Nuclear Energy, Clean Coal, Sterling Engines etc

I do not forget where we live. It's what I study.

You are talking pipe dreams while I am talking reality. Our ecosystems are in decline and you are talking terraforming and space resource extraction. I'm sorry but I don't buy into it and I hope others do not either. We need to take care of the place we currently live in or else these pipe dreams will never come to fruition.

 

C'mon mate, that's a massive stretch. It would literally cost trillions on dollars at a bare minimum to develop those resources, provided they're even viable, economic (by earth's standards) deposits available. The geology of those planets/moons is very different to ours. This is the ultimate pipe dream and isn't going to solve any of our short/mid/long term problems. Perhaps VERY long term, but that'd be the earliest.

I seriously doubt that lunar real estate will be worth much anytime in the next 500 years.

(BTW, the new emoticons are shite)

 

F8L,

Love the Schrödinger's cat reference. That poor little bugger.

 

And this would be cheaper than adding storage (vast amounts of storage) to solar and wind? The reactors needed don't exist and would be massively expensive, particularly in the case of He3. You guys are talking like fusion reactors are sitting around waiting to be fueled, but that's hardly the case.

Furthermore, until we develop alternative forms of food we're stuck with agriculture, which is being pushed to the max and is showing signs of severely stressing the land (and oceans). Our currently path is unsustainable. Period.

 

Oh, I do not know. I'd quite like a payment. But I'm only part indigenous, so I'd get only part of a payment right? Wait, I emigrated. Damn, does that mean I'm not indigenous anymore? Oh skip it.

As a kid, I really thought we'd be out there by now. I don't mind dreams of outerspace. They're good. But I agree F8L, in many ways we've been dreaming if we think we can keep eating our future down here. Its not really a good model to take off the planet, or even one to allow us to get off the planet.

 

Vastly less expensive. One ton of He-3 has a market value of $4-5 trillion. With solar and wind technology in its current state and for the foreseeable future, the efficiency is so low that we would have to saturate cover up to 50% of the land mass of the United States to meet all of our energy needs moving forward with those two technologies. The energy expended to create and maintain that infrastructure would be staggering (beyond belief compared to the ongoing cost of our current energy infrastructure), very likely well in excess of the total combined energy output ever realized.

Large-scale He-3 reactors don't exist yet because the fuel only exists on Earth in trace amounts. The Moon is completely covered with it. It only gets better as we move out from the Moon. Our solar system has enough natural resources to keep us going for eternity, even if we were to use those resources like drunken sailors. Working-model He-3 reactors already exist in the United States. It's a proven technology. If we had the fuel, it would require nothing more than a few years of time, money, and will power to bring a full-size reactor on line. Remember. If we don't do it, China will. Then China will instantly become a world super power overnight and start dictating terms. Look at it this way, if you think environmental conditions in this country are bad now (they're not, we we live in a sparkling nirvana compared to 100-150 years ago), what do you think will eventually happen when China starts spreading its philosophy of forced oppression and environmental catastrophe around the world? The combined environmental history of the United States, even at its worst times, makes it look like a saint compared to modern China. And China has no incentive to change. Indeed, quite the opposite.

 

That is because we export our degradation............

China also has one of the fastest growing network of environmental advocacy groups in the world. They are doing wrong just as fast as citizens are trying to do right. In that respect it's not much different than the U.S.

I think I'm going to stop replying now. It is rather obvious that you "two" are hell bent on this outrageous idea without looking into current ecological or biological situations and how your resource bank would exacerbate these issues. Seems a bit coicidental that you both pop on at the same time with similar ideologies.

Tripp, I figured one of you guys would get the reference. I'm not real well versed in quantum mechanics but I loved the .jpg when I saw it. Hahaha

 

Your numbers are WAY off, mate. You're not even close. It would require WAY less than that and that using current PV technology. Using CSP the land requirement would be way less. That doesn't even include wind power, which actually has a small foot print.

Fusion reactors don't exist outside the lab and no ones expecting anything commercially viable for decades. Think about it. Most utilities are hesitant to build IGCC plants and you want them to build power plants based on a technology that's only theoretical at this point? Using a fuel source that scarcely exists on this planet? Sorry, but that makes no sense whatsoever. We've already got a fusion reactor, the sun. Let's start with that one and worry about lunar mining later.

 

I'd like to see your arithmetic. There are several proven solar thermal power plants in the Mojave desert that have been running for two decades.

Using the real-world efficiency of those plants and 100 exajoules (about 100 quads for those who like those units) for the US annual energy needs, we would need about 250,000 km^2 of collectors. The Continental US has an area of 7,000,000 km^2. So you would need less than 4% of the area. A far cry from your 50%.

The actual application of the collected energy to all of our needs would require some new technology, really mostly just engineering, for the storage of thermal energy in molten salts, and the conversion of electrical energy into portable transportation fuel. Methanol and DME are good choices, using water and CO2 from the air. This would introduce more inefficiencies for transportation. But even if I very conservatively add a factor of two overall, that's still just 8% of the land area. Not 50%.

Admittedly a daunting prospect. Imagine the entire Mojave desert, about 70,000 km^2 (1% of CONUS), completely covered with mirrors.

Someday I imagine one of the world's largest energy exporters will be Australia. It's vast deserts covered in collectors, with giant barges of methanol departing every day ...

By the way, here is one of the coolest diagrams ever made, which details the US energy sources and sinks in an incredibly useful and visual way:

US Energy Flow Trends - 2002

There is exactly one tiny working He-3 reactor in a lab in Wisconsin, which can today produce one milliwatt of energy output using one kilowatt of energy input. That researcher points out how difficult it is to obtain a He3-He3 reaction. He more easily runs the reactor in D-He3 mode, which however loses the only benefit of He3-He3, which is no neutrons.

This article nicely deals with the realities of He3 fusion. It is no panacea, even if we had readily accessible He3 here on Earth.

 

And there you have it. Thanks for the input. I like the flow chart, but it has the annoying habit of clearly showing how inefficiently we're using our energy resources.

 

I love that diagram! lol

 

I guess I'm one of those half-full people. I see all that inefficiency as free energy for the taking! All we need to do is increase our efficiency, which turns out isn't very expensive.

In fact, I hear that there is this new automotive technology with twice the efficiency, realized in the Toyota "Prius". Though perhaps that is off-topic for this forum ...

 

I would argue that you are incorrect. Where do most of our basic products come from again? Ohh yeah, we have our products built overseas and/or we get our resources from these other countries. That is exporting degradation. Prior to the industrial revolution degradation was mostly localized and did lead to the collapse of historic civilizations on nearly every landform. Globalization without checks and balances will lead to a global community collapse.

Regardless, technology without ecological literacy is dangerous and not condusive to life. Life trumps every other want or care in the world.

 

You are avoiding the issue of waste. What do you propose we do with the extra waste created by this excessive use of resources? Where do you suppose we get the money for all of this development for which we do not even have the technology for? You are also ignoring the multitude of ecological (including human sufferng) problems we currently have to deal with. Ironically your ideas are no different than those proposed by early settlers of nearly every human expansion project. Look where those ideologies got us. No, we need to learn how to live within the laws of nature before we try any more experiments with unlimited energy resources. Energy is just 1 very small issue in this world.