Nuclear Energy, Clean Coal, Sterling Engines etc

Do you undertand the basics of poplation growth and societal development? There are plenty of data that show a relationship between an increase in education, empowerment of women, social security and a decrease in birth rate. It's all a blancing act. Too many people and too much affluence is a recipe for disaster because the other modifier in the I=PAT formula (technology) is too often used for destructive or frivilous purposes like iPods and 26" rims.

I think many western EU countries prove that a decrease in consumption and proper utilization of technology does not mean a decrease in standard of living. In fact it proves to increase standard of living. The U.S. is a perfect example of how a ton of money (highest GDP) doesn't equal the best standard of living.

Ultimately it is a moot point because your ideas do not work within the framework of biological and geographical systems currently ruling the planet so they should not be truely entertained IMO. At least not yet..

 

Art and music do not require heavy technology. The cave paintings of Lascaux are proof of that. In fact I would argue that true art and devestation do not go hand in hand and would go as far as to say degradation is antithetical to art. Art is all around us and evident for anyone who understands such things. Music comes in many forms. Music comes in the form of a gentleman playing a harmonica to the whisper of a lover or the roar of a waterfall as it crashes over a precipice. No, iPods are not essential to life, neither are cds nor boomboxes. That was a rediculous statement. My girlfriend is an art/law major BTW. lol

You are changing the subject to divert attention away from the fact that you do not understand the hydrologic, carbon, biological, or any other natural cycle. Since astronomy is not my specialty I chose not to critisize your moon resource agrument but since Madler has conveniently done so would you care to offer a rebuttal for his argument?

Sorry this comes across as busting your chops but incredible claims require incredible proof, as the saying goes, and your claims are not holding up to scrutiny.

 

China is quietly pouring hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars into its Moon program (and likely doing it on the cheap by ignoring public safety and environmental impact). NASA knows it and publicly says so. The U.S. Government's executive and legislative branches know it and publicly say so. China will have people on the Moon within ten years. China is very likely to have a Moon base within twenty years. Once the Moon base is there, it's a short leap to mining He-3 and sending it Earth bound. Relative to anything except high-grade fission material, the qty-to-energy output ratio of He-3 is way off the scale. If the U.S. sits on its hands, the Chinese will have He-3 reactors on line within 25 years. If that is allowed to happen, the Chinese will own the world economy, will far and away be the biggest seller of energy, and will quickly transform into the largest financial and military superpower ever seen. Not exactly pleasant thoughts given China's "feelings" about democratic government and individual rights and freedom. If naysayers and the "it's too hard" crowd are allowed to steer U.S. space programs and expenditures over the next two decades, then the U.S. will likely seal its fate as an arrogant, self-absorbed also-ran.

 

If I may ask, then where does your logic take you in regards to Nicholas Negroponte and OLPC?
http://laptopgiving.org/en/index.php

 

At face value I see it as another form of deceptive capitalism since someone is making money on the systems. Environmentally it also poses problems. Do children in developing nations require computers to learn? What kind of content are they allowed to browse? Computers are good and evil. Simply contrast the student who uses one to research a preject and one who spends 80hrs a week playing WoW.

Again, computers are nice but not required for life. Although this hits a certain gray area where if used intelligently and powered off sunlight then the benefits may outweigh the drawbacks. I've not studied it in depth so I cannot comment further.

 

This is just another arms race which leads us to further exacerbate real global issues because of an implied or imagined threat. There are real problems here and now. Let's see, space programs to the exclusion of the billions currently on our planet that go without clean water or a safe place to use the bathroom at night. Hmmmm

Would you downsize your life and/or take a pay cut to fund such an expensive project? I've done it to further my visions.

 

Guess we are going to build huge "irrigation canals" from Europa to the Earth?

If people refuse to give up their cushy lifestyles so that others can live a safe and healthy life then F'em, they deserve to perish IMO. Global collapse and we can start all over again. Until that day I will work towards a more sustainable future with currently realistic goals and lessen my ecological impact.

 

Not so. A great many people are downsizing once they better understand the implications of high consumption rates. I'm one of them. I owned fast cars/trucks and a large house. I've changed my opinions on what is truely important in life and I no longer feel like I need such material trappings. Many people I know have done the same or gone through the mind change. Extreme Materialism is not hardwired into us. In fact many indigenous cultures show exactly the opposite effect in that their greatest source of pride and status is in giving to others and not hording for themselves. I study Biology/Ecology and am learning quite a bit about anthropology and evolutionary processes as well.

I'm just thankful you recognize the lack of resources on this planet and the population problem. I think your ideas are much to far fetched for our current state of civilization and the pressing problems of the earth crisis will make any progress towards your goals unlikely until we correct them. For now I'll have to respectfully disagree with you in terms of the correct path.

If you would like more information on the ecological problems I am refering to here is a huge report put together by the UN.

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment ~ Main site with links to the large reports

Statement of the MA Board ~ short version

"The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment assessed the consequences of ecosystem change for human well-being. From 2001 to 2005, the MA involved the work of more than 1,360 experts worldwide. Their findings provide a state-of-the-art scientific appraisal of the condition and trends in the world’s ecosystems and the services they provide, as well as the scientific basis for action to conserve and use them sustainably."

 

I readily concede that it could work, albeit with a staggering investment and questionable ROI given the current state of politics on both sides of the aisle. Personally, I would love to see it happen. However, investors on that scale aren't exactly doing back flips and falling over each other wanting to install hundreds or thousand of square miles of solar panels with a peak efficiency around 10-12% (and that only during peak daylight hours). Now make that efficiency more like 25% and it's a whole different ball game. But if we are serious, then there needs to be huge federal and state tax incentives to make such investments a no brainer. There also needs to be another Govt-funded "Manhattan" project with a general goal of energy independence, more specific goals like improved solar energy conversion technologies, and highly-visible oversight/accountability. Only then, after much publicly-funded R&D, are we likely to see real fruit. If it were so easy today, then those solar arrays would exist, plain and simple. But reality is that it's not easy, it's incredibly expensive to build the infrastructure, and maintenance and scheduled replacement costs are large. But, like I already said, those barriers could be eliminated overnight, right now, with a few simple tax laws that create huge, permanent financial incentives for electricity providers to shift their focus from coal, natural gas, and oil over to solar.

As far as after-dark energy storage goes, even if we had the technology, I am not a fan of creating and charging capacitors the size of towns or cities. A person need not do more than short out a charged capacitor the size of their pinky nail to realize the potential consequences. A better idea would be to install capacitors at the end points (houses and businesses) with enough capacity to last for one day or so. Obviously, these capacitors would need safety features to protect against shorting and explosive discharge. And recycling them has to be made mandatory by law.

I intentionally leave wind turbine technology out of my discussion, since the presence of wind is undependable and forever relegates wind turbines to a sub-15% supplemental role. And large wind turbines are a heck of a lot more complicated and expensive to install and maintain versus solar arrays.

 

Ya know, something humorous just hit me about the small group of us exchanging rib shots back and forth in this thread. Between us, there seems to be more intelligence, knowledge, and common sense than all of the Washington, D.C. "think" tank combined. It makes me wonder what the U.S. could accomplish if had our pols had their priorities straight.

By the way, great arguments and counter arguments. Very refreshing. Cheers to everyone for having their thinking caps on!

 

I'll appologize for momentary bouts of disrespect.

 

You don't need capacitors for storage. Nor do you need batteries, flywheels, or pumping water uphill. As I said in my post, you would use thermal storage.

Large-scale solar thermal collection has many advantages over large-scale photovoltaic, including cost, efficiency, and the ability to store the thermally collected energy in, essentially, big thermos bottles. Then the thermal energy can be converted to electricity when needed many hours later. The current approach is to use molten nitrate salts.

 

I wonder about adapting current steam turbine gas and coal fired power stations to use solar heat during daylight and carbon based fuels when solar isn’t sufficient in the interim. Kind of a hybrid power station. All you need to run these things is steam, if the steam comes from solar or hydrocarbons the turbine doesn't care. Even when solar energy isn’t sufficient to create steam it can be used to pre-heat the water before being further heated by conventional means.

Once again this isn't the answer but as power stations tend to have vacant land near them and weather forecasting should allow predictive switching between modes this could be a low cost way of extending the current energy resource and at the same time reducing the cost of extra infrastructure.

China has massive coal reserves so I can't see them seriously spending huge money on alternative energy exploration any time soon.

Right now we need to extract as much renewable energy from the environment as we can to extend the use of fossil fuels, I doubt the use of fossil fuel will be eliminated in mine or my sons lifetime but the technology exists to reduce that use while we look for more answers.

The growth of the worlds population isn't accelerating but slowing. As infant mortality fall and more people are educated and rely less on offspring to assure a comfortable later life they have less need to have many children. Unfortunately those more educated people seek a more western lifestyle placing a greater load on the limited resources of this planet. Who are we to deny them our lifestyle?

We can't force others to use less all we can do is set the example as individuals and societies and shout loudly of the benefits to encourage others to follow.

Sorry, no references just ravings of an uneducated person who should have been in bed 2 hours ago.

 

i 2nd that thought.

i think we all need to realize that the ONLY real solution to our problems is to realize that there is not a golden egg out there that will cure our ills... what we need is a basketful of silver ones...

all here post with great conviction and the reason is that you are all right to a degree. no one is completely right and simply cant be. the issue is too complex.

as far as what we should do, we should do what we can do. solar, wind, water is proven and should be implemented to the nth degree immediately. just keep the bean counters out of the equation and we will be fine.

other technologies that "look" good should be pursued no doubt and that will cost another round of investments that will cost trillions... but we have no choice, we have to spend the money but what else is money for?

to put this in perspective, lets address a few questions...

1) how many of you decided not to buy a Prius because it was not the "golden egg?" after all, it still burns gas we buy from the middle east...

2) how many of you decided not to buy a Prius because Li-ion is better, or plug in was better??

so why should we change our thinking now?? we got a pretty decent start on the path of curing the issues and doing the right thing and it worked, why change a good thing now?

 

Great idea! That's what the SEGS plants have been doing for about two decades. As you observed, the electricity generating hardware for a natural gas plant and a solar thermal plant are identical. So the SEGS plants have in addition to the solar thermal collectors, natural gas burners to make steam to drive the turbines.

 

There are two branches of solar power that are needed and coming:

1) The creation of local, home roof PV arrays to supply local households power for a great many low power items and direct solar hot water/home heating. There is more of a cultural problem to overcome here than technical issues.

2) The creation of big, thermal concentration solar plants. For example, using solar concentration to heat molten metal (e.g. sodium) that can continue to run turbines long after the sun has set is being worked out. One of the more interesting problems has been coming up with methods to keep the concentrator mirrors clean. Someone will figure it out.

To make this work at a local level requires the individuals (you and I) to become more educated on reducing electrical consumption to levels that can be sustained by home solar systems. To make this work at an industrial level requires both voting for leaders that are educated (Dem or Rep or Other) and voting with the wallet where possible. (e.g. Buying a Prius is a vote with your wallet.)