A cockup waiting to happen................

[Space cat]

One of the problems with this topic is that no one ever has the guts to suggest that maybe just maybe we should be thinking of trying to reduce what we use rather than simply looking at how to keep generating more and more.

That's the 'solar future' option. As far back as the eighties, it was generally agreed that the future would be either solar or nuclear. Yes, I know solar power IS nuclear but it's already up and running, it's located at a safe distance and it's completely maintenance free. Geothermal power somehow got left out but we can include it in the solar option because the problems of harvesting it are similar.

The solar future requires that we spread our energy collecting devices far and wide. Those 'devices' take many forms, some of them organic, but they all have one thing in common; they don't yield vast amounts of cheap energy, at least not compared to oil. Expensive energy will inevitably lead to us being a lot more frugal with it.

The nuclear future is still up for grabs. There are two ways to do it: the clean way and the dirty way. The clean way isn't so clean but the dirty way is very, very dirty. Moreover, the dirty way isn't so easy but the clean way is very, very hard. Whatever the difficulties, it's the only option that offers us energy off the scale of anything we have today and we'll certainly need it somewhere down the line. Some time in the next 5,000,000,000 years would be nice.

 

[Space cat]

What we need is a genetically engineered organism that can absorb vast amounts of CO2 from the coal burners and turn it into something useful, like water and somethign else. If we could invent a way to combine it with Urea ( (NH2)2CO ), you're pretty close to making ammonia based fertilisers, like Ammonium Nitrate ( NH4NO3 )which would be very useful, and far less damaging to the environment.

That's an interesting concept. CO2 and urea go in; ammonium nitrate and something else come out. That 'something else' must have all the carbon in it and, if you balance the equation, it's pure carbon. Unfortunately, you'll also have to put energy in, maybe as much as you got when you burnt the carbon in the first place. I'll leave the biochemists to sort that one out.

Does anyone remember 'Zeta' unlimited power from seawater, cold fusion, never gets mentioned now.

That's because it was utter b*ll*x; caused by the fusion of careless physicists with money-grubbing accountants. Quite a few major companies joined the mad rush and ended up with egg on their faces. A simple question would have put an end to the whole farce: WHERE'S THE HELIUM?

The exact details of what happened in that experiment will involve delving into the mysteries of electrochemistry, metal hydrides and monatomic hydrogen. Nuclear fusion it was not! There are many ways to achieve fusion without actually detonating an H-bomb but they're all bl**dy hot. Last time I looked, the Joint European Torus still held the world record for a sustained fusion reaction but K-Star aims to trump that.

 

[Nordio]

It's a God send that these new technologies are failing and long may they fail.
As they will only result in further population explosions and further conflict in the long run.
What the world needs is nuclear fusion alright. The kind that will wipe out about 75% of the worlds population.
But we seem to be heading that way anyway. The Iranians will soon have have their bomb built and in a few more years ready for distribution amongst the Muslim/Arab world ready to be unleashed on the western infidels.
Then cheap fuel and an abundance of resources for everyone.

 

[Lincsbodger]

One of the problems with this topic is that no one ever has the guts to suggest that maybe just maybe we should be thinking of trying to reduce what we use rather than simply looking at how to keep generating more and more.
Levy taxes on unnessasary electrical items,add an unnessasary transport tax to stop goods circumnavigating the globe, ban standby buttons,and consider rationing petrol and a host of other measures may need to be enacted, not popular possibly but probably needed.
Just this week on radio 4 I heard a conversation with an expert whose name I can't remember on the subject of wind and wave power. Given the enormous potential especially from wave power he predicted that we could, could, become a net exporter of power.
The genetically enginered organism that lincs mentioned was one of the applications being talked about with the recent "artifical DNA" experiments, designer bugs to make fuels and gobble up the CO2. Still a long way off as jet.

Yea but the scaling down option will kill us equally as well.

the point is no matter how miserly we are with our energy, if we stay on this planet we will run out. Thats what scaling down is - cutting technology = staying here = extinction.

The better solution long term is we invent a way to get off this planet and spread ourselves across the galaxy. Thats means more technology, not less.

 

[Deleted member 105431]

It's a God send that these new technologies are failing and long may they fail.
As they will only result in further population explosions and further conflict in the long run.
What the world needs is nuclear fusion alright. The kind that will wipe out about 75% of the worlds population.
But we seem to be heading that way anyway. The Iranians will soon have have their bomb built and in a few more years ready for distribution amongst the Muslim/Arab world ready to be unleashed on the western infidels.
Then cheap fuel and an abundance of resources for everyone.

You what?! Do you really think the Iranians will produce weapons and use them without being nuked/invaded first? You are even dumber than I gave you credit for.

 

[Deleted member 105431]

Nordio why don't you go over to Iran to help them so when we "western infidels" do nuke them we have one less parasite over here?

You sound like Islamic fundamentalist vermin, I suggest you go back to the arab world and live in a mudhut.

 

[Lincsbodger]

It's a God send that these new technologies are failing and long may they fail.
As they will only result in further population explosions and further conflict in the long run.
What the world needs is nuclear fusion alright. The kind that will wipe out about 75% of the worlds population.
But we seem to be heading that way anyway. The Iranians will soon have have their bomb built and in a few more years ready for distribution amongst the Muslim/Arab world ready to be unleashed on the western infidels.
Then cheap fuel and an abundance of resources for everyone.

Yes, but lets be brutally honest, they wont, will they Nordio. The arabs of the middle east cant even organise a small ambush, let alone a multinational war. There so lazy and useless, Saudi Arabia is littered with abandoned trucks with only minor problems like flat tyres, because they cant even do that simple task.

Look what happened when Lawrence of Arabia tried to unit the arabs in 1920. They were all quite happy blowing up trains and looting, but when it came to the Cairo Conference of 1923, they were singularly unable to think above the tribal level, and the whole thing fell to bits.

The fact is, the 3500 year long orgy of internecine throat slitting and camel stealing that the history of the middle east is means the chances of them suddenly uniting in a concerted war on the infidel is less likely to happen than Peter Mandelson giving all the bribes back. Given nuclear weapons, the arabs will turn on each other, turk against armenian, iraqi against iranian, shi-ite against sunni. Any exchange of nuclear weapons is only ever going to happen in and around the middle east. I thin kits a good idea, stand back and watch them all self destruct then just go in and mop up the survivors.

Your dreaming, Nordio, the arabs of the middle east are a bunch of primitive peasants with less organisational skills than the camels they steal, and thats all thanks to islam. Who was it who had to go throw the Iraqis out of Saudi Arabia? I didnt see the Palestinians or the Yemenese volunteering ?

 

[joe-90]

The better solution long term is we invent a way to get off this planet and spread ourselves across the galaxy. Thats means more technology, not less.

Which would, of course, mean breaking just about all the laws of science which won't happen will it?

 

[Lincsbodger]

The better solution long term is we invent a way to get off this planet and spread ourselves across the galaxy. Thats means more technology, not less.

Which would, of course, mean breaking just about all the laws of science which won't happen will it?

As even you are unable to predict the future accurately, joe.

Theres an old saying, ' if a famous scientist says something is impossible, then hes almost certainly wrong'. And history is littered with erudite men proclaiming something is impossible, only to be humiliated shortly afterwards. Once upon a day it was going to be impossible to travel faster than 60 mph because at that speed, according to the scientists of the day, you wouldn't be able to breathe cos the air woudl be going past so fast.

In an infinite universe, and given enough time, all possibilities will happen eventually. Thats why there life on this planet, no matter how improbable the chain of coincidences had to be before it happened. The fact is neither you ot me have any idea what future inventions there will be, and what they will permit - after all, you couldn't possibly have predicted the personal computer in 1920, or the jet engine, or robot surgery, for example. Science fiction, on the other hand, has a strange habit of coming true - Star Trek has several inventions in the 1960's that now actually exist - the personal communicator, the space shuttle, we're not far of something similar to universal pocket translator (google 'Lingo Talking Translator).

 

[joe-90]

Yes but none of those things ever broke a law of science did they? So why do you think something will in the future?

 

[Lincsbodger]

Yes but none of those things ever broke a law of science did they? So why do you think something will in the future?

You miss the point. Are you living under the misapprehension we know all the laws of science, and understand them completely?

There vast areas of science we utterly lack minimal understanding in. For example, we cant even come up with a theory of Quantum Gravity, how do you know the secret of faster than light travel doesnt liet within there?. We cant adequately describe what goes on at scales of less than 10^-43 cm and greater than 10^9 light years, neither can we guess what goes on at black hole mass densities. You are assuming we gain no more knowledge of the universe in the furure, in your statement, which is clearly unlikely. You simply dont know what paradigm shifts and new areas of science are round the corner. Who would have thought, for example that the key to a 300 year old mathematical problem like Fermats Last Theorum lay in an obscure concept in rational number theory called the Taniyama–Shimura–Weil conjecture, only 10 years old.

The fact is you have no idea of what might be in the future.

 

[joe-90]

Well give me an example of a law that was broken then.

 

[Lincsbodger]

Well give me an example of a law that was broken then.

Most proclamations that something is impossible are based on faulty knowledge of physical laws, i gave an example of scientists travelling 60 mph, declared impossible around 1900. You or I dont know what theories are correct and which are to be proved faulty. Every now and then, someone comes up with a new discovery that wipes out existing knowledge and rewrites the rules, a paradigm shift- the discovery of Plate Tectonics in the 1960's was an example, it rewrote the geology textbooks, another was the discovery that the earth goes round there sun, which rewrote the astronomy books of the time..

You are declaring something impossible on the basis of our current knowledge of physics. We dont know which of those laws are correct and which will be proven wrong, and in the light of a rewrite of rules you dont know what will suddenly become possible.

I think we've flogged this one to death now joe, your arguing about what may be, and you have no way of proving that your point will prevail into the far future, its all just speculation.

 

[ladylola]

Yea but the scaling down option will kill us equally as well.

the point is no matter how miserly we are with our energy, if we stay on this planet we will run out. Thats what scaling down is - cutting technology = staying here = extinction.

The better solution long term is we invent a way to get off this planet and spread ourselves across the galaxy. Thats means more technology, not less.

True enough but I only said to scale back our energy consumption not scale back our attempts to develope our energy prodcution.
We'll never get off this planet when we are more concerned about ensuring bananas are available all year round, being able to cut our dinner up without doing it manually and taking holidays all over the globe at a whim.Our government is having a war on financial waste, it's not a huge step to have a war on energy waste.

 

[joe-90]

The universe behaves as it does due to immutable laws that allow it to do so. The laws of science are simple observations of that universe in action.
It matters not what we are capable of comprehending at any one time - the laws still govern us. If they didn't - the universe would be a different place with a different set of laws.