88 replies to this topic

[corsair]

im glad to see alot of educated people posting for fussion development i would love to say go solar, wind, and water but we humans consume to much to make them trully viable sources of energy.

[daytrader]

Night of shadow, on 29 February 2012 - 03:11 PM, said:

i'm going for a meltallic sphererical repational pulse generator

Google translate can't spell?

corsair, on 01 March 2012 - 04:30 AM, said:

im glad to see alot of educated people posting for fussion development i would love to say go solar, wind, and water but we humans consume to much to make them trully viable sources of energy.

They can be great supplements to any power generation scheme. Solar has a problem though. That problem is china. Need to ban chinese panel imports so US tech can develop.

Edited by daytrader, 01 March 2012 - 05:02 AM.

[Polymorphyne]

There are various elements vital to our technology other than oil that are at threat of running too low-
China is rapidly catching up in technology with the western world- as its people start to consume things at western levels, combined with its monumental population, this on its own is going to be a problem. China catching up to the wests level of resource consumption per person will actually double the entire worlds resource consumption on its own. Oil consumption would increase by 106%, and metal consumption by 94%.
If you include India doing the same, thats triple.
If a large proportion of the devoping world turn 2nd/1st world... that will increase global consumption rates by x11, having the same effect as if the worlds population increased to 72 billion people.

So in short- maybe it would be better if the third world... stayed the third world, as cruel as that sounds.

Now, here are some of the resources in danger-

Nobel Laureate Robert Richardson predicts that the world will run out of available, useable helium in about 25 years.
An analysis funded by the United Nations and European Union says that the following metals will be needed alot in the future, especially for all of the alternative power sources people talk about. All of these metals are reasonably rare and subject to running out rather quickly if used en mass.
- Tantalum, Indium, Ruthenium, Gallium, Germanium, Cobalt, Lithium, Platinum, Palladium.

Next, are the Rare Earth elements, which are currently causing alot of trouble due to their scarceness threatening the entire photonics industry.
-Erbium, Ytterbium, Yttrium, Neodynium, Thulium, Europium are needed for most lasers, optical amplifiers and phosphors.
Rare earths are also vital for magnets, batteries and lightweight metal alloys.

In the past decade, the use of such metals has doubled.

While rare earths are abundant on the earth (despite their name) the problem is access and supply. China owns 37% of the worlds supply (36 million tonnes), and controls more than 97% of production. The US has 13 million, the former soviet bloc 13 million.


The difference in per capita consumption between the third world and the first world is around a factor of 32- and all of the third world people want to close that gap. Everyone wants to be a first worlder, but there just isnt enough resources for everyone to live that wastefully.

[daytrader]

Longsword, on 01 March 2012 - 05:02 AM, said:

There are various elements vital to our technology other than oil that are at threat of running too low-
China is rapidly catching up in technology with the western world- as its people start to consume things at western levels, combined with its monumental population, this on its own is going to be a problem. China catching up to the wests level of resource consumption per person will actually double the entire worlds resource consumption on its own. Oil consumption would increase by 106%, and metal consumption by 94%.
If you include India doing the same, thats triple.
If a large proportion of the devoping world turn 2nd/1st world... that will increase global consumption rates by x11, having the same effect as if the worlds population increased to 72 billion people.

So in short- maybe it would be better if the third world... stayed the third world, as cruel as that sounds.

Now, here are some of the resources in danger-

Nobel Laureate Robert Richardson predicts that the world will run out of available, useable helium in about 25 years.
An analysis funded by the United Nations and European Union says that the following metals will be needed alot in the future, especially for all of the alternative power sources people talk about. All of these metals are reasonably rare and subject to running out rather quickly if used en mass.
- Tantalum, Indium, Ruthenium, Gallium, Germanium, Cobalt, Lithium, Platinum, Palladium.

Next, are the Rare Earth elements, which are currently causing alot of trouble due to their scarceness threatening the entire photonics industry.
-Erbium, Ytterbium, Yttrium, Neodynium, Thulium, Europium are needed for most lasers, optical amplifiers and phosphors.
Rare earths are also vital for magnets, batteries and lightweight metal alloys.

In the past decade, the use of such metals has doubled.

While rare earths are abundant on the earth (despite their name) the problem is access and supply. China owns 37% of the worlds supply (36 million tonnes), and controls more than 97% of production. The US has 13 million, the former soviet bloc 13 million.


The difference in per capita consumption between the third world and the first world is around a factor of 32- and all of the third world people want to close that gap. Everyone wants to be a first worlder, but there just isnt enough resources for everyone to live that wastefully.

In response to china/india:

The calculations I ran for you are super-pessimistic and account for the development of China and India at double of the world's current population.

I seriously disagree about China's rate of development though. They will soon find themselves in insurmountable trouble thanks to their 1 child policy + aging population. The bit about developing world remaining the third world is entirely unethical and can't be seriously considered.

-------

I have no intention of arguing about material scarcity. The fact that you brought it up shows that you've ran out of arguments about scarcity of energy, but still wish to defend your pessimistic global outlook.

-------
Off topic bit:

Regarding material scarcity: Here is the infographic (take it with a grain of salt, these things aren't meant to be accurate) on our resource concerns:

Note their main uses also.


I have a feeling that as metals become more scarce, efficiency of recycling will improve. Possible solutions are:
Space asteroid mining. Mantle.

Mantle. That is all.

[Polymorphyne]

Quote

I have no intention of arguing about material scarcity. The fact that you brought it up shows that you've ran out of arguments about scarcity of energy, but still wish to defend your pessimistic global outlook.

No, I brought up the material scarcity because you all keep arguing for these wonder technologies that will somehow replace oil, but all require these materials to work.
Also, your inforgraphic is downright frightening and goes far beyond how dire even I thought the situation was.

Edited by Longsword, 01 March 2012 - 06:30 AM.

[daytrader]

Longsword, on 01 March 2012 - 06:27 AM, said:

No, I brought up the material scarcity because you all keep arguing for these wonder technologies that will somehow replace oil, but all require these materials to work.
Also, your inforgraphic is downright frightening and goes far beyond how dire even I thought the situation was.

Aside from copper wiring, which materials are so required for these industries?
Some of the super scarce rare earth metals with extremely narrow applications have seen alternatives invented since that (old) infographic was assembled. For example: oleds


Yes, the infographic is frightening. It turned me into a supporter of space exploitation.

Edited by daytrader, 01 March 2012 - 07:11 AM.

[Hangfire]

No mention of Tidal generation in the poll I see, Tidal trumps solar and wind generation because of one thing,, reliability. Unless someone knocks the moon out of earths orbit (impossible outside of the fictional series 'Space 1999') then the tides will keep turning the turbines.
The technology is just in it's infancy atm, but there's a lot of research going on (in this country anyway) with a new array of 10 turbines due to be brought online next year.

[Saint of Sinners]

I still say Wind and Solar power are the best choice. At worst they can at least reduce our dependancy on fossal fuels until a true worry free and cheap engery source becomes availible.

[Hangfire]

I meant reliability of the tides,, not the technology, the wind doesn't always blow and the sun doesn't always shine, but the tides stay true.

[daytrader]

Yes.

[FireNova]

Longsword, on 28 February 2012 - 01:59 AM, said:

Without oil and the industrial based farming it provides, the planet cant even FEED 1 billion people, let alone the 7 billion or so it contains.

Slight fix.

Not even counting the riots and civil unrest that starving people would resort to, there is another word that I am thinking of....has three letters and starts with a W......hmmmm wonder what it could be?


Oh well.

[FireNova]

daytrader, on 01 March 2012 - 04:57 AM, said:

That problem is china. .

[FireNova]

Oh and if it means anything, I voted other. Chuck Norris is about the only energy source that is 100% renewable because roundhouse kicks take only a fraction of greenhouse gases and ozone particles that combined unleash the kinetic energy that is known as the roundhouse kick.

Edited by FireNova, 01 March 2012 - 09:17 AM.

[daytrader]

FireNova, on 01 March 2012 - 08:56 AM, said:

Slight fix.

Not even counting the riots and civil unrest that starving people would resort to, there is another word that I am thinking of....has three letters and starts with a W......hmmmm wonder what it could be?


Oh well.

I disagree.

We can build hydroponic/aeroponic farms to get more food for each one of our acres. We can use growth lamps + multistory buildings + nutrients + energy for lamps to produce more food than we can possibly use.

Imagine a 5acre, 100 story building that produces all of the world's produce. (not really sure what the size of one of those will have to be, but 500 acres of hydroponics sounds like a lot of produce to me)

A good portion of our land is used for breeding lifestock, which are land-inefficient. Switching to plant-based diets is another possible solution. That won't use any extra energy over today's model.

Yea. I'm willing to bet that there are possible engineering solutions for all political/existential issues.


Come on, what's with all of the pessimism? Do you guys want this world to turn to massive war, just so you may get a shot at playing mechwarrior IRL?

[FireNova]

daytrader, on 01 March 2012 - 09:34 AM, said:

Come on, what's with all of the pessimism?

This.

[daytrader]

A poorly mashed up video is the reason for the pessimism? Well I have to agree, the editing is REALLY depressing.

Edited by daytrader, 01 March 2012 - 12:16 PM.

[FireNova]

daytrader, on 01 March 2012 - 12:15 PM, said:

A poorly mashed up video is the reason for the pessimism? Well I have to agree, the editing is REALLY depressing.

Eh.....the point of it was that there is pessimism from people because our (US) government is incompetent (aka we have no real leadership? ) and doesn't want to make the hard decisions of cutting back spending (aka buying votes -you know... election year and all ) and getting us back on track let alone considering alternatives to oil (as if there is anything that could even possibly replace oil in such quantities that China [1.3 billion people] and India [1.1 billion people]...let alone the whole world.... is consuming every day )?

Other than that yeah I guess you could say its a pretty 'mashed up video'.

[daytrader]

Let's not get into politics here, and remember that the US, as great as it is, doesn't span the entire surface of this planet.

[Polymorphyne]

Quote

We can build hydroponic/aeroponic farms to get more food for each one of our acres. We can use growth lamps + multistory buildings + nutrients + energy for lamps to produce more food than we can possibly use.

We can, but will we? Or will one half of the worlds governments faff about as usual not doing anything conclusive anywhere near on time, while the other half faffs about killing each other.

[RedHairDave]

solar is very viable if we just build a space elevator. the sun never stops shining...in space. also solar panels in space will last a very long time and we can put up as many as we want, space is kinda big. the elevator itself can be turned into a super conductor to bring power down to earth, or it can be transmitted wirelessly.

carbon nano tubes can be made into super conductors and the main structure, at the same time.

we can build this now, it would cost about what the usa spends on the military in 4 years

Edited by RedHairDave, 21 March 2012 - 11:07 AM.