Why we have to start living more like the Na'vi now

[Moco Loco]

Originally Posted by Aquaplant

Anyhow, at least the waste would no longer be our concern once out there, but then again littering is not very nice. Space is pretty huge though, so I doubt anyone would notice...

Absolutely, I see no problem with dumping it into the sun or wherever, just as long as it never finds its way back to Earth in a horrible global shower of waste

[Clarke]

Originally Posted by auroraglacialis

I think a major problem is getting it there safely (e.g. without transports falling back to Earth).

Personally, I favour a railgun complex, but I can see why that wouldn't go down well. (Stick it in Neveda and it won't disturb the wildlife too much... )

The other is more theoretical, but I'd like to point out that the first people using oil were pretty much convinced that there is no way doing that could change the atmosphere of the whole planet, after all it is unimaginably huge and no one would notice... Another silly though was, what would we think if an object from outer space would come into the solar system after some thousand years of travel and we would find it, man a multi billion dollar expedition - to find out it is a huge barrel of still radioactive waste heading for the inner planets

If you are that concerned, give it enough push to reach the Sun's escape velocity; that's a mathematical guareentee that it's never coming back ever again. This is rather excessive for practical purposes, however.

However, I just looked up the numbers, and it is indeed easier to drop into the Sun than to escape the system entriely. I was getting confused with the situation in LEO. (The sun will also hadly notice you dropping a few kilotons of Uranium into it; AFAIK, it wouldn't notice much if you dropped the entire planet Earth into it)

I dont get what the spherical cow has to do with that one, but I guess you talk about nuclear fuel reprocessing.

Yeah, sorry, copypaste fail on my part.

This basically means to remove unusable substances from spent fuel, make new fuel from the rest and also include plutonium int he fuel mix. I think this is not easy and not without risk, especially handling plutonium. A 60-fold increase would mean that the world at current rate of electricity consumption could run 600 years when producing all its electricity by nuclear power (that is an upper estimate, starting at 200 years of Uranium reserves at present day production, a 60-fold increase by reprocessing, a 20-fold increase of the percentage of nuclear power in electricity generation from now 5% to 100%). World energy demand is likely to multiply within that timeframe though, effectively reducing the runtime of this to maybe 1-2 centuries. This is using total reserves - peak production would probably be reached a lot sooner - just as peak oil will come long before oil really is all used up and the peak is what makes a resource undesireable afterwards. 1-2 centuries are impressive but not something to rely on for the future. It can at best be a "bridge technology".

This is taking into account that uranium is not the only fissle element?

I dont think that this is necessarily scaremongering. It may be so when one talks about some bunch of extremestis building a bomb in their garage, but on a larger picture - nuclear war is a major threat to the world. Just look at the whole deal with Iran and Israel right now. Also China and India are about to fight over water resources in the Himalaya - both having "the bomb". Everyone is scared of using it, but that does not mean no one will. Also as I mentioned before - in a conventional war, a country that has nuclear facilities has severe liabilities with these installations. They would have to be protected at all cost, even if that means whole cities being destroyed elsewhere. And if they do not manage to provide that protection - well I dont want to see that one...

Why would a nuclear power plant have to be defended over the top of anything else? It doesn't make sense to break it into to steal warhead fuel, and even if you did, it takes a relatively long time to build new warheads/bombs.

(And the problem is that nuclear terrorism is a tactical thing - strategic nuclear war has nothing to do with whether or not the US should build breeder reactors)

Just imagine the UN would now start to invade Iran because they are building the bomb - and someone hits the wrong part of the production facility because intelligence was wrong - large parts of that country would be irradiated.

It would, AFAIK, be cleaner than Fukishima. Modern reactors, and even older designs, simply do not melt down - it is a physical impossibility built into the reactor design.

Well maybe that map is wrong, but looking at it, no part of the map has a value lower than 700. So you'd need a 3m solar dish. I think there is still plenty of room for those. But for the UK I think at least a partial use of wind power makes more sense anyways.

I'm not sure it's entirely wrong, but it's definitely suspect. I just ran my own calculations with Wolfram Alpha's values, and the average solar energy hitting Earth is around 1300W/m^2, so I can't possibly see how any place can have >700 once you take night into account. This is obviously not taking into account the weather, which can only decrease that value.

Thermal energy storage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Didn't know about that, thanks.

Oh no doubt. And if you go inside that Orbit it is even better. Or you could create a huge fresnel lens and bundle the light of the sun onto the moon and ... ah whatever... SciFi

Don't be so dismissive. Science fiction is already reality, it's just not very well distrubuted. (Across reality or science fiction)

But seriously - fusion power is "just around the corner" for the past about 25 years I took interest in that topic. It always is just 20 years away from application. This is the "20 year constant" as me and some physicist friends call it. What happens is that always new challenges pop up. If you also have a subscription to Scientific American, there was an article in there on that just last year: Fusion's False Dawn: Scientific American

One citation, ergo one that backs up your point more than mine. I misremembered the date, but AFAIK, there's no reason that DEMO shouldn't work.

Personally I'd like to see a lot less of these machines, but as everyone keeps pointing out, this is only possible with a strong reduction in energy demand.

If you look backwards, you'll see that history has basically progressed down the path of "more control over energy." There'd have to be a really good reason to change that; more than just preserving the Earth.

Oh really?

OK, I was exaggerating slightly, but I hope you understand what I mean. If you extend that logic, you end up saying "Why should I pay taxes to build a road ina different city?" and things like that.

Yeah I know. "They can move"....

... unless eventually there are no places left to move to (or they are sold at a premium to the rich).

That's the whole point of nuclear over other things; they're more efificient, therfore there's less of them.

[Aquaplant]

Originally Posted by auroraglacialis

erm, sorry, but what we are sitting on is pretty useful, given that it is the reason we are alive in the first place and stay so for some 8 decades after we are born? I'd call that pretty darn useful!

Well maybe it's useful, but it's also pretty trivial. Why do we have so much of just rock? Couldn't there be something a bit more useful?

Ok, that is a mean cut of your quote but I think it is not giving a completely wrong picture...

Are you implying that I have an addiction? Well one doesn't need to imply anything, seeing as I'm practically glued to the computer chair, but that's the way I roll.

Originally Posted by Clarke

Space is big. Very big. You might think it's a long way down the street to the chemist's... Unless it happens to be entering your solar system, you probably won't even be able to see it, that's how big space is and/or how small any man-made object is.

"Space, says the introduction to the guide, is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind bogglingly big it is. And so on."

[Clarke]

Originally Posted by Aquaplant

Well maybe it's useful, but it's also pretty trivial. Why do we have so much of just rock? Couldn't there be something a bit more useful?

You'll suport someone trying to build one of these, then?

"Space, says the introduction to the guide, is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind bogglingly big it is. And so on."

*high-four*

[Aquaplant]

Originally Posted by Clarke

You'll suport someone trying to build one of these, then?

That is SO... AWESOME...

[auroraglacialis]

Originally Posted by Clarke

Personally, I favour a railgun complex, but I can see why that wouldn't go down well. (Stick it in Neveda and it won't disturb the wildlife too much... )

Hey, stick it in New York and it wont disturb the wildlife much at all. Or Los Angeles.

My concern would be in general that some day it will go wrong - some miscalculation, technical failures and the stuff crashes on the ground or is dispersed in the air. A few kilos of plutonium for example (and same is likely for other wastes as well) dispersed in the atmosphere could kill many millions.

If you are that concerned, give it enough push to reach the Sun's escape velocity;

I was more making a bit of a joke - imagine some other civilization would have dumped their waste like that - tens of thousands of barrels and one of them happens to cross our solar system and is detected - maybe in 50 years when telescopes easily spot such objects... Obviously the likelihood is minute, so take it as a joke or fiction scenario.

This is taking into account that uranium is not the only fissle element?

No, this was only about the presently commercially available technology, but under the assumption of a 60-fold increase by reprocessing, which of course includes the use of the reprocessed elements like plutonium and what else is included in that calculation.

Why would a nuclear power plant have to be defended over the top of anything else? It doesn't make sense to break it into to steal warhead fuel

Protected as a strategic target. If someone sends bombers into a country that has nuclear power plants running or reprocessing plants - guess what will play out then. I think these plants are a prime target for conventional weaponry because it maximizes damage by spreading nuclear substances akin to a dirty bomb as well as bind army forces on the ground who will be required to contain the contamination of a destroyed reactor. So obviously any defensive measures will have to target attacks on these plants first before they can lets say attack the other bomber squad that is targetting a city.

(And the problem is that nuclear terrorism is a tactical thing - strategic nuclear war has nothing to do with whether or not the US should build breeder reactors)

nuclear power was created for the purpose of military use first - the "peaceful atom" was an attempt to get some justification to continue with this technology. Especially reprocessing plants are creating bomb grade material - plutonium.
Of course it would in theory be possible to not use these materials, but no country that I am aware of has nuclear power plants and not at some point also developed nuclear weapons. So giving nuclear power to a country will eventually result in it becoming a nuclear war power. This is why everybody is making such a fuss about Iran these days...

It would, AFAIK, be cleaner than Fukishima. Modern reactors, and even older designs, simply do not melt down - it is a physical impossibility built into the reactor design.

[citation needed]

I'm not sure it's entirely wrong, but it's definitely suspect. I just ran my own calculations with Wolfram Alpha's values, and the average solar energy hitting Earth is around 1300W/m^2, so I can't possibly see how any place can have >700 once you take night into account. This is obviously not taking into account the weather, which can only decrease that value.

That is because average solar energy hitting Earth already includes the term "average" - which in my interpretation now would mean that it includes an averaging of day and night and probably also clouds.

Don't be so dismissive. Science fiction is already reality, it's just not very well distrubuted. (Across reality or science fiction)

But it does not always play out like it was envisioned. No one was thinking of telephones that can be used to play games but rather flying cars - so anything one can make up now may or may not pan out, most likely something entirely different will happen.

One citation, ergo one that backs up your point more than mine. I misremembered the date, but AFAIK, there's no reason that DEMO shouldn't work.

I like how it says "the wastes produced in this way will have much shorter half lives than the waste from fission reactors, with wastes remaining harmful for less than one century.[citation needed] " - especially the "citation needed"
Other problems with that technology as mentioned in the article I tried to link (I have the german version on paper) are that it will actually consume lithium, not tritium and deuterium from sea water. Lithium however is a limited resource (and one used for batteries in future electric cars to a degree that it may become very expensive and rare). Also as of yet, no material has been found that can reliably withstand the radiation of the fusion, capture it reliably and pass the heat on to the Lithium. All the tested materials became brittle and decayed fast. Thats a problem if the thing is going to last for some years until these, then radioactive parts, will have to be exchanged. Another problem seems to be the ratio of neutrons emitted in fusion and neutrons captured by the lithium. It seems that the lithium bascially would have to catch all the neutrons of the reaction to produce enough tritium to fuel the reaction again...

good reason to change that; more than just preserving the Earth.

I think this is a very very very good reason. Actually it is a knockout reason... After all we depend on Earth and certainly will do so for the next decades.

That's the whole point of nuclear over other things; they're more efificient, therfore there's less of them.

Efficiency alone does not solve it - because all too often, more efficient and cheaper energy production means just lead to an increase in consumption. At prices and availability and efficiency of coal fired electricity in the 1920ies, no one would really just leave the TV running when going to the supermarket unless one is rich enough. All too often, it is not demand that pulls availability after itself, but it is the other way round - if you make abundant cheap energy available, people will find ways to use it (for often senseless and wasteful purposes)

[auroraglacialis]

Errata: I actually made a mistake in my solar calculations. The numbers I worked with are off by a bit. The reason was that I did not read the charts properly (surprised no one else found this out ) . So what the chart says is in fact that there are around 1200 (Spain well over 2000, Scotland about 700) kWh/m² coming to the ground. That includes an average over nights and days and includes clouds and seasons. The average use of electricity a single person household in Germany is about that (1200kWh), so for one person, a circle with 1m20 diameter would provide enough raw energy, a dish of about 2m would be enough given 30% efficiency. That does however not include industry and public electricity consumption. In my original calculation above, I was implying that this would also be included in the 2-3 meter dish per person. Private household energy consumption is about 1/5 to 1/4 of the electricity consumption of the country. So to fuel that demand, about 5 m² for Germany and about 10m² for Scotland would provide the raw energy needed. At 30% efficiency that would triple these numbers to 15 resp 30 m² per Person. That would actually be a 4m resp a 6m dish per person if all electricity of all industry is included.
That would not literally have to translate to 4m dishes standing on the roofs of all private houses and such, but they could also be on top of commercial and industrial buildings or alongside roads etc. In general this was also more of a number game to show that even in this case, a 4m diameter dish per person is not all that much. In a future renewable energy mix of course that would be amended by wind and biogas and demand could be reduced by at least 30% with higher efficient processes in industry, commercial appliances, transportation and private households.

[Clarke]

Originally Posted by auroraglacialis

Hey, stick it in New York and it wont disturb the wildlife much at all. Or Los Angeles.

The hypersonic booms would be a noise and air traffic control hazard, unfortunately.

I was more making a bit of a joke - imagine some other civilization would have dumped their waste like that - tens of thousands of barrels and one of them happens to cross our solar system and is detected - maybe in 50 years when telescopes easily spot such objects... Obviously the likelihood is minute, so take it as a joke or fiction scenario.

As well as the fact that space is so incredibly huge we could dump kilotons of the stuff into orbit around the Sun and not notice for thousands of years.

Protected as a strategic target. If someone sends bombers into a country that has nuclear power plants running or reprocessing plants - guess what will play out then.

Not a lot? Radiation shielding works both ways, after all. Conventional bombs don't do much against metres of solid concrete. Fukishima would have worked perfectly had there not been a tsunami. It was correctly designed to withstand an earthquake of that size, and bombs are a lot smaller than earthquakes.

[citation needed]

Unfortunately I can't find a specific one, which is rather annoying. Have a general article on it instead. Considering there's redundancies on top of redundancies in an almost Yo-Dawg fashion, it certainly looks secure enough for almost everything except the perfect disaster.

That is because average solar energy hitting Earth already includes the term "average" - which in my interpretation now would mean that it includes an averaging of day and night and probably also clouds.

I calculated it using average solar output; it was the maximum possible energy falling on Earth.

But it does not always play out like it was envisioned. No one was thinking of telephones that can be used to play games but rather flying cars - so anything one can make up now may or may not pan out, most likely something entirely different will happen.

It almost never works as it is envisioned; it usually works better. Nobody would have imagined the Internet in 1950, but that's because it was so ridiculous as to be inconceivable, not because it was too short-sighted.

Another problem seems to be the ratio of neutrons emitted in fusion and neutrons captured by the lithium. It seems that the lithium bascially would have to catch all the neutrons of the reaction to produce enough tritium to fuel the reaction again...

Self-fuelling reactors are hardly necessary. We can get plenty of fuel out of the sea. (And I don't know where you'd get the idea that it fuses lithium, since that'd be very much harder than fusing deuterium.)

I think this is a very very very good reason. Actually it is a knockout reason... After all we depend on Earth and certainly will do so for the next decades.

Type I civilisations don't. To the future?

Efficiency alone does not solve it - because all too often, more efficient and cheaper energy production means just lead to an increase in consumption. At prices and availability and efficiency of coal fired electricity in the 1920ies, no one would really just leave the TV running when going to the supermarket unless one is rich enough. All too often, it is not demand that pulls availability after itself, but it is the other way round - if you make abundant cheap energy available, people will find ways to use it (for often senseless and wasteful purposes)

There's a limit to the amount of energy people will use.

[Aquaplant]

Originally Posted by auroraglacialis

Efficiency alone does not solve it - because all too often, more efficient and cheaper energy production means just lead to an increase in consumption. At prices and availability and efficiency of coal fired electricity in the 1920ies, no one would really just leave the TV running when going to the supermarket unless one is rich enough. All too often, it is not demand that pulls availability after itself, but it is the other way round - if you make abundant cheap energy available, people will find ways to use it (for often senseless and wasteful purposes)

Efficiency is like the best thing ever, when you can get so much stuff done with relatively little energy, like it is with computers today.

You know that not everyone is an enormous energy hog. For example, I just need to keep my computer on as much as possible(read all the time), to see something via light sources and be able to keep myself warm down here in the cold, dark north. I must admit that I have a soft spot for aesthetics lights, especially when it is really dark here, but currently I do not have any plans in mind for energy powered vanity.

I mean come on, how are we supposed to make anything better in this world if we assume that every progress will always be offset by stupidity of the masses? Like Clarke said, there's a certain limit to personal energy consumption, because even the stuff that consumes energy usually costs money in itself, so we can always count on money to keep people in check, as sad as it is.

[Dognik]

Originally Posted by Aquaplant

Efficiency is like the best thing ever, when you can get so much stuff done with relatively little energy, like it is with computers today.

You know that not everyone is an enormous energy hog. For example, I just need to keep my computer on as much as possible(read all the time), to see something via light sources and be able to keep myself warm down here in the cold, dark north. I must admit that I have a soft spot for aesthetics lights, especially when it is really dark here, but currently I do not have any plans in mind for energy powered vanity.

I mean come on, how are we supposed to make anything better in this world if we assume that every progress will always be offset by stupidity of the masses? Like Clarke said, there's a certain limit to personal energy consumption, because even the stuff that consumes energy usually costs money in itself, so we can always count on money to keep people in check, as sad as it is.

Energy Efficiency has always to be compared to the absolute Energy Consumption. And as you see there are every day more new and more efficient engines and other stuff, but the Energy consumption has never become less, it was always growing, even in Europe where they have more and more restrictions and watching to be more efficient and using less energy. The Fact is that the Chart of Energy consumption per Year has become a little bit more flat, but has never become negative. With negative i mean less consumption.

Btw, this discussion is great.

[Aquaplant]

Originally Posted by Dognik

Energy Efficiency has always to be compared to the absolute Energy Consumption. And as you see there are every day more new and more efficient engines and other stuff, but the Energy consumption has never become less, it was always growing, even in Europe where they have more and more restrictions and watching to be more efficient and using less energy. The Fact is that the Chart of Energy consumption per Year has become a little bit more flat, but has never become negative. With negative i mean less consumption.

Btw, this discussion is great.

What are energy efficient engines? As far as cars are concerned, they are as primitive as pitchforks, since their technology hasn't evolved worth a damn since the 60s. But I do not know much about cars, nor care about, other than when I have to drive one, but I digress.

I'm only a computer hardware geek, and my latest subject to geek about has been power consumption now that I have my awesome energy efficient Sandy Bridge, but then I look at graphs like these, and go :<

Still, my 2500K is the second best when it comes to efficiency. It may not have the lowest idle consumption, but I have to be able to do more than just browse the internet on this machine, so I also need the computing power that is absent from the D525 and E-350.

Now to get f@h running for the night...

[Dognik]

Originally Posted by Aquaplant

What are energy efficient engines? As far as cars are concerned, they are as primitive as pitchforks, since their technology hasn't evolved worth a damn since the 60s. But I do not know much about cars, nor care about, other than when I have to drive one, but I digress.

I'm only a computer hardware geek, and my latest subject to geek about has been power consumption now that I have my awesome energy efficient Sandy Bridge, but then I look at graphs like these, and go :<

Still, my 2500K is the second best when it comes to efficiency. It may not have the lowest idle consumption, but I have to be able to do more than just browse the internet on this machine, so I also need the computing power that is absent from the D525 and E-350.

Now to get f@h running for the night...

Computers don`t consume so much, in households most energy is spent on heating you know.

[Aquaplant]

Originally Posted by Dognik

Computers don`t consume so much, in households most energy is spent on heating you know.

I know, and that is why I hate being such high maintenance mammal with overly high ambient temperature that needs so much catering. I'd rather be a plant that can easily survive as long as it is above freezing, like somewhere around +5C to +10C. Alternatively I could be a dog or a cat with a thick fur coat, so I wouldn't need the 20+ room temperature despite being a mammal, but no, I had to be born a hairless ape who has little to no tolerance for cold. I wear two wool shirts inside, wool socks, a scarf and it's still cold for me despite temperature being +22C.

Then again I know lots of humans who are like immune to cold for some reason, how they walk outside without a wool hat, or a hat of any kind in winter and wear just jeans when it's like below -20C or so. The mere thought of it makes me shiver. Maybe I should just turn myself into a pine tree and be done with it, because it's almost always way too cold in here.

[Dognik]

Originally Posted by Aquaplant

I know, and that is why I hate being such high maintenance mammal with overly high ambient temperature that needs so much catering. I'd rather be a plant that can easily survive as long as it is above freezing, like somewhere around +5C to +10C. Alternatively I could be a dog or a cat with a thick fur coat, so I wouldn't need the 20+ room temperature despite being a mammal, but no, I had to be born a hairless ape who has little to no tolerance for cold. I wear two wool shirts inside, wool socks, a scarf and it's still cold for me despite temperature being +22C.

Then again I know lots of humans who are like immune to cold for some reason, how they walk outside without a wool hat, or a hat of any kind in winter and wear just jeans when it's like below -20C or so. The mere thought of it makes me shiver. Maybe I should just turn myself into a pine tree and be done with it, because it's almost always way too cold in here.

HAHA Don`t make yourself crazy, we have the right and its ok to warm ourselves. Its nothing bad about it. And I believe that the problem is not one persons need for heat, its more the mass of energy consumers, and most of the energy systems are way very old, and no one spends money(i mean the big companies) to renew their systems.
And you know the "Old school"-system with having an oven and burning some pieces of wood, which is renewable for a onefamilyhouse is the most romantic and most natural way to heat.
Any one better ideas?

[Aquaplant]

Originally Posted by Dognik

HAHA Don`t make yourself crazy, we have the right and its ok to warm ourselves. Its nothing bad about it. And I believe that the problem is not one persons need for heat, its more the mass of energy consumers, and most of the energy systems are way very old, and no one spends money(i mean the big companies) to renew their systems.
And you know the "Old school"-system with having an oven and burning some pieces of wood, which is renewable for a onefamilyhouse is the most romantic and most natural way to heat.
Any one better ideas?

I can't make myself crazy, I already am.

Actually there are about 4 fireplaces in this particular house, although one is a kiuas in sauna, so it doesn't really count in my opinion. And while it is used for heating, because it, and sauna has to be hot, it's still not something that can be used to warm other parts of the house, unlike the other three fireplaces.

It's a pretty good support system aside from one part, the fuel, that is wood, has to be manually always gathered, stored, cut to smaller pieces and then taken inside for use, so it's not really easy, even though it is indeed romantic and natural.

And now I'm sad because my mind goes to places where I can't follow...