Kevin's Watch

This one surprised me. Apparently plant matter decay in the region flooded to make a resevoir produces greenhouse gas - in some cases levels as high or higher than those produced with fossil fuels.

Linky


(Edit:Just thought, does this environment stuff belong in the Think-Tank?)

Technically it does, but it doesn't worry me.

Damn, that's bad news. I too was surprised. Guess it's partly because of the "lazy" way that artificial dams are created. If they'd cleared the land first, it'd probably be much less of a problem. (Not that they knew it would happen.)

Whats the next alternative going to be? I've alwasy felt that solar power was woefully under-used.

--A

Currently solar power isn't really a winner, cheifly because of the poor quality sunlight we get down here on terra firma. In space however, solar power is far, far more effective. For some years there has been talk of building giant solar collecting arrays in geosynchronous orbits around the planet, then transmitting the energy to recieving stations on te ground. Apart from the obvious expense and opposition from oil producers the problem is getting the power back down here. A series of gigantic insulated cables would provide a considerable hazard to air traffic and the proposed method of arcing the electricity from the array to a huge mast on the ground seems frightening. First because SimCity 2000 has firmly planted in my mind the notion of what might happen if the beam were to miss (citizens of Seattle, Toronto, Paris and anywhere else with large pointy monuments should be especially wary), and by extension secondly, just how easliy it could be turned into a weapon.

But if we can solve all those problems we'll be set for electricity.

Combining a the ideas you mentioned with another concept currently being developed, the completion of the Spave Elevator could provide a solution for the problem of transferring energy from orbital solar panels down to earth - power cables could be run alongside cables used for carrying loads into and out of orbit.

Reminds me of Heinleins "Beanstalk". Good talk, but how practical is it?

And Nav's comment on the opposition of power and fuel companies to ideas which threaten their profit is a very valid one I'm afraid.

--A

Avatar wrote:Reminds me of Heinleins "Beanstalk". Good talk, but how practical is it?

And Nav's comment on the opposition of power and fuel companies to ideas which threaten their profit is a very valid one I'm afraid.

--A

Actually, those same power and fuel companies are spending a lot of money on research into alternative fuels. Exxon and Shell don't rake in profits from $50-a-barrel oil, you know; most of the money goes to the House of Saud. Nowadays, the so-called major oil companies don't produce very much oil of their own. They would be perfectly happy to sell you hydrogen instead of gasoline, and produce it with fusion plants instead of oil refineries. I've worked in the oil industry before, and know many people who still do; I'm not talking through my hat here.

The trouble is that a lot of alternative fuel sources are net consumers of energy. Until recently, for instance, it took more energy to manufacture a solar cell than the cell produces in its lifetime. Windmills are also quite inefficient in this respect. Nuclear power has the potential to be very efficient, and also a lot safer than people think; we're not working with 1970s technology anymore. But too many people are scared to death of the taboo word 'nuclear', and so the plants aren't built. Orbital solar power has the problems you mentioned. As for the Beanstalk and similar concepts, we simply don't know of any structural material strong enough to make a load-bearing lift 25,000 miles high. The tidal forces along its length would tear any known metal or composite apart.

For now, it looks like we're stuck with fossil fuels. The best candidate to replace them is fusion power, which potentially can extract more power from a gallon of water than you can get by burning many barrels of oil. But fusion plants are very tricky technically, and research is proceeding slower than expected. I expect to see commercial fusion power in my lifetime, but I'm beginning to get impatient.

Agreed, VF. It is known that the oil companies are investing in alternate forms of energy; to argue that they oppose alternate forms is illogical. They need to develop alternate forms and capitalise upon them as soon as they can. Some companies are offering research grants into fossil fuel alternatives.

As for nuclear power, it is a far safer now. But there is still no safe alternative to the disposal of nuclear waste.

The answer to nuclear waste, Loremaster, is fusion.

Murrin wrote:The answer to nuclear waste, Loremaster, is fusion.

Yup. Helium is about as safe a waste product as you can get.

Of course, in the future people will be inhaling nuclear waste to make their voices sound like Munchkins; but civilization can probably adapt to that corruption of the social fabric.

Re: Space elevator.

We need a material strong enough to make a load bearing lift at least 62,000 miles above the Earth.

Anyone who thinks it can't be done - check out carbon nanotubes.

I don't know if anyone here's ever heard of Carbon C60 (Buckminsterfullerine) - it's been known of for some time now.

The work on carbon nanotubes suggests it's not a matter of "if" but "when". Serious efforts are now being made to produce carbon nanotubes in industrial quantities.

Projected cost of building the space elevator: 6-10 billion dollars.

Bye !

Sheriff Lytton wrote:Re: Space elevator.

We need a material strong enough to make a load bearing lift at least 62,000 miles above the Earth.

Anyone who thinks it can't be done - check out carbon nanotubes.

I don't know if anyone here's ever heard of Carbon C60 (Buckminsterfullerine) - it's been known of for some time now.

The work on carbon nanotubes suggests it's not a matter of "if" but "when". Serious efforts are now being made to produce carbon nanotubes in industrial quantities.

Projected cost of building the space elevator: 6-10 billion dollars.

Bye !

That's nice, but neither the materials nor the design exist yet. Projecting a cost under such circumstances is a mug's game.

And what is the projected cost of OPERATING it? Your guess is no better than mine.

Damn !

I was just having a quick jaunt round my favourite sites before I went to bed when I came across this. If it were any subject other than this one - and I seriously mean any subject at all, I'd have ignored it and been in the land of nod half an hour ago.

Variol Farseer wrote: That's nice, but neither the materials nor the design exist yet.

Materials:

Ahem... carbon nanotubes most certainly DO exist and are regularly produced by humans. The difficulty at the moment lies in being able to produce a large enough piece to use for the ribbon. But the pieces are getting bigger all the time. In a relatively short period of time, we've gone from being able to manufacture microscopic quantities to engaging in research and development into producing pieces whose weight would be measured in tonnes. Just in case you think the overall size of the of the ribbon would be too large to manufacture, check out the size of existing trans-oceanic cables.

Design:

The basic design for the Space Elevator has been around for decades. Sure - there's been more than one design, but it's all just variations on a surprisingly simple theme. The really important bit is the ribbon, which is a design that has very little scope for variation.

You might be interested to know that the NIAC (NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts) have an excellent design for the space elevator that could be constructed as soon as the technique for manufacturing the ribbon has been perfected. See the bottom of this post for a link.

Variol Farseer wrote: Projecting a cost under such circumstances is a mug's game

Well, an awful lot of mugs have been working on cost projections under the non-existent circumstances you outlined. The consensus seems to be the overall cost of building it would be between 6-15 billion dollars. The figure of 15 billion dollars was a commercial estimate for a Space Elevator with a hotel on it.

I think you'll find that the sort of people who've performed cost analysis on the Space Elevator, with a view to investing massive sums of money into it are far from "mugs", although I'm sure they'd bow to your superior business accumen.

Variol Farseer wrote: And what is the projected cost of OPERATING it? Your guess is no better than mine.

Well, what do you know ? It seems that my guess is, after all - much, much better than yours.

The cost of operating the Space Elevator would be in the region of $100 per kilogram of payload, which is a fraction of current rocketry costs (approximately $22,000 per kilogram). And that's allowing for recouping the costs of building the thing. This estimate is hardly new information, indeed the recent NIAC work has confirmed it.

The amount of money and effort you save by using a system such as this (as opposed to a rocket) is phenomenal. It's perfectly feasible that once you've covered your costs for building it that you could send payloads into space for a few dollars per kilogram.

This Space Elevator is no longer a pipe dream, it's the subject of serious interest from both the scientific and business communities. Apart from the potential enhancements to our spacefaring capabilities as a species, being able to send payloads into space at such an extraordinarily low cost is an extremely seductive commercial proposition.

And then there's the environmental benefits of being able to get your toxic waste off of the planet. Once it's in zero gravity, a small nudge will propel it towards the sun.

With a Space Elevator, Solar Energy Satellites and clean, renewable energy become reality.

The principle doesn't end with a single Space Elevator. I'm sure anyone who's read enough science fiction will be familiar with the idea of building a ring of them round the equator. I know it seems a long way off, but look at the evolution of powered flight in the space of one short century.

It might interest you to know that the NIAC (NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts) have been busy on this, mugs though they may be. Here's a link for anyone wanting to find out more.

www.isr.us/SEConcept.asp?m=2

Well then O farsighted one - might I humbly suggest to you that when you start posting on a subject like this, that you try and learn a little about it and make sure you know what you're talking about first ?

Sheriff Lytton wrote:In a relatively short period of time, we've gone from being able to manufacture microscopic quantities to engaging in research and development into producing pieces whose weight would be measured in tonnes..

In a relatively short period of time, we went from being able to conduct uncontrolled deuterium-tritium fusion reactions (H-bomb, 1952) to engaging in research and development, as you put it, into producing commercially viable fusion reactors. But after over 40 years of that research, we haven't produced any results.

Commencing the research is NOT the same as manufacturing the product.

Sheriff Lytton wrote:Well then O farsighted one - might I humbly suggest to you that when you start posting on a subject like this, that you try and learn a little about it and make sure you know what you're talking about first ?

I already know that you consider me to be the infallible source of all stupidity in the universe. But if it makes you feel better to be incredibly rude about it, go ahead.

I still maintain that these are speculative numbers. No project of this kind has ever been attempted, and I can't think of any case offhand in which the first implementation of a major new technology was brought in on time, under budget, without any hitches.

And you call me naive.

For more on "speculative" nanotube elevators read Metaplanetary by Tony Daniel

Well, I'm up in the middle of the night waiting for my painkillers to kick in, otherwise I wouldn't even bother to respond...

Variol Farseer wrote:In a relatively short period of time, we went from being able to conduct uncontrolled deuterium-tritium fusion reactions (H-bomb, 1952) to engaging in research and development, as you put it, into producing commercially viable fusion reactors. But after over 40 years of that research, we haven't produced any results.

Commencing the research is NOT the same as manufacturing the product.

Comparing an uncontrolled fusion reaction to a controlled one is another illogical statement on your part. They require completely different levels of control over matter.

Comparing the ongoing process of constructing increasingly larger pieces of a material that has already been manufactured to the seemingly intractable conundrum of controlled fusion is yet one more.

They're two completely seperate propositions. That's on a par with saying we should discard the goal of producing cleaner fuels because we haven't terraformed any planets yet.

Variol Farseer wrote:I already know that you consider me to be the infallible source of all stupidity in the universe.

You're flattering yourself, although I admire you for having an ambition in life. Anyway, there's this guy in Africa ...

Variol Farseer wrote:But if it makes you feel better to be incredibly rude about it, go ahead.

That was nothing more than a little jovial sarcasm. If that's your idea of "incredibly rude" then for Christ's sake don't ever go out of your home or have conversations with other humans. You're too emotionally fragile for it.

I didn't get on my high horse and accuse you of being rude (or indeed patronising) with your use of phrases such as "That's nice" and "Mug's game" now, did I ?

I simply responded to your highly innacurate and uninformed post by providing you with information you obviously didn't have, and pointed out to you that if you're going to comment on a subject it might be of help to you to actually try learning a little about it first.

You stated that the design for the Space Elevator does not exist. That was clearly wrong.

You stated that carbon nanotubes do not exist. That was clearly wrong.

If it was my referring to you as "O farsighted one" that you consider to be extremely rude then I apologise unreservedly.

Variol Farseer wrote:I still maintain that these are speculative numbers. No project of this kind has ever been attempted, and I can't think of any case offhand in which the first implementation of a major new technology was brought in on time, under budget, without any hitches.

So because it hasn't been attempted before it's a no-hoper ? So what if there are hitches ? If the human race had used the rationale you've just given there we'd have no technology of any kind whatsoever.

And of course they're "speculative" numbers, that's why they're called "projected" costs. They're the best estimates available for the most ambitious engineering project in human history.

But that's besides the point. Even if you take the high-end figure of 15 billion dollars and bloody well square it, it doesn't matter. For a device that would without question be of unparalelled benefit to our species (whose economic turnover is measured in trillions of dollars per year) then it's a small price to pay.

Variol Farseer wrote:And you call me naive.

Well, that was on a completely different subject. Here I'd simply say you've decided to argue from an uninformed position and made some clearly erroneous statements. Rather than acknowledge that, you're using irrational arguments in an increasingly pointless attempt to save face.

But if you like, yes - you are being somewhat naive.

Many adults all over the word engage in debate. But most of them form some manner of cohesive argument supported by evidence first and don't get mortally offended when somebody contradicts them or proves themselves equally capable of replying in a condescending manner.

Miaow !