Solving one of our biggest problems

[nickelfire]

Sheesh, I gave a long and convoluted argument... I like it but it needs some reformatting and rephrasing so I'm going to fix that right up and hopefully get a thread going here. ;D

(Revised. See below.)

[nickelfire]

We all (more or less) agree that energy is one of the biggest problems we all face as a specie.
But hardly anyone agrees on how to solve this problem.

Let’s look at the problem closely:
1. Fossil fuels provide 86% of the worlds’ energy needs. This is a huge amount of energy, and more importantly, these fuels are being at burned rapid rates and releasing massive amounts of green house gasses into the air, causing the threatening issue of global warming which is the main issue.
2. These fuels are becoming more and more limited, and more and more expensive because of this. This is destabilizing our economy and stressing our foreign policy.

86% is a massive margin, and is an overwhelming hurdle for any clean energy to out-perform. How can we hope to replace such a high performance, effective and necessary resource even with all its faults?

I would love to hear everybody’s thoughts on the subject; my previous post had some good ones that I still hold, but it was worded and formatted wrong, and I’d like to hear what everyone else has to say on the subject.

[murex]

well, we need to get off energy resources that are finite. Easier said than done most will say, but I would disagree with that. We are stubborn when it comes to changing things that need to change.

[nickelfire]

This graph from wikipedia clearly shows that infinite sources for energy are technologies that are far too juvenile to produce any kind of competitive alternatives to fossil fuels; and it includes wood which means that wind, solar, geothermal and others provide less than 1% of the worlds energy needs.
Hydro power is the only renewable producing a decent amount of energy. And it has it’s own environmental impacts.
But even if we quintupled that amount (which will take decades), renewable’s will still provide less than 35% of our energy needs.
If we need to get off finite fossil fuels soon, and we do, the time it might take to do this is pretty daunting.

[MagnetMan]

For those interested this is our general view on alternate energy sources.

SOLAR : I mentioned solar, but only from space.

WIND: There are only a few spots with permanent wind. If we put mills out in the ocean in the 40 latitudes - okay
If we find a non-pollutant way to store energy from intermitant winds, Okay too. High speed carbon flywheels might do the job.

HYDRO-ELECTRIC . We have already "damned" enough river systems.

HYDROGEN; That will be viable when the gas stations are installed at every corner.

ETHONOL. One study says it takes 1BTU of oil to produce 1.3 BTU of ethonol. Other studies say the reverse.
It would take 95% of USA farmland to fully supply us.

WAVE: I have already stated that Wave and Tidal are our best bet in the long term. But that requires massive infrastructuire on a scale that beats the pyramids and the Great wall combined. We must get there, but it will take decades. In the meanitiome (OTEC) Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion shows a little promise.

GEOTHERMAL: Fine where available.

LIGHTENING: Interesting. We have some ideas on that.

ATOMOSPHERIC THERMAL ENERGY CONVERSION (ATEC) We have some ideas on that too.

HELIUM 3, mined on the moon is on the drawing boards.

NUCLEAR is our best bet in the short term.

Well, I doubt we'd be the ones dying from global warming, since we can create climate controlled environments (it wouldn't be massive hurricanes everywhere), but at the same time, there is still much that could be lost due to global warming, and we should limit our contribution to global warming as much as possible (not to mention our dependence on foreign oil).

Unless there is a massive chnage of human consciousness in the near future, millions of not billions certianly will suffer if not die from global climate change. We do have the technology to save ourselves, but not the will. Under the current sustym of maoney-based development, there is not enough spare cash on the planet to make the changes that are necessary. We can barely sustain present infrastructures as they stand, let alone invest in the large-scale planet management projects of the long-term . We cannot simply print more money - it wll devlaue the amount already banked. So an entirely new philosophy needs to come to the foreground of our collective consciousness.

Our foundation is focused on addressing the primary need for consciousness change - which can only come from a more spiritual outlook on life. Materialism is patently at a stalemate and running out of time. As can be seen on this and other forums, every overture we make towards including metaphsyics in the nuclear equation, is challenged and debunked, without the slightest attempt to delve deeper into the implications.

We see these objections as symptomatic of mass dysfuntion, due to a universal school system that concetrates primarly on the analytical stimulation of one side of the brain, while neglecting the intuitive potential of the other hemisphere - where all our inspiration and sense of ethics originates.

[atman]

I am very new to this, but this seems like a great idea.

Toshiba, which designs a new 10-megawatt nuclear reactor, offered to install one of these in the hope that other isolated towns will follow, explains the New York Times.

Toshiba offered Galena a free reactor if the town would pay the operating costs, estimated at 10 cents a kilowatt-hour, about the national average for power. In December, the City Council voted unanimously to take it.

Galena looked at other sources of energy, such as coal, which pollutes, and solar power, but the sun is not very present at this kind of latitude. So it decided to take the nuclear path.

Here are some details about the 4S reactor.
Toshiba calls its design the 4S reactor, for "super-safe, small and simple." It would be installed underground, and in case of cooling system failure, heat would be dissipated through the earth. There are no complicated control rods to move through the core to control the flow of neutrons that sustain the chain reaction; instead, the reactor uses reflector panels around the edge of the core. If the panels are removed, the density of neutrons becomes too low to sustain the chain reaction.

Here is a diagram showing a cross section of the 4S nuclear reactor (Credit: S. Maruyama, et al., Mechanical Engineering Congress, 2003 Japan(MECJ-03), August 5-8, Tokushiba, Japan, 2003, via Shaw Pittman LLC).

[Kwan Yu]

Good post Atman!
Hope springs eternal.

[TarotDragon]

It would be pretty awesome to have these mini more managable plants installed. Especially for out of the way places where it costs a lot to get a little energy. Maybe one day every home will have its own. That would be sweet.

Of course objections are being raised. People saying that some might convert them into making nuclear weapons. Not knowing exactly how they make nuclear weapons I can't say how easy it would be to convert the plants or sabatoge them for this purpose. And it sounds like it runs differently than normal nuclear plants. Are people just freaking out like they usually do over nuclear power?

[soulatom]

murex said:

well, we need to get off energy resources that are finite. Easier said than done most will say, but I would disagree with that. We are stubborn when it comes to changing things that need to change.

This guy agrees with you Murex saw it on the Internet. With what MM said we could make a change.

Four Ways to Solve the Energy Crisis
Which also happen to be four reasons why Gal Luft is the most hated man in Riyadh, Detroit, and Des Moines.
By Tim Heffernan
Esquire
You hear it all the time: We've got to reduce our dependence on foreign oil; it's a matter of homeland security. Fine. Nobody's arguing. But the solutions that get offered—drilling in ANWR, mandating better automobile fuel efficiency, pushing ethanol—don't really solve anything. They're politically impossible, or too expensive, or contrary to free-market forces. They're losers.

Energy-independence advocate Gal Luft looks for winners. The former lieutenant colonel in the Israel Defense Forces and counterterrorism expert fervently believes that the only way to make America safe is to make it energy independent. And so as executive director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security and cofounder of the Set America Free Coalition, he has set out to do just that.

Luft advises Congress and security companies. He briefs industrial and environmental groups. Yet what separates him from other energy specialists are his pragmatic solutions. He doesn't peddle pie-in-the-sky political strategies. He's a realist. He has a single goal: freeing America from the grip of foreign oil. And he wants to do it now. Here are four steps he says we can—and should—take today.

1. Make gasoline-only cars illegal

"Every gas-powered car has an average street life of seventeen years, which means that the minute you leave the lot, you're signing up for two decades of foreign-oil dependence. The easiest way to change this is to mandate that every vehicle sold in the U. S. is flex-fuel compatible so that it can run on just about any blend of hydrocarbon-based fuels—gasoline, ethanol, methanol, etc. The technology already exists, and the process is cheap, about a hundred dollars per vehicle. Detroit will cry about 'government interference,' but in fact the mandate would open a vast new free market in alternative-fuel development."

2. Kill the Iowa caucuses

"Here's the first thing every presidential candidate who visits Iowa is asked: 'Where do you stand on ethanol?' Why is this a problem? Because the ethanol lobby has managed to place huge tariffs on ethanol produced abroad while freezing out the development of other alternative fuels at home. It portrays itself as this sort of savior, the domestic solution to our reliance on foreign oil, but it really just protects a tiny number of Midwestern corn farmers. Anyone who thinks otherwise, bear in mind: Even if every single kernel of corn grown in America were converted to ethanol, it would still only replace about 12 percent of America's gasoline requirement."

3. Think of the world in terms of sugarcane

"America hasn't been very good about making friends in the Middle East lately, but there are still a few countries in Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia that like us. And many of them, such as Panama, Kenya, and Thailand, grow sugarcane, from which you can make ethanol at half the cost of making it from corn. We should direct foreign aid throughout the agricultural sector in these countries to increase their efficiency and create jobs. That will make them happy, and it'll improve our national security. They'll be our friends forever. Unlike the OPEC nations."

4. Revolutionize waste

"Sixty-five percent of our garbage is biomass: food, paper, scrap wood. All of it could be converted to methanol. The process has been around for two hundred years. And it's twice as efficient as cellulosic ethanol, supposedly the next big thing in alternative fuels. Then there's coal—America has a quarter of the world's reserve, but we use it mainly to feed power plants, which is a dirty and inefficient use. Instead, coal can be converted to clean-burning methanol for the equivalent of one dollar per gallon. Last, look to recyclables, like black liquor, a toxic by-product of the paper industry. Right now, paper mills inefficiently recycle it themselves. But black liquor can be converted to methanol. Do so and we'd generate nine billion gallons of methanol a year—almost twice the ethanol we now make from corn."

Actually getting this done

"These are only four of many common-sense opportunities throughout the economy, but we're not taking advantage of them, because there isn't a sustainable market for alternative fuels. Yet. Which brings us back to step one: flex-fuel technology. Get that and the other three will take care of themselves. There will be stiff opposition from the oil, corn, and auto lobbies. There always is. But let's hope that Washington can step up for a change. Because once you take politics out of the energy policy, you

[nickelfire]

magnetman said:

NUCLEAR is our best bet in the short term.

soulatom said:

"These are only four of many common-sense opportunities throughout the economy, but we're not taking advantage of them, because there isn't a sustainable market for alternative fuels. Yet. Which brings us back to step one: flex-fuel technology. Get that and the other three will take care of themselves. There will be stiff opposition from the oil, corn, and auto lobbies."

Maybe a combination of these two would be ideal after all, nuclear makes electricity, not fuel, and vise-versa right? I like these so I’d be the first to support both the ideas. I don’t know much about ethanol or methanol but these ideas sound logical, especially converting the waste, because I hate the idea of burning food :’( .

[soulatom]

nickelfire said:

magnetman said:

NUCLEAR is our best bet in the short term.

soulatom said:

"These are only four of many common-sense opportunities throughout the economy, but we're not taking advantage of them, because there isn't a sustainable market for alternative fuels. Yet. Which brings us back to step one: flex-fuel technology. Get that and the other three will take care of themselves. There will be stiff opposition from the oil, corn, and auto lobbies."

Maybe a combination of these two would be ideal after all, nuclear makes electricity, not fuel, and vise-versa right? I like these so I’d be the first to support furthering of both the ideas. I don’t know much about ethanol or methanol but these ideas sound logical, especially converting the waste, because I hate the idea of burning food :’( .

I don't know enough about this myself. I should know more. From everything I have heard outside of the US Nuclear has been working perfectly. France.....France.....France

[nickelfire]

Go France! That’s all you hear in the energy threads ;D , I wish more people agreed though!
Looking at the graph again, (its daunting isn’t it?) it’s still going to be along time before such a huge guzzler goes down and is overtaken by cleaner energy… It looks like we’re going to be mixing and matching all sorts of energies before we slowly remove the bad ones, add new ones and finally solve this big problem. Nuclear is key, IMO, but for now fossils and coal aren’t just going to vanish, cleaner ways of burning them are also really interesting to me, but is their any realistic ways of doing this?

[Kwan Yu]

Fastest and cheapest way for energy efficiency?
Reduce consumption.
Everybody use more muscle
let machine rest

[nickelfire]

kwanyu said:

Fastest and cheapest way for energy efficiency?
Reduce consumption.
Everybody use more muscle
let machine rest

Novel idea, saves money, the environment, and burns calories... I thought people knew how to spot a good deal .

[Lasher]

Was Just hearing some pretty cool stuff about Portugal's energy policy... mainly the unveiling of what will be, at 618 acres, the biggest solar farm in the world. Kind of surprising... you don't think of Portugal as a big player in the EU.

Apparently they will be the home of Europe's largest wind farm by the end of the year as well. It' set to power a quarter-million homes. Not bad for a country of just 10 and half million people.

Also, on their Atlantic coastline, a cutting-edge wave energy project is set to be deployed within months.

And a dam that will create Europe's largest man-made lake when it completely fills up is already pumping electricity into their national grid.

I know dams can wreak havoc on an eco-system... and I'm not sure what this particular one's effect has been... should research it, but visually it looks pretty awesome.



As far as I understood, if a dam is built in juxtaposition to its ocean outlet you can minimize any damage by bypassing and not interfering with the system between it and the ocean, provided the lake itself is not allowed to overfill and back-up, flooding the river behind it. Not sure if that is true though.

Anyway, just thought that was all pretty cool... to have a multi-pronged attack on the energy crisis. It all has a transitory air about it... like these are the growing pains in the evolution toward the true solution.