the supply will peter out over the course ofa number of years as the various sources dry up at different times and oil reserves begin to be tapped.
I suspect that a LOT of people are going to take up bike riding before the scenario you suggest comes to pass.
I'm not saying there'd be a cut off of oil supplies, I'm saying it'd come at the last possible minute
In any case, contracts can solve that quite a bit... violating them would cause a person hell..
Oh, contracts could help a lot, certainly, but the chance of a secret getting out is directly proportional to the number of people involved. Considering how large company secrets get leaked all the time, on purpose or other wise, it would be only a matter of time before someone let the cat out of the bag.
In any case, there's something that will require the info to get out well in advance:
The oil companies don't run, nor do they want to run, gas stations.
Whatever the equivalent is, they'll want to sell franchises, not buy land and build places. building thier own infrastructure would mean billions in property purchases and taxes, billions in construction costs, and billions in hiring and training, and no certain return on investment any time in the near future. Selling franchises means taking money from those that buy them, and those guys risk their own money on buying, building and training expenses. decentralized management from franchises also is more cost effectve becasue there's no need for a structure to administer stations.
In order to do this, they'll need to advertise, find someone willing to buy the franchise, and get those places built. Since any person buying a franchise will have to build the facility from the ground up, it'll take at least a year to get it built, and that's assuming everything goes smoothly with permits, architects, and contractors. Have you ever had your house remodeled?
You will also need to sell your new tech to consumers. I don't mean selling individual units, either. You would need to convince people that they want to use your technology, and you will be competing against over a hundred years of entrenched gasoline-centric motorism. (yay, I made a word up! ) They very well might need the time leading up to your supposed last minute to convince people to use thier technology.
With all and everything the way it is, it just doesn't make sense for someone to sit on some sort of advanced gas replacement technology.
(This completely beside the point, a thought occured to me. As gasoline powered vehicles become more rare, gas may actually go UP in price, becasue those who stick with older vehicles that use it will be willing to pay more than those that move to the new tech. A similar phenomena has been seen to occur in other fields.)
there's a few problems first: you can't have a monopoly no matter how many politicians you bribe someone will always find out and someone will always ruin you take microsoft for example remember when they were dominating the market and was sued by the government because it was turning into a monopoly, microsoft ended up paying more than 750 million dollars...
second even if scientists do come out with a safe cheap fuel it will destroy the economy as we know it take for instance say we economically slice an atom and get energy lots of it and the best thing is it's next to free... everyone wants it they sell all their stock in the oil companies which ultimately lowers the value of the next person overs stock and this continues until all this money is lost and not enough money is flowing... worst case another depression starts. second worst case the government changes to a socialist state and once again the country fails... finally if not anything else millions of people and banks are going to be either unfathomably rich or poorer than (insert witty noun) they actually made a movie of this but anyways it's a bad idea.
the point is you can't dump raw energy into the market. it makes an economic nightmare not to mention this energy source is most likely held by a single company that decides to become extortionate.
See thing is though, we all know the oil is running out... do you think they'd want their business to die? No, they'd want to make sure they have something else ready. Here's the biggest reason why it's possible they have something and might not have brought it out because of something that the two previous posters mentioned..
Profits..
It's possible the new source isn't quite as profitable, so they want to get every little scrap of cash they can from oil.
And gh0st... oil companies might as well have a monopoly. Ever notice how the Middle East seems to control the oil prices for the entire world? Either way, they have too much power... if gas prices go up, so does everything else. I think something like this is actually detrimental to the economy. The economy depends on cash flow... sure they may be spending more money on things, but the more money you spend, the more important it is to save up money for unforeseen events, thus less products sold, less profits for the companies selling those products, thus they either shrink the package or raise the price.
Kind of a vicious cycle.... take out the oil companies, it may hurt for a while, but new job markets will open, and all will be well after a bit.
Quote from: Kuari on October 04, 2007, 03:46:58 AM
See thing is though, we all know the oil is running out... do you think they'd want their business to die? No, they'd want to make sure they have something else ready. Here's the biggest reason why it's possible they have something and might not have brought it out because of something that the two previous posters mentioned..
Profits..
It's possible the new source isn't quite as profitable, so they want to get every little scrap of cash they can from oil.
And gh0st... oil companies might as well have a monopoly. Ever notice how the Middle East seems to control the oil prices for the entire world? Either way, they have too much power... if gas prices go up, so does everything else. I think something like this is actually detrimental to the economy. The economy depends on cash flow... sure they may be spending more money on things, but the more money you spend, the more important it is to save up money for unforeseen events, thus less products sold, less profits for the companies selling those products, thus they either shrink the package or raise the price.
Kind of a vicious cycle.... take out the oil companies, it may hurt for a while, but new job markets will open, and all will be well after a bit.
Never mind the US gets the majority of its oil from sources outside the middle east.
Anyway, to the point at hand: there's as much profit, and less waste, in laying all the cards on the table, as it were. Rushing to get everything done in a shorter time frame would negate any extra profit to be had by holding out now.
Much as it's nice to think so, no company has a fully developed magic bullet to combat the coming energy crisis, and it's a damaging false hope to believe they do. There are a number of alternative power sources in the works; hydrogen fuel cells, batteries, ethanol, even compressed air and solar panels, and the big companies are investing time and money in to researching these possible solutions, but there's nothing yet developed to the point where it's a viable replacement. To think otherwise, to be complacent in the hope that a technology will be unveiled and save us all, is to invite disaster through inaction, as in Aesop's tale of the ant and the grasshopper. The any, who worked hard and made sure he had what he needed survives, and the grasshopper, who was complacent and believed that everything would work out for him, starved in the cold.
Quote from: Reese Tora on October 04, 2007, 04:23:08 AM
Never mind the US gets the majority of its oil from sources outside the middle east.
Yes, I know that, and that's exactly the thing. The Middle East still basically controls those prices. Messed up, ain't it?
Quote
Anyway, to the point at hand: there's as much profit, and less waste, in laying all the cards on the table, as it were. Rushing to get everything done in a shorter time frame would negate any extra profit to be had by holding out now.
Much as it's nice to think so, no company has a fully developed magic bullet to combat the coming energy crisis, and it's a damaging false hope to believe they do. There are a number of alternative power sources in the works; hydrogen fuel cells, batteries, ethanol, even compressed air and solar panels, and the big companies are investing time and money in to researching these possible solutions, but there's nothing yet developed to the point where it's a viable replacement. To think otherwise, to be complacent in the hope that a technology will be unveiled and save us all, is to invite disaster through inaction, as in Aesop's tale of the ant and the grasshopper. The any, who worked hard and made sure he had what he needed survives, and the grasshopper, who was complacent and believed that everything would work out for him, starved in the cold.
I believe they actually do have something, there is no real proof they haven't. It is possible they haven't I suppose too... but the idea that they do have something seems to be as widespread as knowledge of Area 51. I actually think they could do quite a bit with electric. Might have to lighten up vehicles quite a bit for it... or maybe not.
Probably should check sometime how much electricity those large monorails take. While I imagine it's quite a bit, they are also quite heavy if you think about the really big ones
Either way, I won't deny the possibility I'm wrong, but I still think it's very possible that I'm right