In HR, we have a saying...

[Isard]

"If you can't do better, sit down and shut the **** up."

While this sounds harsh, its a simple concept to grasp. If you cannot do better, you shouldn't harass others over the job they do.

Lets bring this to a topic then.

Oil, people have a problem with it. A well founded problem.

So we start regulating, making sure we have backups, and backups for the backups. Accidents happen, lessons learned, and our foresight increases. (of course, companies that clean it up are just looking for PR)

Still you rail against them. Alright, they say, what if we used something else?

Nuclear power! Great, its wast products can be captured and sealed away without doing permanent harm to the environment, win win! Right?

Nope. Nuclear bad, apparently, just because it can be sealed away, doesn't mean its a good idea to some people. Perfection or GTFO.


Wind turbines?

Birds.


Uh... Okay... Underwater turbines, or a dam, something like that?


Fish.


We'll get this, hold on now...


Uhhh... Solar? Wait, not powerful enough... OR regular enough... And damned expensive, and not too environmentally friendly to start either...


Ethanol raises food prices...


See where this goes now?

So, next time you decide to shoot an idea down, please, have a proper alternative instead of just making a fuss. And on the topic, let's hear these magical ideas you have for solving the energy crisis without using oil, nuclear, wind, solar, ethanol, or dams/ocean currents. Because energy experts are all morons obviously if that's all they can come up with.

[James of terra]

I like all electrity, well I do like nuclear best. Don't ask, but I would have no job if was not for those fast moving electrons. Whatever theroy you use(whole, conventional, or electron.) , we need power. As a race we need, want and depend on it, as Isard says above, which it true, we must keep using what we have until, a better solution comes.

[Sonoran Na'vi]

I guess we'll just have to wait for cold fusion...

Originally Posted by Isard

While this sounds harsh, its a simple concept to grasp. If you cannot do better, you shouldn't harass others over the job they do.

I don't think I can support this statement. I prefer: If you don't know what you're talking about, you shouldn't harass others that do.

Which doesn't mean one shouldn't ask questions, just that one shouldn't talk with authority on a subject if they do not know about the subject they are speaking about (which seems to be a common occurrence).

[Woodsprite]

Me <3's thread.

Too long have I seen many topics here directed at the sole purpose of saying "aytawtute skxawng" for some accident that happened. This topic is a breath of fresh air.

[Banefull]

There is one very good solution that you rarely hear about with a lot of potential.

Its called the helium 3 reaction. Currently nuclear reactors utilize nuclear fission to heat up steam to turn a turbine. As much as I would like to see new nuclear power-plants, many people seem to have huge problems with the waste products.

For quite some time we have been attempting to harness the power of fusion which uses hydrogen to create heavier elements. The process does not involve any radioactive elements at all; however, excess neutrons produced in the process often severely damage the reactor.

One promising alternative is to use a different material for fusion called helium-3. Its a promising material that can sustain a fusion reaction with no harmful byproducts. The only problem with helium 3 is that its not found on Earth. Our only source of helium-3 comes from decommissioned nuclear weapons.

The only place that we can get helium 3 in large quantities is from the moon. An estimated 1,100,000 metric tons of helium-3 exist on the moon and its only buried a few meters deep. We hardly have to drill at all.

As things stand with our current technology, harvesting Helium-3 is actually economically viable. The stuff has so much potential for power generation that about 25 tonnes of helium-3 -- or a fully-loaded Space Shuttle cargo bay's worth -- could power the United States for a year. Yes, a few space shuttle shipments could power the world. Not to mention that helium-3 has a potential economic value of around $3 billion a tonne. (an interesting fact: helium-3 would price at $3 million a kilo, similar to Avatar's $20 million per kilogram with unobtanium; the price of unobtanium would be very realistic).

The stuff sounds almost too good to be true but many countries around the world have already announced plans to begin mining helium-3 within the next few decades.

To sum things up, if you want eco-friendly power, no waste products, sustainability for tens of thousands of years, then write to your governments to pump money into space programs.

[Elyannia]

Originally Posted by Banefull

The only place that we can get helium 3 in large quantities is from the moon. An estimated 1,100,000 metric tons of helium-3 exist on the moon and its only buried a few meters deep. We hardly have to drill at all.
.

Pandora?

[Banefull]

Originally Posted by Elyannia

Pandora?

I can't help but notice the parallels also. The only thing missing from this picture are 9-foot tall aliens.

[Isard]

There we go.

[James of terra]

Yes I remember, seeing on the science discovery channel, and how they are going to collect it, great point Baneful!

[Empty Glass]

Hmm, that sounds like a movie I was just watching the other day.

In all seriousness, that really is interesting, I feel like I haven't heard a lot about it.

[Stanley_9875]

Originally Posted by Empty Glass

Hmm, that sounds like a movie I was just watching the other day.

my friend and I were going to drive out to LA to see that but never got the chance XD

[Empty Glass]

Originally Posted by Stanley_9875

my friend and I were going to drive out to LA to see that but never got the chance XD

I wanted to see it in theaters too but I couldn't find one close enough; I watched it on Netflix. Pretty good if you've never seen it before.

[auroraglacialis]

Originally Posted by caveman

Billions of them...

Originally Posted by iron_jones

Implying you've never criticized anyone even when you couldn't do better.

^this!
I also want to mention that being forced to present an alternative puts you into a defense. Even if you DO present an alternative, let's say you advocate solar and wind instead of nuclear and coal, you still are in the defense because the people who want to stick to the status quo will turn the table on you and attack that alternative without giving a solution (except of course the status quo which obviously seems to work). You cannot win then even if you present an alternative...

You know that I have a different stance on this all, but I'll try not to start on this. My criticism is mostly directed at the dominant culture and the way it uses the tools it has.

In that sense I will deviate from my more hardcore stance here for the sake of this topic and present alternative solutions that are viable even though I do not see them realized in this culture and I doubt their sustainability in the long run - not to mention that I do not think there is a need for more energy consumption anyways.

So here is my take:
a) save energy. With easy methods and good organization a lot of energy can be saved. The light versions: paint roofs white, save energy on air conditioning. Do the same with cars and reduce gas useage. Insulate homes and reduce oil and gas consumption. The costs of insulating 50% of all homes in the US are dwarfing the cost for building new power plants. Use smaller cars, possibly hybrid. It is possible to drive more than 80 miles with a gallon of diesel fuel in a regular combustion engine. Build new houses so that they can catch sunlight during winter and reflect it during summer. Live closer to your workplace and drive less. Use public transportation. Use trains instead of airplanes. Use your bicycle for commuting or for doing groceries. Turn off lights, use LED lights, watch less TV, turn off appliances when not using them. Buy local food and save transportation energy. Buy organic and save energy put into fertilizers. Do not buy tropical fruit that arrived by airplane. Do your next vacation in a beautful spot not too far away instead of halfway around the globe. Put windows in roofs to let light enter and save on electric lights. Use a washing line instead of a laundry dryer if you do not really need it. Wash your clothes at lower temperatures. Carpool. Recycle. Use sails for ships (that is actually already used again). Accept downtime of some appliances or reduction in industrial production if energy production is low. do not place economic gain and convenience over efficiency and sustainability.

b) localized energy supply. Build solar thermal capture for homes and store the energy in water tanks for heating in the night. Use solar panels to give energy. Store the energy in rechargeable batteries or set timers for your appliances (washing machine, dishwasher) so they use the energy when production is maximum. Use shallow geothermal storage and sterling engines to gain energy and pump energy. Invest in sterling solar dishes (basically a large satellite dish with mirrors that focus energy onto a motor). Local energy production can be efficient and there is no need to transport and invoke transport losses.

c) globalized energy supply. Use DC landlines to transport solar and tidal energy or wind energy to other places in the continent at a much lower loss than AC. The sun always shines somewhere and the wind always blows somewhere. Create largescale solar thermal powerplants if needed. Energy can be stored in hydrogen or transported by DC landlines. Solar thermal energy does not require silicon and REEs, but mainly a set of mirrors, steel and glass and a collector. The collector can be a stirling motor again (up to 60% efficiency!). Add more geothermal where possible. Use algae grown in tubes in desert areas to create biofuels to supplement electric transport. Use waste organic materials (compost) to create biofuels and gas.

So that is a long list and ALL of these technologies are already used by some. There are large freighters supplemented by sails, there are houses that produce more energy than they need, there are solar stirling power plants in production, DC landlines are used to bring energy from the wind parks to the shore, there are plans to create timer devices that turn on the washing machine etc in times of energy production peaks. There are cars running 80 miles with a gallon and more.

So despite all that, it is not done. Taken aside whether I want cars and trains and air conditioning at all, it is puzzling why these things are not used. Most of them are around for 30 years. So you can now construct several axplanations.
a) they do not work as promised - that cant be it because there are people using them already
b) the people in power want to keep their power and economic gains and vote for centralized power production and increased consumption - they use propaganda and advertisement and lobbyism all that to keep that - that is true enough I'd say.
c) the whole culture is addiced to energy consumption and simply refuses to change - out of convenience, out of the idea that more is always better, out of strange cultural conventions according to which a bigger car is a bigger dick or a cool living room in summer is a symbol of status. That list I could make lengthy again but i think this is the main driver of it - together with some of b)

So that's another long post with plenty of alternatives. Now you can start nitpicking at each of them with about the same credibility you give me for disliking nuclear power or hydropower and we will not go anywhere I guess... but let's see it.

[Banefull]

Interesting fact:

Someone has already made a videogame about it.... as cheesy as it is.

[Woodsprite]

The great thing about our moon is: there's no life on it. Therefore, we can do whatever the hell we want to it without worrying about ethics... as long as we don't make it explode. That'd be a problem.