88 replies to this topic

[RedHairDave]

seems so simple, build a space elevator from carbon nano tubes and put a metric f*&k ton of solar panels in space. all the power earth could ever use forever. so close to free its not worth charging.

benefit is space ships. space elevator is the first step to building a space ship of limitless size. when you can put anything in space, size and weight are no longer limiting factors in ship development.

we have the technology, we could start building today. it takes money, but then saves more money than its worth in the first year. the north american budget for crude oil purchase alone will build the elevator. and then you wont need any more oil(after the solar panels are up, and the energy infrastructure is in place. not impossible at all, very costly, but good forever.)

then electric cars and everything else, no more fossil fuels needed at all. electricity can do everything they can do, often better.

carbon nano tube ultracapacitors will replace ancient chemical batteries, charging in minutes and lasting days. energy will be cheap-free(somewhere in there)

with energy no longer being limiting, there is no reason we cant build a super conductor infrastructure. the only reason we dont now is the energy cost, the sun has a bit extra energy, so i think we could swing it.

also the ability to clean up space. there is lots of junk up there, we could bring it back and clean up our orbit. make it safer for solar panels.

so what we need to save the world and end global warming is a space elevator.

Edited by RedHairDave, 28 February 2012 - 09:55 AM.

[Korbyn McColl]

My sentiment is this: prove to me it works first.

That is: do it. If it's a legitimate idea and it stands a reasonable chance of working then investors will get behind it.

Fusion sounds like a great idea, but what are the potential risks associated with it? If the coolant system fails can the reaction be shut down? If some ***** finds a way to set off ten kilos of C-4 beside the reactor what happens?

Outside of risk, how do you store this energy once you collect it? That is, how do we convert it to use in automobiles and other devices?

In an ideal world cold fusion combined with power capacitor technology would be ideal. In the event that cold fusion or fusion technology in general can not be implemented reasonably then we should go forward with traditional nuclear power and recycling fuel rods.

Just my two e-bills.

[Kartr]

Longsword, on 28 February 2012 - 07:17 AM, said:

Hydrogen- Hydrogen takes more energy to manufacture than the hydrogen produces. Fuel cells are more a battery than a true power source.
Hydrogen is also extremely dangerous- it takes up alot of space, has to be compressed and stored in high pressure fuel tanks, and it takes alot of energy to compress it. The required carbon fibre tank might even survive high speed car crashes- the plumbing connections wouldnt. The high pressure hydrogen would escape and fill a large area around the crash rather quickly.... and then the hydrogen would self ignite from the heat of decompression.

Do a quick search of solid state hydrogen storage, you'll find links to several different technologies used to store hydrogen in a solid state to avoid the problems you cited. Here's two that I found very quickly Link 1 and Link 2.

Longsword, on 28 February 2012 - 07:17 AM, said:

Nuclear-
A must have. It is the only viable power source to keep the lights on when the fossil fuels drop out from beneath us, but it cannot power cars. We cannot produce nuclear reactors without fossil fuel based technology however.

If we use hydrogen fuel cells with solid state hydrogen "batteries" for cars and/or use electric cars powered by batteries charged by nuclear reactors that takes care of objection one.

Objection 2: couldn't we use our current reserves of fossil fuels to develop alternative versions based on fuel cells and batteries that would replace fossil fuel methods as we move forward? Or is there something else like synthetic rubber that we need fossil fuels for, not just energy, that would make it impossible to use fuel cells/batteries to replace fossil fuel technology?

[NotNewHere]

Sry to say cold fusion dosen't work. Fusion relies on extreemly high temperatures to force atoms to bond together into larger atoms. This is not a chemical reaction, and therefore cannot be achieved at low temperatures, nomatter what chemicals you use.
Hot fusion is our best bet as the only waste product is a big lump of iron (diamond for larger reactors) and it produces massive amounts of energy. Unfortunately if the containment field was broken the result would be a several megaton nuclear blast. On the brightside this particular blast would produce no radiation, but on the down side you can detonate a fusion reactor with a breakers yard car magnet.

[CanOWorms]

I believe fusion is quite safe, since its difficult to make fusion any changes would simple stop the process from happening? Not the most read or knowledgeable on this, this is just what I have read about it in the past.


As a second thought, I would agree with RedHairDave, though the space elevator is going to hard, nanotubes are difficult to make. I attended a lecture from a ex-astronaut who talked about this tech some, and I find it really impressive, but its just getting to supplies to orbit that's the trick.


I found a statistic that said the earth gets every year 274 million gigawatts of energy, although we may not harness all of it, there is still a lot.


And of course at the end of the day politics tend to screw things up.

[daytrader]

I will start by mentioning that this an an awesome forum! Posters are awesomely cool headed mechwarriors.
---
If you show the ecat design to any engineer, the first thing they'll do is laugh uncontrollably and ask you to clarify if you're seriously stating that fusion can be initiated by a process that involves pistons.

Longsword, on 28 February 2012 - 06:38 AM, said:

By the time you have mined the coal out of the ground and turned it into anything remotely resembling petrol you have expended alot of energy to do so, negating most of the energy you got out of it. Oil gives a ridiculous energy to effort ratio.
Peak oil is not a fallacy, oil fields run out, and all of the big ones have already been found and are past their peak levels of oil production. There is still alot of oil out there yes, but what oil is still out there is too hard to get out of the ground (or shale).

Once it starts taking a barrel of oil to get a barrel of oil out of the ground, there just isnt any point going for that oil.


The reason people generally disagree with me on this is all of the various corporations/governments have been trying to supress the information that oil is running out- it is incredibly bad for bussiness, and for the current model of society, so no one wants to believe it at all. Oil companies routinely grossly over report their oil reserves to keep their stock prices and pricing control stable.

Sorry, I should have been more specific when I mentioned peak oil. Peak oil isn't a fallacy, oil production will obviously decrease in the near future. The fallacy part is the inference many people make from this fact, which is usually accompanied by a statement about the sudden decrease in the standard of living.

Energy generation problems of ngas/coal can be overcome by a unified national power grid, and a gas pipeline to ngas power plants. (A sub-pacific gas pipeline from Russia is already being considered) To illustrate just how endless Earth's resources are I'll do a quick back of the napkin calculation for you:

1.5 Trillion metric tons of frozen methane under siberian arctic shelf.
67.9ft^3/capita/year ngas (we'll say ngas = methane in this case) consumption in us.
rho methane = (1.88916*10^-5metric tons)/ft^3 (S.C.)

1,500,000,000,000t CH4/(1.88916*10^-5t/ft^3)/67.9ft^3/capita/year~1.17*10^15 peopleyears

That gives us
1,170,000,000,000,000 people years. Or enough ngas to meet our demands for natural gas for 12 billion people, at US living standards for 97,500 years.

Now let's consider the fact that right now only 20% of our energy demand is met with ngas. If we want 100% of our energy to come from ngas, then we could make the following calculation instead:

1,500,000,000,000t CH4/[1.88916*10^-5t/ft^3+((1.88916*10^-5/.2)*.8)]/67.9ft^3/capita/year and that gives us 2.34*10^14 peopleyears
Or enough ngas to meet the full energy demands of 12 billion people, living at US living standards for 39,000 years.

And that's only from the natural gas available in one deposit. That's 39,000 years worth of ngas. Do you know how long that is? That's definitely long enough for us to not worry about running out of fuel long enough to research fusion and start mining asteroids.

There are comparable deposits of coal in this world, but I'm not going to look for data. I should get back to work.

Sources:
http://energyalmanac...onsumption.html
http://thinkprogress...thane-hydrates/

[daytrader]

RedHairDave, on 28 February 2012 - 09:47 AM, said:

seems so simple, build a space elevator from carbon nano tubes and put a metric f*&k ton of solar panels in space. all the power earth could ever use forever. so close to free its not worth charging.

benefit is space ships. space elevator is the first step to building a space ship of limitless size. when you can put anything in space, size and weight are no longer limiting factors in ship development.

we have the technology, we could start building today. it takes money, but then saves more money than its worth in the first year. the north american budget for crude oil purchase alone will build the elevator. and then you wont need any more oil(after the solar panels are up, and the energy infrastructure is in place. not impossible at all, very costly, but good forever.)

then electric cars and everything else, no more fossil fuels needed at all. electricity can do everything they can do, often better.

carbon nano tube ultracapacitors will replace ancient chemical batteries, charging in minutes and lasting days. energy will be cheap-free(somewhere in there)

with energy no longer being limiting, there is no reason we cant build a super conductor infrastructure. the only reason we dont now is the energy cost, the sun has a bit extra energy, so i think we could swing it.

also the ability to clean up space. there is lots of junk up there, we could bring it back and clean up our orbit. make it safer for solar panels.

so what we need to save the world and end global warming is a space elevator.

Our nanotube manufacturing capabilities just aren't there yet, and there are plenty of other materials considerations. If all goes well I hope I'll find a solution to that problem though. As of now our best bet is to start space manufacturing of ships using asteroid mining. (google asteroid mining; an encouraging topic)

To ultracapacitors: HECK YES!

Devil Man, on 28 February 2012 - 09:56 AM, said:

My sentiment is this: prove to me it works first.

That is: do it. If it's a legitimate idea and it stands a reasonable chance of working then investors will get behind it.

Fusion sounds like a great idea, but what are the potential risks associated with it? If the coolant system fails can the reaction be shut down? If some ***** finds a way to set off ten kilos of C-4 beside the reactor what happens?

Outside of risk, how do you store this energy once you collect it? That is, how do we convert it to use in automobiles and other devices?

In an ideal world cold fusion combined with power capacitor technology would be ideal. In the event that cold fusion or fusion technology in general can not be implemented reasonably then we should go forward with traditional nuclear power and recycling fuel rods.

Just my two e-bills.

The only risks of fusion come from tritium storage concerns. Living cells readily accept tritium in favor of hydrogen into their molecules, as if they were more awesome versions of normal hydrogen atoms; tritium has significantly different physical properties from regular hydrogen. It's needless to say that everything dies when it comes into contact with tritium.

This risk is obviously of no concern in deuterium-deuterium fusion, or helium3 fusion. Also, there is no risk of anyone sabotaging a nuclear facility because:

We've got miniguns protecting them.
http://nnsa.energy.g...rotectiveforces

Fusion reactors can't blow up in large explosions because fusion stops as soon as plasma is exposed to the outside environment. (it cools below conditions necessary for fusion)

[Bluey]

Thats a Vortex power generator only Nazis tested that at 40s."Air Vortex,Power Vortex and Gravity Vortex" it was suppose to be ultimate cheap source of energy.I thought people would abandon it guess I was wrong I hope they will make that technology avaible soon.

[CanOWorms]

Daytrader:

Quote

As of now our best bet is to start space manufacturing of ships using asteroid mining. (google asteroid mining; an encouraging topic)

Asteroid mining seems a rather expensive under taking, besides why would we need space ships unless we have colonies (moon/mars etc.)?



Did not know about the miniguns, awsome.

Edited by CanOWorms, 28 February 2012 - 08:24 PM.

[Thomas Covenant]

Clean energy is only getting better everyday. I hear of people living of grid all the time, and I don't just mean hippies; productive members of society, like the renewable energy teacher at my college(go figure).

[Polymorphyne]

Even if we do succesfully switch over to new resources- we still have a serious problem. For some reason, the human race is obsessed with growth. Our economies, technologies, way of life, are all focused around growth. A nation isnt happy if its population isnt increasing at a fantastic rate. The only way to keep up with this growth is to consume more resources at ever increasing rates- one day, our technology and resource supplies will fail to catch up with this unchecked population/industrial/financial growth, and it wont be pretty. The human population has gone from a few million to 9 billion+ in an incredibly short amount of time, and that rate is still going. The earth does have a limit to how many people it can support, and we have likely already exceeded it (as evidenced by the state of the third world, the massive ecological damage we have done to the planet, etc). Oil has artificially inflated it on the food production and logistics side.

Our stock markets have often used a similar principle- they operate on the assumption that growth will continue and continue and continue, but eventually the growth bubble does burst and the consequences are ruinous/

[daytrader]

CanOWorms, on 28 February 2012 - 08:24 PM, said:

Daytrader:



Asteroid mining seems a rather expensive under taking, besides why would we need space ships unless we have colonies (moon/mars etc.)?



Did not know about the miniguns, awsome.

Asteroid mining is the ultimate capital investment. There is more metals in the nearest asteroid than humanity has mined in all of our existence.

Planetary colonization is less feasible than space colonization. Before we can look to other planets, we must colonize L5. To do that, we must either put IMMENSE quantities of stuff into space, or take stuff that already exists in space and move it to L5. The second approach is far more feasible.

http://en.wikipedia....point#L4_and_L5

Longsword, on 28 February 2012 - 11:10 PM, said:

Even if we do succesfully switch over to new resources- we still have a serious problem. For some reason, the human race is obsessed with growth. Our economies, technologies, way of life, are all focused around growth. A nation isnt happy if its population isnt increasing at a fantastic rate. The only way to keep up with this growth is to consume more resources at ever increasing rates- one day, our technology and resource supplies will fail to catch up with this unchecked population/industrial/financial growth, and it wont be pretty. The human population has gone from a few million to 9 billion+ in an incredibly short amount of time, and that rate is still going. The earth does have a limit to how many people it can support, and we have likely already exceeded it (as evidenced by the state of the third world, the massive ecological damage we have done to the planet, etc). Oil has artificially inflated it on the food production and logistics side.

Our stock markets have often used a similar principle- they operate on the assumption that growth will continue and continue and continue, but eventually the growth bubble does burst and the consequences are ruinous/

You're right. All animals follow the logistic formula for population growth:
N'(t)=r(1-N(t)/B)N(t)
You must notice that B is the carrying capacity. You're right in your statement that all animals have reached an equilibrium with their surroundings at some point. There is no reason to assume we won't either, but the actual number of carrying capacity and mechanism of the equilibrium occuring is TBD.

My point, when you combine the analysis I've done for you in the previous answer to your post is that
1) We won't run out of combustibles in the forseeable future.
2) Fusion power will become available in the forseeable future. (far sooner than we will begin to feel the scarcity mentioned in point1)
3) Deuterium's concentration as % of natural hydrogen (far more concentrated at bottom of ocean) is .015%
4) The mass of the ocean is a mind boggling number: 1.5×10¹⁸ short tons. (The mass of hydrogen is less, but is still a huge number)
5) The mass of deuterium is a slightly smaller than the mass of hydrogen, but is still ridiculously mind boggling number that we won't deplete in millions of years of fusion.
6) In millions of years, we'll have colonized a lot of space and Earth may not even be inhabited anymore (asteroid impact?) and we'll have no shortage of energy in space (lots more water/hydrogen in space!) making energy concerns a very mild isssue of engineering.

Combine fusion with aeroponics/hydroponics and you have a carrying capacity in the trillions of people.

[CanOWorms]

Quote

1) We won't run out of combustibles in the forseeable future.

Well, coal, petroleum, natural gas are a limited supply, and taking into account the fact that its not reasonable to use some of these to run your car(Longsword made some good points about that) energy crisis will happen because there is a limit to how much you can get from it(Again energy returned over energy invested)

I agree with the rest of your points, at some point fusion will become available, but that is still in if.

[daytrader]

CanOWorms, on 29 February 2012 - 08:21 AM, said:

Well, coal, petroleum, natural gas are a limited supply, and taking into account the fact that its not reasonable to use some of these to run your car(Longsword made some good points about that) energy crisis will happen because there is a limit to how much you can get from it(Again energy returned over energy invested)

I agree with the rest of your points, at some point fusion will become available, but that is still in if.

False. I've touched on these points before.

We can run radical reactions on ngas to form longer chain hydrocarbons, and by extension, your favorite standard of crude. (and all of your favorite plastics through organic chemistry voodoo as well) We've had coal liquefaction technology since the germans invented it after WW1. There are also production vehicles that run on gas. As in natural gas, not gasoline. (not popular in US)

If you look at my calculation, you'll see that even if it takes you 99 cubic meters of burnt natural gas to extract 1 cubic meter of natural gas, (we're talking ~1% efficiency here) you'll still have enough gas under the Siberian arctic shelf to last 12 billion people, living at US standards, for 390 years. Keep in mind that that's just one of many sources of combustibles.

The amount of stuff we can actually burn on this planet is far greater than internet apocalypse cultists will lead you to believe.

The only real problem is global warming. We actually can't burn any of that stuff without destroying ourselves. Fingers crossed for fusion within 30 years.

Edited by daytrader, 01 March 2012 - 04:19 AM.

[Night of shadow]

i'm going for a meltallic sphererical repational pulse generator

[Polymorphyne]

Quote

100 cubic meters of burnt natural gas to extract 1 cubic meter of natural gas

If it takes you 100 cubic metres of natural gas, to extract 1 cubic metre of natural gas, you have just ended up with 99 cubic metres of natural gas less than you had before. Thats wont get you more gas, it will just use up what gas you have faster.

Edited by Longsword, 01 March 2012 - 02:07 AM.

[daytrader]

Longsword, on 01 March 2012 - 02:06 AM, said:

If it takes you 100 cubic metres of natural gas, to extract 1 cubic metre of natural gas, you have just ended up with 99 cubic metres of natural gas less than you had before. Thats wont get you more gas, it will just use up what gas you have faster.

Huh? Do you disagree with my calculations?

Oh you must mean extraction/required capital difficulty. Ngas is a silly example, because it's an extremely straightforward process. But we can talk about coal if you wish:

The cost of building a 600megawatt (big big plant) coal plant is around 2 billion. Let's say that the yearly cost of the DoD is 707.5 billion. If we became more worried about building new coal plants than about invading other countries, then halved our DoD budget. The other half of the DoD budget would be given to some kind of a coal plant construction committee. Let's say that comes out to be 350 billion.

That lets us build 175 600MW plants per year. (that's a serious amount of big power plants)
That comes out to be 105000MW or 105GW.
Now let's operate them 8760hours/year. That gives us 919,800GWhours.

Today's plants produce 1,850,750 gigawatt hours (source: http://www.sourcewat....S._Coal_Plants ) and produce 44.9% of our electricity.

We could double our coal power production in just 2 years, if we halved our defense budget.

I think it's safe to say that we won't have any problems building the necessary capital if we REALLY needed to.

Edited by daytrader, 01 March 2012 - 03:03 AM.

[Polymorphyne]

Okay, so you start with 100 cubic metres of gas.
You expend 100 cubic metres of gas.
You then gain 1 cubic metre of gas.
100-100+1=1

So you started the operation with 100 cubic metres of gas.... and now you have 1 cubic metre of gas. You have 99 cubic metres less than when you started.

Edited by Longsword, 01 March 2012 - 02:45 AM.

[Kenny]

I vote other, and here is why:

I know it's long (1,5 h) but there is a lot of solid information not only about his idea but also about global energy situation. And at the end the speaker describes his company and people who are in it, and that gives me hope for success.

[daytrader]

Longsword, on 01 March 2012 - 02:42 AM, said:

Okay, so you start with 100 cubic metres of gas.
You expend 100 cubic metres of gas.
You then gain 1 cubic metre of gas.
100-100+1=1

So you started the operation with 100 cubic metres of gas.... and now you have 1 cubic metre of gas. You have 99 cubic metres less than when you started.

You're right. I made a mistake.

In my example I took a "basis" (not really a basis) of 100 cubic meters total. That means we use 99 cubic meters of gas to extract 1 cubic meter of gas.

If we want to take a "basis" of 101 cubic meters of gas, we need another step in the calculation. So we get:

97,000*(1/101)=~386.14years

Fixed the previous post to reflect that.

Edited by daytrader, 01 March 2012 - 04:20 AM.