The Energy HOLY GRAIL has been Discovered! (I hope...wow!)

[unterhaus]

As is obvious from his post, Mariss is an engineer, not a scientist. Sorry Mariss, science does not get poisoned by politics for long, it's self correcting. Today's scientists did not chose to be leftists, and are not leftists. That's just a fiction of people who hope to make money from confusing people. Scientist's pursuit of knowlege made them the enemies of the right, certainly not by the choice of the scientists. Many American scientists are Republicans, at least those that haven't been run out of the party. Sad that the mind of a person of your stature has been poisoned by religion of a different type.

[Mariss Freimanis]

Let's look at the alternatives:

1) Re-newable rersources:

1a) Direct conversion (solar cells). Our misfortue (actually fortune) is we live 93 million miles away from the sun. Solar irradiation is about 100mW per square inch. It keeps us from cooking but it's lousy for energy extraction.

Let's say a car needs 100HP available to be decent. That's about 75Kw. It is also about 750,000 square inches of solar collector area. Throw in 30% as the best conversion efficiency and you get 2.5 million squre inches of collector area. To make it real, 100HP needs a collector 132 feet by 132 ft, (40m) per side. Kind of laughable when you think of a solar collector 4/10 of an acre in size perched on top of your car.

1b) Ethanol. Corn is used. Still solar driven to the tune at 100mW per square inch but it grows leaves, a stalk and incidentally a an ear. That ear holds a small percentage of sugar of which a some percentage can be converted to ethanol. Long and short, the conversion efficiency is much less than a solar cell. All arable land converted to ethanol production would service 10% of the vehicle fleet. Everyone would starve but one in 10 people could drive an ethanol-powered car in search of food.

2) Wind energy, geothermal, tidal energy, ocean thermal difference energy. Lump them all together and it's far less than power than the solar schemes. Discard.

3) Nuclear. The hippies in the '60s and '70s nearly destroyed this option. France today gets over 80% of its electrical energy from nuclear. Today's hippies love France, they do not mention this fact though. Funny.

Nuclear is an excellent and safe energy source. It is a high density energy source just like oil is but much more so. By comparison all the alternatives are very low energy density sources. Energy-density refers to who much of the stuff do you need to have to do what you need to do.

Once enough time passes that the fears and alarms of the Luddites will get laughed away, nuclear power will replace oil in our economy. Basically the voices of a few loud but persuasive idiots prevents this from happening now. Wait them out, all will be OK in the end.

Mariss

[miljnor]

you realize he was joking when he wrote that?

by Diarmaid hehehe.....just stirring the pot, I actually support nuclear power...sorry...

[Mariss Freimanis]

Unterhous,

Quote: As is obvious from his post, Mariss is an engineer, not a scientist. Sorry Mariss, science does not get poisoned by politics for long, it's self correcting. Today's scientists did not chose to be leftists, and are not leftists. That's just a fiction of people who hope to make money from confusing people. Scientist's pursuit of knowlege made them the enemies of the right, certainly not by the choice of the scientists. Many American scientists are Republicans, at least those that haven't been run out of the party. Sad that the mind of a person of your stature has been poisoned by religion of a different type.


I am saddened by your reply. You are infected by the very religious disease I speak of. You politicize and catagorzie me by makiking assumptions you honestly have no right to do.

I am a free-thinker. If there is anyone I serve then it is the handmaiden called nature. I am not the least bit concerned where she leads. She is apolitical and cares not whether I'm a Leftist, progressive or all the other crap or the opposite for that matter.

Let me tell you about my handmaiden. I design circuits. All in my mind are good of course. What seperates the actual good from the bad is nature. She is a very tough judge; she only graces my work that pleases her, the work I do that's wrong she rejects. She is the only one I sevre.

You on the otherhand think that objective reality can be argued with. You may not even believe in objective reality. I gather that from your derivative assemet of me or my presumed politics. Politics to me is the very gargement or bottom layer of existance. It's what you do if if you can't do anything else. It is the tattered window shades you put up in your miserable junkyard home.

I've read your posts, I respested you and I thought you were smarter than that. I'm sadly disappointed now. You judge people from your preformed stereotypes just like everyone else. Bummer.

Mariss

[Mariss Freimanis]

Joking? Ah, Ehmmm, What's all this egg on my face?

(Srapping sounds as egg is removed from face, face still red from missing the obvious)

Still I don't regret from from posting what I did. This subject is a boil that should be lanced. Look at what has come up from the woodwork. A whole fleet of termites.

Mariss

[Geof]

Originally Posted by Mariss Freimanis Joking? Ah, Ehmmm, What's all this egg on my face? (Srapping sounds as egg is removed from face, face still red from missing the obvious) Still I don't regret from from posting what I did. This subject is a boil that should be lanced. Look at what has come up from the woodwork. A whole fleet of termites. Mariss

An lnteresting mea culpa.

In your intemperate little offering you had:

"I do not belive in: Global Warming, ......"

Can you cite evidence that Global warming has not occurred over the past couple of hundred years or so?

Incidentally what is wrong with termites? They are accomplished structural engineers.

[NC Cams]

The French have a colorful history of dealing with unpleasant things, quite oftten with less than effective methods.

They "defended" themselves against the Nazi's with the Maginot (spelling may be wrong) Line. Worked real well didn't it?

They've done a remarkable job of acquiescing to some of the political pressures of late no? Did a masterful job of NOT selling embargoed stuff to people who probably shouldn't have had access to it.

They may have 80% of their electrons coming from nuclear plants but what, oh what are they doing with/to the nuclear byproducts that is so novel??? I hope they are not storing it in underground wine cellars. Sure would kill demand for imported French wine being slurped up by the tree huggers.

Whether or not you favor nuclear energy is irrelevant. What the creator of the process that generates nuclear wastes does with the byproducts of the process is relevant to humanity as a whole IS ultimately of high relevancy.

It is one thing to play a shell game on the streets to con some stiff out of money. It is another to effectively play a shell game with nuclear byproducts as in move it to SOMEplace, ANYplace, usually NIMBY as the game is typically played. Ultimately, you get to the point where too much stuff is put someplace or you run out of place to put the stuff.

The realities are that the stuff that is GENERATED is dangerous. It has to be dealt with. It doesn't become benign over night. Finally, it is not easy for ANYONE to deal with.

The industry has had its share of folks who were less than honorable with the inspection and/or reporting requirements. Sadly, this may have occured during the formative years. Such memories make for perhaps overly stringent requirements thereafter. Too bad. We learned our lessons from strip mining and Love Canal - You reap what you sew.

But, even so, Three Mile Island occurred during the same time that "experts" said that the nuclear power industry was safe, the system had protection devices in place and they were fully functional, blah blah blah.

I lived thru that period of time - both the eppisode and the movie - and although we were up-wind of the plumes, I still was concerned about the ramifications of what could happen if the China Syndrome (which came darn close to happening) had come to bear.

ANY engergy industry has to deal with waste byproducts. Sadly, the need for energy will also spawn hucksters who will try to prove that efficiencies over 100% are possible to achieve. For some strange reason, these clowns always, ALWAYS have NOT been able to make their devices work as claimed. People are people, mistakes happen, not all technologies are fool/mistake proof nor do they work as claimed.

Why, oh why do I have this strong feeling that this Irish "invention" will be another one of those that don't/can't work as claimed???

[miljnor]

Geothermal may be the ticket!

I say a "modern marvels" on a salt mine up in the chicago area that was impressive in its scope and magnitude. But one of the things I thought was strange and interesting is that so far they have dug down to 190ft (If memory serves) and probably wont go much further because its really hot down there (I think it was quoted at 120deg F.)

doesn't seam like too much work to dig a deep hole until its hot enough to do the heat exchanger deal. After all thats all that power plants are doing anyhow. Just one big steam turbine!

[Death Adder]

Originally Posted by NC Cams They may have 80% of their electrons coming from nuclear plants but what, oh what are they doing with/to the nuclear byproducts that is so novel??? I hope they are not storing it in underground wine cellars. Sure would kill demand for imported French wine being slurped up by the tree huggers.

Probably enriching it into plutonium and selling it to Syria and Iran.

Whether or not you favor nuclear energy is irrelevant. What the creator of the process that generates nuclear wastes does with the byproducts of the process is relevant to humanity as a whole IS ultimately of high relevancy.

The problem can be dealt with... By burying it way underground. That's where it came from anyway. And why are so many people up in arms about it anyway? Current coal plants spew an exponentially larger amount of crap out into the environment every year yet people seem to favor them over nuclear reactors. Is it really so bad to have to bury it? At least we CAN bury it. It's hard to collect all that carbon monoxide and soot that blow out of coal plants.

The realities are that the stuff that is GENERATED is dangerous. It has to be dealt with. It doesn't become benign over night. Finally, it is not easy for ANYONE to deal with.

It's expensive to deal with but not impossible. It's almost environmentally safer than coal or oil plants and can be positioned anywhere unlike solar, wind, or hydro. It's energy output is virtually unlimited unlike solar, wind, and hydro. The stuff generated is nasty stuff but where else are we going to get the weapons grade plutonium for the bombs we're going to have to launch at Syria and Iran once those yahoos finally lose it completely.

But, even so, Three Mile Island occurred during the same time that "experts" said that the nuclear power industry was safe, the system had protection devices in place and they were fully functional, blah blah blah. I lived thru that period of time - both the eppisode and the movie - and although we were up-wind of the plumes, I still was concerned about the ramifications of what could happen if the China Syndrome (which came darn close to happening) had come to bear.

Ahh... Look it up. Despite the media hype at the time 3 mile Is. was not in a huge danger of total meltdown. Nobody got hurt, the reactor was stabilized, and maybe ONE person is in danger of getting cancer over it. It was all a huge overreaction.

Current day reactor design is the pebble bed reactor and it's basically meltdown proof. I'm not saying that everything is going to be perfectly safe but NOTHING IS. You could die in a car accident later today. That doesn't stop you from going to work.

[Geof]

Originally Posted by miljnor Geothermal may be the ticket!.......

Geothermal is used in Iceland, Italy (I think) and New Zealand; possibly other places but these are the leaders. It is low grade heat good for use as a heat source but not very useful for generating electrical energy because the temperature is too low for efficient steam turbine operation, and this is in places were the geothermal heat is available at temperatures in the few hundred degrees.

[diarmaid]

- Joking : Yes
- "Egg on face" : Yes
- Mariss opinions : Some are valid
- "No Global Warming"...."DDT ok" : Made me want to stop reading (Im sure asbestos is not really bad aswell?)
- Ethanol, wind, solar etc : No one is sufficient but the key is to use a combination of all including nuclear. And of course these all require raw materials in some form so they will never be perfect.
- "Politics is the process and method of making decisions for groups. Although it is generally applied to governments, politics is also observed in all human group interactions including corporate, academic, and religious." No-one likes politicians but what is your proposed alternative to politics? (Eye for an eye, World War maybe, Take out your shotgun?)
miljnor geothermal vent : Facinating would love to see that.

As an aside if anyone is still interested since this thread has become a little bit sidetracked, I have received no e-mail reply from our Irish crazy scientists. Oh well. Egg on my face too I guess!

[Geof]

Originally Posted by diarmaid ..... "No Global Warming"...."DDT ok" : Made me want to stop reading (Im sure asbestos is not really bad aswell?).....

This would be a mistake; if you stop reading you can only assume that someone's opinions are idiotic but if you keep reading you know. Certainty is always better.