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Posted: 11/24/2014 10:45:25 AM EDT
[#1]
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Yeah, it really is. There will be no large scale dams ever built again. What we have is all we'll ever have. Quote HistoryQuoted:
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Renewable energy is the snake oil of the new millennium. Just separating the fools from their money. Yeah! Hydroelectric is a pipe dream.  Yeah, it really is. There will be no large scale dams ever built again. What we have is all we'll ever have. 
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Posted: 11/24/2014 10:50:27 AM EDT
[#2]
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Wrong, completely wrong. The Saharan Desert alone is 9,064,958 square kilometers, or 18 times the total required area to fuel the world. By another measure, “the unpopulated area of the Sahara desert is over 9 million km², which if covered with solar panels would provide 630 terawatts total power. The Earth’s current energy consumption rate is around 13.5 TW at any given moment (including oil, gas, coal, nuclear, and hydroelectric).” This measure arrives at a multiplier of 46 times the area needed and shows that my numbers are very conservative. Source All that electricity will power a small number of cars, probably no trains, boats, aircraft etc. Will all the folks who use coal or oil to heat their homes have to convert to electricity? What about all the home and businesses who use gas for heating, water heating and cooking? More electricity is great but it is not the end all answer. Plus covering the Sahara with solar collectors would be an environmental no-no. |
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Posted: 11/24/2014 10:51:46 AM EDT
[#3]
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Maybe instead of reducing CO2 emissions we need to find a beneficial way to consume CO2. Plant trees. |
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Posted: 11/24/2014 11:00:35 AM EDT
[#4]
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There's so much BS and so many misconceptions in this thread it's almost not worth posting. Still, maybe I can learn something. In what way is nuclear power a "renewable" source of energy. I'd say it has low/zero CO2 emissions but is it truly renewable? In what way would switching to natural gas for our energy needs help reduce or eliminate CO2 emissions? Is hydroelectric renewable? Doesn't the reservoir fill with silt after a while and the dam becomes useless? Of these questions, I am most interested in the answer to the nuclear energy question. Nothing is truly renewable, not even sunlight. Once you get that, then you realize we are just arguing degrees. If you put up enough wind turbines, you can eventually pull enough energy out of the wind to change the weather. If you put up enough solar panels, you can eventually keep enough solar radiation from radiating back into space to change global temperatures. If you put up enough tidal energy generators, you can eventually suck enough energy out of that system to do interesting things as well but I'm not smart enough to know if that slows the rotation of the Earth or causes the moon's orbit to decelerate or something else all together. 
The point is that there are no freebies so we might as well just talk about what makes the most practical sense than having some kind of religious devotion to the ideal of "renewable" energy. You can't even have a conversation about nuclear these days because people froth at the mouth whenever you bring it up. |
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Posted: 11/24/2014 11:03:05 AM EDT
[#5]
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People can be amazingly short sighted as to how advanced tech can get and how quickly. Just look how far we have come in the last 100 years or so. She we still had horses going down the main streets of NYC a little over 100 years ago. Our cell phones have more computing power than all of NASA during the moon landing. We have more information at our fingertips than the largest library from a few hundred years ago.Shit 150 years ago one of our main fuels was WHALE OIL. It's going to look even more amazing 100 years from now. All of that happened because we didn't have a government bent on regulating and controlling all progress and development for political reasons. Google has to use all of their considerable political clout to keep self driving cars legal because some urban planners (progressives) aren't sure if it will lead to the growth of suburbs and consequently more anti progressives. You might very well be able to cover the Sahara with solar panels, but the locals will break them because God told them to, because God's local representative was not bribed enough, and they will hold the world hostage if the project some how succeeded. |
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Posted: 11/24/2014 11:33:22 AM EDT
[#6]
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Wrong, completely wrong. The Saharan Desert alone is 9,064,958 square kilometers, or 18 times the total required area to fuel the world. By another measure, “the unpopulated area of the Sahara desert is over 9 million km², which if covered with solar panels would provide 630 terawatts total power. The Earth’s current energy consumption rate is around 13.5 TW at any given moment (including oil, gas, coal, nuclear, and hydroelectric).” This measure arrives at a multiplier of 46 times the area needed and shows that my numbers are very conservative. Source That article has too much missing from the calculations to be anywhere near what would be realistic. It's first mistake is that it assumes the sun is hitting each solar panel at it's optimum for the full 8 hours. The opposite is true, the sun hits a solar panel at optimum levels in seconds, not hours. Solyndra was trying to solve this without motors or other mechanical means, but could not. So this leaves motors which consume electricity. Then there is more electricity consumed in delivery. Plus the electricity consumed in manufacturing the panels, and the ongoing replacement of those panels. At a scale of that desert, it is no easy undertaking. Solar electricity is not going to be solved until the frequency response of the technology improves. The sun hits the earth with energy from a multitude of frequencies in the light spectrum. However, current technology can only react to a very small amount of that energy. Consider a radio receiver being similar to a solar panel. You can only tune into one station at a time. To do more, you would need thousands of radios to receive the full spectrum. We are waiting for someone to invent a solar panel that can tune into all radio stations. This has been a primary goal of many research entities, both private and public, but advances come at a crawling pace for decades. Then, there is viability in a marketplace for investors. What Google is really saying that in being impossible, is that it is impossible to create a positive revenue from such a venture. |
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Posted: 11/24/2014 12:03:05 PM EDT
[#7]
So, we're doomed then?
Bummer. |
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Posted: 11/24/2014 12:08:21 PM EDT
[#8]
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Right, and the Earth is flat and the sun revolves around us. Impossible and never are pretty bold words. So what you are saying is that it's still possible for me to become a 6'6" pro basketball player with an 11 inch penis? Awesome! |
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Posted: 11/24/2014 12:12:49 PM EDT
[#9]
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................... That article has too much missing from the calculations to be anywhere near what would be realistic. It's first mistake is that it assumes the sun is hitting each solar panel at it's optimum for the full 8 hours. The opposite is true, the sun hits a solar panel at optimum levels in seconds, not hours. Solyndra was trying to solve this without motors or other mechanical means, but could not. So this leaves motors which consume electricity. Then there is more electricity consumed in delivery. Plus the electricity consumed in manufacturing the panels, and the ongoing replacement of those panels. At a scale of that desert, it is no easy undertaking. Solar electricity is not going to be solved until the frequency response of the technology improves. The sun hits the earth with energy from a multitude of frequencies in the light spectrum. However, current technology can only react to a very small amount of that energy. Consider a radio receiver being similar to a solar panel. You can only tune into one station at a time. To do more, you would need thousands of radios to receive the full spectrum. We are waiting for someone to invent a solar panel that can tune into all radio stations. This has been a primary goal of many research entities, both private and public, but advances come at a crawling pace for decades. Then, there is viability in a marketplace for investors. What Google is really saying that in being impossible, is that it is impossible to create a positive revenue from such a venture. Didn't Solyndra even try to motorize the panels with solar energy and that didn't even result in a cost effective system? |
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Posted: 11/24/2014 12:20:46 PM EDT
[#10]
fusion will be the endgame to shut their filthy mouths. article: Updated prospects for comercial nuclear fusion
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Posted: 11/24/2014 12:31:04 PM EDT
[#11]
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Photovoltaic produced power is a pipe dream at this point. It's useful in its own ways but can't touch hydrocarbons like coal. That said, it could come a loooooong way if efficiency from sunlight was even close to 50%. The liberals (California) just love to push the agenda of CO2 and global warming and anti-coal. It's getting there but we're years away and several other material discoveries from that. When I left the semiconductor field we were pushing 30% with some very expensive experimental cells. These were not the type of things you were going to plop on someone's house and turn the power company's meter backward. Technology from that research has made things more efficient but there are some limits without finding workarounds. |
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Posted: 11/24/2014 12:35:02 PM EDT
[#12]
Quote HistoryQuoted: You fucking got gravy mixed in with the jellied cranberries and it ain't a pretty presentation on the plate. So, tell me about the advancements in the internal combustion engine in the last 100 years. Hell, tell me of the advancements in the replacement of the ICE in automobiles over the past 100 years. I'll give you a hint on the fucked upness: We are still sucking up dinosaurs to fuel aircraft, trains, cars and xfer trucks. AIN'T A DA-DA-DAMN BETTER FUEL than dinosaur juice has been found or invented to power those vehicles at this time or in the near future. Thus endeth the lesson. Quote HistoryQuoted: Quoted: People can be amazingly short sighted as to how advanced tech can get and how quickly. Just look how far we have come in the last 100 years or so. She we still had horses going down the main streets of NYC a little over 100 years ago. Our cell phones have more computing power than all of NASA during the moon landing. We have more information at our fingertips than the largest library from a few hundred years ago.Shit 150 years ago one of our main fuels was WHALE OIL. It's going to look even more amazing 100 years from now. You fucking got gravy mixed in with the jellied cranberries and it ain't a pretty presentation on the plate. So, tell me about the advancements in the internal combustion engine in the last 100 years. Hell, tell me of the advancements in the replacement of the ICE in automobiles over the past 100 years. I'll give you a hint on the fucked upness: We are still sucking up dinosaurs to fuel aircraft, trains, cars and xfer trucks. AIN'T A DA-DA-DAMN BETTER FUEL than dinosaur juice has been found or invented to power those vehicles at this time or in the near future. Thus endeth the lesson. I'm not an expert mechanic, but fuel injection? Direct ignition resulting in removal of distributor? Much tighter tolerances in valve clearance? Adjustable valve timing? We tend to rely on combustion type engines because we want to control power output immediately. We want instant response to a command to increase/decrease power. If we could get away from that line of thinking and instead use a heat engine instead, we'd see tremendous improvement in efficiency. So instead of a theorietical 35% of whatever maximum efficiency that internal combustion engines can achieve, we'd instead use that other 65% of waste heat as the energy, such as in a stirling engine if we could apply it to aircraft. To my knowledge this has never been done and I don't know if it's even realistic. |
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Posted: 11/24/2014 12:36:15 PM EDT
[#13]
Quote HistoryQuoted: fusion will be the endgame to shut their filthy mouths. article: Updated prospects for comercial nuclear fusion Shit I wish fusion were available yesterday but it's still way to early to rely on it becoming a real success anytime soon. Until then, thorium sits around not being used at all and we have proven designs to build a molten salt reactor that actually work. |
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Posted: 11/24/2014 12:42:56 PM EDT
[#14]
Quote HistoryQuoted: The real hardcore climate nuts would see you cold in the dark or dead before it's "good enough" for them. They literally have nothing but a need for validation that what they are doing is "right". Quote HistoryQuoted: Quoted: Good thing we have an abundance of uranium in this system. "Humans are a plague" or "the earth will be better off when we are gone" and all that jazz. I'm all for reducing our impact to the environment. I am not for killing ourselves to do it. |
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Posted: 11/24/2014 12:48:36 PM EDT
[#15]
Quote HistoryQuoted: In what way is nuclear power a "renewable" source of energy. I'd say it has low/zero CO2 emissions but is it truly renewable? breeder reactors produce more nuclear material than they consume its renewable |
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Posted: 11/24/2014 1:05:08 PM EDT
[#16]
until we find something that is as cheap and plentiful as oil, we aren't going to change anything. renewable energy is too damn expensive unless you're a meg millionaire Hollywood actor that can afford to cover their mansions roof in solar panels and then pay for the upkeep until they need to be replaced in 30 years.
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Posted: 11/24/2014 1:15:36 PM EDT
[#17]
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I doubt its impossible but I still could give 2 shits Caring_continuum.jpg |
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Posted: 11/24/2014 2:05:07 PM EDT
[#18]
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If that's the device oil companies don't want you to know about, it runs on aluminum, which is oxidized to separate H2 from O. The H2 is then burned in the engine. After a while the aluminum needs to be replaced. As for the project The Navy is working on. Synthetic hydrocarbons made from sea water could work, if you have a dozen or so spare nuclear reactors handy. Quote HistoryQuoted:
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Not renewable, but how about a salt water powered car? It's been approved in Europe.ttp://www.collective-evolution.com/2014/09/27/salt-water-powered-car-gets-approval-in-europe-yes-its-real/ If that's the device oil companies don't want you to know about, it runs on aluminum, which is oxidized to separate H2 from O. The H2 is then burned in the engine. After a while the aluminum needs to be replaced. As for the project The Navy is working on. Synthetic hydrocarbons made from sea water could work, if you have a dozen or so spare nuclear reactors handy. Look at it this way i'm 99% sure we HAVE the solutions to the energy issues they are all just tied up in super secret operations or being hid for some unknown reason. |
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Posted: 11/24/2014 2:20:55 PM EDT
[#19]
Liquid thorium is available now and does not require high pressure containment vessels, cannot go critical with the addition of a simple salt plug and is available in coal deposits (coal is mildly radioactive) all over the world. Its old technology but was not pursued because you could not create nukes from the bi-products.
http://thegryphonsedge.wordpress.com/2010/09/17/karl-denninger-one-of-the-few-who-gets-it-the-thorium-fuel-cycle-liquid-salt-reactors-is-the-obvious-way-forward/ |
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Posted: 11/24/2014 2:31:33 PM EDT
[#20]
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People can be amazingly short sighted as to how advanced tech can get and how quickly. Just look how far we have come in the last 100 years or so. She we still had horses going down the main streets of NYC a little over 100 years ago. Our cell phones have more computing power than all of NASA during the moon landing. We have more information at our fingertips than the largest library from a few hundred years ago.Shit 150 years ago one of our main fuels was WHALE OIL. It's going to look even more amazing 100 years from now. The problem is that solar and wind energy isn't particularly promising. It is pushed for reasons unrelated to rational expectations of its usefulness. |
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Posted: 11/24/2014 2:53:33 PM EDT
[#21]
Quote HistoryQuoted:China has only added dams by relocating entire towns, imagine the cost and legal wrangling to move entire towns in the US? Put a large dam on the Columbia River at the Cascades gorge. Multiple problems solved!!! --Electricity --Water for CA --A giant lake |
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Posted: 11/24/2014 2:54:59 PM EDT
[#22]
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The real hardcore climate nuts would see you cold in the dark or dead before it's "good enough" for them. They literally have nothing but a need for validation that what they are doing is "right". Quote HistoryQuoted:
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Good thing we have an abundance of uranium in this system. Please. All they want to do is control your life in every detail. This is just the mechanism they've chosen to use. They can claim "science", don'tcha know... |
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Posted: 11/24/2014 2:55:02 PM EDT
[#23]
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The clean renewable energy they are looking for already exist. Its this exiting shit called "NUCLEAR" energy. Not renewable. |
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Posted: 11/24/2014 2:56:15 PM EDT
[#24]
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Industrial output is not the cause, it is caused by the root source, which is a function of human population. See people like the President's "science czar" who have stated that human population has to decline substantially. And yet, none of the liberals who believe this bullshit will lead by example and kill themselves... 
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Posted: 11/24/2014 2:56:56 PM EDT
[#25]
Simple. Let california dehydrate and starve.
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Posted: 11/24/2014 3:37:39 PM EDT
[#26]
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Not a fish biologist here, but some study a few years back and maybe debunked by now. Showed that logging down to streams and rivers raised the temp of the water and did much more harm than the dams. Also vast over fishing in the 70's, there have been some huge salmon runs in recent years in WA and even in CA on the Sacramento and Russian rivers Quote HistoryQuoted:
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Yeah! Hydroelectric is a pipe dream. Yeah, it really is. There will be no large scale dams ever built again. What we have is all we'll ever have. Dams and the reservoir of water behind them create recreation, water during dry times, a way to prevent massive flooding down stream. Yep you are right no more will be built. BUT TEH SALMONS  Not a fish biologist here, but some study a few years back and maybe debunked by now. Showed that logging down to streams and rivers raised the temp of the water and did much more harm than the dams. Also vast over fishing in the 70's, there have been some huge salmon runs in recent years in WA and even in CA on the Sacramento and Russian rivers OUTLAW LOGGING AND PAPER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
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Posted: 11/24/2014 3:46:10 PM EDT
[#27]
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So what you are saying is that it's still possible for me to become a 6'6" pro basketball player with an 11 inch penis? Awesome! Quote HistoryQuoted:
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Right, and the Earth is flat and the sun revolves around us. Impossible and never are pretty bold words. So what you are saying is that it's still possible for me to become a 6'6" pro basketball player with an 11 inch penis? Awesome! They told me they could always cut.... |
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Posted: 11/24/2014 3:47:06 PM EDT
[#28]
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Look at it this way i'm 99% sure we HAVE the solutions to the energy issues they are all just tied up in super secret operations or being hid for some unknown reason. Quote HistoryQuoted:
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Not renewable, but how about a salt water powered car? It's been approved in Europe.ttp://www.collective-evolution.com/2014/09/27/salt-water-powered-car-gets-approval-in-europe-yes-its-real/ If that's the device oil companies don't want you to know about, it runs on aluminum, which is oxidized to separate H2 from O. The H2 is then burned in the engine. After a while the aluminum needs to be replaced. As for the project The Navy is working on. Synthetic hydrocarbons made from sea water could work, if you have a dozen or so spare nuclear reactors handy. Look at it this way i'm 99% sure we HAVE the solutions to the energy issues they are all just tied up in super secret operations or being hid for some unknown reason. You're fucking nuts, and I can think of several reasons to not reveal next gen energy. |
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Posted: 11/24/2014 3:51:18 PM EDT
[#29]
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Simple. Let california dehydrate and starve. LaRouche and Technocracy might be crazy but I think we will have to do something like this eventually: NAWAPA Project 
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Posted: 11/24/2014 3:55:19 PM EDT
[#30]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Plant trees. Quote HistoryQuoted: Quoted: Maybe instead of reducing CO2 emissions we need to find a beneficial way to consume CO2. Plant trees. There are more trees in the USA now than there were 100 years ago. |
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Posted: 11/24/2014 4:01:24 PM EDT
[#31]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Nothing is truly renewable, not even sunlight. Once you get that, then you realize we are just arguing degrees. Quote HistoryQuoted: Quoted: Nothing is truly renewable, not even sunlight. Once you get that, then you realize we are just arguing degrees. this man gets it.
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Posted: 11/24/2014 4:03:09 PM EDT
[#32]
Quote HistoryQuoted: breeder reactors produce more nuclear material than they consume Quote HistoryQuoted: Quoted: In what way is nuclear power a "renewable" source of energy. I'd say it has low/zero CO2 emissions but is it truly renewable? breeder reactors produce more nuclear material than they consume its renewable so...perpetual motion? |
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Posted: 11/24/2014 4:06:30 PM EDT
[#33]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Quote HistoryQuoted: Quoted: Quoted: In what way is nuclear power a "renewable" source of energy. I'd say it has low/zero CO2 emissions but is it truly renewable? breeder reactors produce more nuclear material than they consume its renewable so...perpetual motion? no its the difference between a nuclear and a chemical reaction |
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Posted: 11/24/2014 4:06:46 PM EDT
[#34]
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Wrong, completely wrong. The Saharan Desert alone is 9,064,958 square kilometers, or 18 times the total required area to fuel the world. By another measure, “the unpopulated area of the Sahara desert is over 9 million km², which if covered with solar panels would provide 630 terawatts total power. The Earth’s current energy consumption rate is around 13.5 TW at any given moment (including oil, gas, coal, nuclear, and hydroelectric).” This measure arrives at a multiplier of 46 times the area needed and shows that my numbers are very conservative. Source Quote HistoryQuoted:
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we could coat the world in solar panels, dam every river, and put up wind mills between the solar arrays, and we would still not have enough energy or a place to live. But if we cut the population a down a few billion it might be possible. whose up for WW3 Wrong, completely wrong. The Saharan Desert alone is 9,064,958 square kilometers, or 18 times the total required area to fuel the world. By another measure, “the unpopulated area of the Sahara desert is over 9 million km², which if covered with solar panels would provide 630 terawatts total power. The Earth’s current energy consumption rate is around 13.5 TW at any given moment (including oil, gas, coal, nuclear, and hydroelectric).” This measure arrives at a multiplier of 46 times the area needed and shows that my numbers are very conservative. Source let's screw with the earth's heat sinks. Those large expanses of desert contribute to the earth;s climate. Let's reconfigure them, thus screw with the climate, in the name of stopping climate change.... |
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Posted: 11/24/2014 4:13:15 PM EDT
[#35]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Yeah! Hydroelectric is a pipe dream. Quote HistoryQuoted: Quoted: Renewable energy is the snake oil of the new millennium. Just separating the fools from their money. Yeah! Hydroelectric is a pipe dream. Maybe no one else saw what you did there, but I did! |
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Posted: 11/24/2014 4:18:34 PM EDT
[#36]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
let's screw with the earth's heat sinks. Those large expanses of desert contribute to the earth;s climate. Let's reconfigure them, thus screw with the climate, in the name of stopping climate change.... Quote HistoryQuoted:
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we could coat the world in solar panels, dam every river, and put up wind mills between the solar arrays, and we would still not have enough energy or a place to live. But if we cut the population a down a few billion it might be possible. whose up for WW3 Wrong, completely wrong. The Saharan Desert alone is 9,064,958 square kilometers, or 18 times the total required area to fuel the world. By another measure, “the unpopulated area of the Sahara desert is over 9 million km², which if covered with solar panels would provide 630 terawatts total power. The Earth’s current energy consumption rate is around 13.5 TW at any given moment (including oil, gas, coal, nuclear, and hydroelectric).” This measure arrives at a multiplier of 46 times the area needed and shows that my numbers are very conservative. Source let's screw with the earth's heat sinks. Those large expanses of desert contribute to the earth;s climate. Let's reconfigure them, thus screw with the climate, in the name of stopping climate change.... Converting a huge area of high albido desert sand into dark thermal radiators... What could possibly go wrong? |
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Posted: 11/24/2014 4:18:38 PM EDT
[#37]
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When I left the semiconductor field we were pushing 30% with some very expensive experimental cells. These were not the type of things you were going to plop on someone's house and turn the power company's meter backward. Single crystal photovoltaic cells used for space applications are in production that are beyond 30% efficiency. They're not cheap but are readily available in production quantities if you can justify the cost. For space applications, there are ancillary benefits (lower total cost, longer life, better pointing control,...) which derive from high cell efficiency. In terrestrial solar applications, it is usually the cost/watt or cost/watt-hour that is most important, not the efficiency. Unless you can reduce the cost of the "balance of the system" through high cell efficiency, it is not likely to be a strong driver. On the ground, available space is typically not a driver for high efficiency. There is a lot of surface area available on the roofs of homes, commercial buildings and parking lots. If you don't have the space, maybe you would/could/should look at higher efficiency cells. |
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Posted: 11/24/2014 4:21:00 PM EDT
[#38]
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breeder reactors produce more nuclear material than they consume its renewable Quote HistoryQuoted:
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In what way is nuclear power a "renewable" source of energy. I'd say it has low/zero CO2 emissions but is it truly renewable? breeder reactors produce more nuclear material than they consume its renewable I think you must be saying they produce secondary fuels which can then be used in a different cycle and which are commercially viable. It's not that they "produce more energy than they consume". Otherwise, you are violating the laws of thermodynamics. |
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Posted: 11/24/2014 4:26:10 PM EDT
[#39]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
its renewable so...perpetual motion? Quote HistoryQuoted:
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In what way is nuclear power a "renewable" source of energy. I'd say it has low/zero CO2 emissions but is it truly renewable? breeder reactors produce more nuclear material than they consume its renewable so...perpetual motion? It's the closest thing to something for nothing as you will ever find in physics. It's a massive process, but with proper breeding ratios, industrial commitment, and so forth, it can be done. There are, however, still a lot of waste management issues, but nothing that's unworkable. ETA: Right now, energy is cheap, and political capital is expensive, so we won't be doing this. Off the top of my head, I don't know what energy prices would need to be for breeder reactors to genuinely gain traction, but it would definitely be an economically painful number. Fuel costs are so low in conventional PWR/BWR reactors that breeder technology is simply not justifiable from an economic standpoint. |
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Posted: 11/24/2014 4:27:31 PM EDT
[#40]
Quote HistoryQuoted: its renewable Quote HistoryQuoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: In what way is nuclear power a "renewable" source of energy. I'd say it has low/zero CO2 emissions but is it truly renewable? breeder reactors produce more nuclear material than they consume its renewable so...perpetual motion? no its the difference between a nuclear and a chemical reaction at issue is the consumptive nature of energy generation--breeder reactors don't create energy, and a breeder reactor/nuclear power station complex is not a perpetual mostion machine. when people talk about 'renewable', they mean renewable within contemporary parameters. the closest thing we have to actually renewable energy is related to gravity: hydro and geothermal. but even these eat into energy budgets, and are only renewable up to a certain point. geothermal seems to be unlimited right now, but thermal energy is limited. if we continue to increase consumption, we're going to bump into those limits sooner or later. then we're going to need a different energy source to go out and find more energy. this is the problem with the production paradigm, within which the solution to resource problems is simply to go out and find new stuff. it's deficit spending--the attitude that we can continue to operate on a credit card so that we don't have to slow down our latte intake. resources work on a budget, and the fastest way to balance a budget is to cut consumption. but for all the talk, few people are actually willing to live within their means. that's why we get bullshit like the NAWAPA plan. |
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Posted: 11/24/2014 4:29:01 PM EDT
[#41]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Converting a huge area of high albido desert sand into dark thermal radiators... What could possibly go wrong? Quote HistoryQuoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: we could coat the world in solar panels, dam every river, and put up wind mills between the solar arrays, and we would still not have enough energy or a place to live. But if we cut the population a down a few billion it might be possible. whose up for WW3 Wrong, completely wrong. The Saharan Desert alone is 9,064,958 square kilometers, or 18 times the total required area to fuel the world. By another measure, "the unpopulated area of the Sahara desert is over 9 million km², which if covered with solar panels would provide 630 terawatts total power. The Earth’s current energy consumption rate is around 13.5 TW at any given moment (including oil, gas, coal, nuclear, and hydroelectric).” This measure arrives at a multiplier of 46 times the area needed and shows that my numbers are very conservative. Source let's screw with the earth's heat sinks. Those large expanses of desert contribute to the earth;s climate. Let's reconfigure them, thus screw with the climate, in the name of stopping climate change.... Converting a huge area of high albido desert sand into dark thermal radiators... What could possibly go wrong? We might spell albedo wrong?  |
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Posted: 11/24/2014 4:29:17 PM EDT
[#42]
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Nothing is truly renewable, not even sunlight. Once you get that, then you realize we are just arguing degrees. If you put up enough wind turbines, you can eventually pull enough energy out of the wind to change the weather. If you put up enough solar panels, you can eventually keep enough solar radiation from radiating back into space to change global temperatures. If you put up enough tidal energy generators, you can eventually suck enough energy out of that system to do interesting things as well but I'm not smart enough to know if that slows the rotation of the Earth or causes the moon's orbit to decelerate or something else all together.
The point is that there are no freebies so we might as well just talk about what makes the most practical sense than having some kind of religious devotion to the ideal of "renewable" energy. You can't even have a conversation about nuclear these days because people froth at the mouth whenever you bring it up. Quote HistoryQuoted:
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There's so much BS and so many misconceptions in this thread it's almost not worth posting. Still, maybe I can learn something. In what way is nuclear power a "renewable" source of energy. I'd say it has low/zero CO2 emissions but is it truly renewable? In what way would switching to natural gas for our energy needs help reduce or eliminate CO2 emissions? Is hydroelectric renewable? Doesn't the reservoir fill with silt after a while and the dam becomes useless? Of these questions, I am most interested in the answer to the nuclear energy question. Nothing is truly renewable, not even sunlight. Once you get that, then you realize we are just arguing degrees. If you put up enough wind turbines, you can eventually pull enough energy out of the wind to change the weather. If you put up enough solar panels, you can eventually keep enough solar radiation from radiating back into space to change global temperatures. If you put up enough tidal energy generators, you can eventually suck enough energy out of that system to do interesting things as well but I'm not smart enough to know if that slows the rotation of the Earth or causes the moon's orbit to decelerate or something else all together.
The point is that there are no freebies so we might as well just talk about what makes the most practical sense than having some kind of religious devotion to the ideal of "renewable" energy. You can't even have a conversation about nuclear these days because people froth at the mouth whenever you bring it up. Nah! Solar energy from sunshine is "renewable" in that the sun rises every day. No CO2 is emitted during power generation. The tricks with solar power are 1. CO2 emissions during production 2. Toxicity during production and 3. Energy consumption during production . If you can come out ahead after those considerations, then, maybe solar energy is viable. The systems do have a finite lifetime - they will need maintenance along the way and will eventually have to be replaced. Nuclear power is limited by the availability of useful ores and the toxicity of refining them into fuel. The ore supply is finite, as are hydrocarbons. |
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Posted: 11/24/2014 4:38:29 PM EDT
[#43]
Quote HistoryQuoted: It's the closest thing to something for nothing as you will ever find in physics. It's a massive process, but with proper breeding ratios, industrial commitment, and so forth, it can be done. There are, however, still a lot of waste management issues, but nothing that's unworkable. Quote HistoryQuoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: In what way is nuclear power a "renewable" source of energy. I'd say it has low/zero CO2 emissions but is it truly renewable? breeder reactors produce more nuclear material than they consume its renewable so...perpetual motion? It's the closest thing to something for nothing as you will ever find in physics. It's a massive process, but with proper breeding ratios, industrial commitment, and so forth, it can be done. There are, however, still a lot of waste management issues, but nothing that's unworkable. i know practically nothing about the process, so i'll accept your word for it.
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Posted: 11/24/2014 4:39:25 PM EDT
[#44]
Quote HistoryQuoted: There are more trees in the USA now than there were 100 years ago. Quote HistoryQuoted: Quoted: Quoted: Maybe instead of reducing CO2 emissions we need to find a beneficial way to consume CO2. Plant trees. There are more trees in the USA now than there were 100 years ago. Tell a liberal tree hugger that and they will call you a liar. Funny thing is that photos of treeless lands at the turn of the century seem to have been wiped from the web. |
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Posted: 11/24/2014 4:39:36 PM EDT
[#45]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
Nah! Solar energy from sunshine is "renewable" in that the sun rises every day. No CO2 is emitted during power generation. The tricks with solar power are 1. CO2 emissions during production 2. Toxicity during production and 3. Energy consumption during production . If you can come out ahead after those considerations, then, maybe solar energy is viable. The systems do have a finite lifetime - they will need maintenance along the way and will eventually have to be replaced. Nuclear power is limited by the availability of useful ores and the toxicity of refining them into fuel. The ore supply is finite, as are hydrocarbons. Quote HistoryQuoted:
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There's so much BS and so many misconceptions in this thread it's almost not worth posting. Still, maybe I can learn something. In what way is nuclear power a "renewable" source of energy. I'd say it has low/zero CO2 emissions but is it truly renewable? In what way would switching to natural gas for our energy needs help reduce or eliminate CO2 emissions? Is hydroelectric renewable? Doesn't the reservoir fill with silt after a while and the dam becomes useless? Of these questions, I am most interested in the answer to the nuclear energy question. Nothing is truly renewable, not even sunlight. Once you get that, then you realize we are just arguing degrees. If you put up enough wind turbines, you can eventually pull enough energy out of the wind to change the weather. If you put up enough solar panels, you can eventually keep enough solar radiation from radiating back into space to change global temperatures. If you put up enough tidal energy generators, you can eventually suck enough energy out of that system to do interesting things as well but I'm not smart enough to know if that slows the rotation of the Earth or causes the moon's orbit to decelerate or something else all together.
The point is that there are no freebies so we might as well just talk about what makes the most practical sense than having some kind of religious devotion to the ideal of "renewable" energy. You can't even have a conversation about nuclear these days because people froth at the mouth whenever you bring it up. Nah! Solar energy from sunshine is "renewable" in that the sun rises every day. No CO2 is emitted during power generation. The tricks with solar power are 1. CO2 emissions during production 2. Toxicity during production and 3. Energy consumption during production . If you can come out ahead after those considerations, then, maybe solar energy is viable. The systems do have a finite lifetime - they will need maintenance along the way and will eventually have to be replaced. Nuclear power is limited by the availability of useful ores and the toxicity of refining them into fuel. The ore supply is finite, as are hydrocarbons. Ultimately the answer to both solar and nuclear power is outside our atmosphere. There is absolutely no shortage of available fissile material, we have more than enough to power our civilization to the point where we're mining it elsewhere, heavy elements are really only rare in the earths upper crust. Solar power is also interesting once you're manufacturing and producing it in orbit. The question is whether we'll ever generate enough wealth to get to that point. |
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Posted: 11/24/2014 4:42:25 PM EDT
[#46]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Nah! Solar energy from sunshine is "renewable" in that the sun rises every day. No CO2 is emitted during power generation. The tricks with solar power are 1. CO2 emissions during production 2. Toxicity during production and 3. Energy consumption during production . If you can come out ahead after those considerations, then, maybe solar energy is viable. The systems do have a finite lifetime - they will need maintenance along the way and will eventually have to be replaced. Nuclear power is limited by the availability of useful ores and the toxicity of refining them into fuel. The ore supply is finite, as are hydrocarbons. Quote HistoryQuoted: ... Nah! Solar energy from sunshine is "renewable" in that the sun rises every day. No CO2 is emitted during power generation. The tricks with solar power are 1. CO2 emissions during production 2. Toxicity during production and 3. Energy consumption during production . If you can come out ahead after those considerations, then, maybe solar energy is viable. The systems do have a finite lifetime - they will need maintenance along the way and will eventually have to be replaced. Nuclear power is limited by the availability of useful ores and the toxicity of refining them into fuel. The ore supply is finite, as are hydrocarbons. solar electricity generation is certainly not renewable. photovoltaics requires either the extraction of rare materials or the energy-intensive processing of common materials. photothermal requires a ton of space. at the moment, space is not a major problem. but as i wrote above, it's a finite budget. and this doesn't even consider the externalities.
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Posted: 11/24/2014 4:44:40 PM EDT
[#47]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
i know practically nothing about the process, so i'll accept your word for it. Quote HistoryQuoted:
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In what way is nuclear power a "renewable" source of energy. I'd say it has low/zero CO2 emissions but is it truly renewable? breeder reactors produce more nuclear material than they consume its renewable so...perpetual motion? It's the closest thing to something for nothing as you will ever find in physics. It's a massive process, but with proper breeding ratios, industrial commitment, and so forth, it can be done. There are, however, still a lot of waste management issues, but nothing that's unworkable. i know practically nothing about the process, so i'll accept your word for it. I don't know much about it either, but I do know about the current commercial nuclear fuel cycles to add the following caveat: Right now, energy is cheap, and political capital is expensive, so we won't be doing this. Off the top of my head, I don't know what energy prices would need to be for breeder reactors to genuinely gain traction, but it would definitely be an economically painful number. Fuel costs are so low in conventional PWR/BWR reactors that breeder technology is simply not justifiable from an economic standpoint.
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Posted: 11/24/2014 4:57:03 PM EDT
[#48]
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LaRouche and Technocracy might be crazy but I think we will have to do something like this eventually: NAWAPA Project http://archive.larouchepac.com/files/regionalbreakdown_0.jpg Quote HistoryQuoted:
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Simple. Let california dehydrate and starve. LaRouche and Technocracy might be crazy but I think we will have to do something like this eventually: NAWAPA Project http://archive.larouchepac.com/files/regionalbreakdown_0.jpg By their own numbers that would require 64 brand new nuclear power stations and a single lift station that's using 26,000 MW.
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Posted: 11/24/2014 4:57:59 PM EDT
[#49]
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We might spell albedo wrong?
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Converting a huge area of high albido desert sand into dark thermal radiators... What could possibly go wrong? We might spell albedo wrong?
I can't get anything right today. I suspect CO2 poisoning. 
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Posted: 11/24/2014 5:01:20 PM EDT
[#50]
Quote HistoryQuoted: People can be amazingly short sighted as to how advanced tech can get and how quickly. Just look how far we have come in the last 100 years or so. She we still had horses going down the main streets of NYC a little over 100 years ago. Our cell phones have more computing power than all of NASA during the moon landing. We have more information at our fingertips than the largest library from a few hundred years ago.Shit 150 years ago one of our main fuels was WHALE OIL. It's going to look even more amazing 100 years from now. Humanity is fucked. |
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