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Pathetic. Soon as you are faced with well verified information that contradicts your unsupported claims, you're off. The appeal to authority is meaningless.
"To create a topic deliberately to provoke controversy is not helpful to the mission of the forum.'
What controversy? Are you disputing the CDC and Surgeon General of the United States??!!!
You must have a wall full of medical degrees and credentials to boldly challenge the CDC and our nations Surgeon General!
Please list your degrees. Thank you.
I have nothing more to say on this. The CDC and Surgeon General have said enough for anyone who follows the science.
Do some research instead of spreading needless fear.
The experience from Israel - one of the most vaccinated countries on earth - totally contradicts your facile claims.
"Israelis who were vaccinated were 6.72 times more likely to get infected after the shot than after natural infection"
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News … spx/309762
Big Pharma is destroying people's health. If you're not obese, old or suffering from co-morbidities like diabetes, you're at no risk from this virus, but you are risk from the vaccine.
As the Delta variant fuels rising U.S. cases, the C.D.C. director warns of a ‘pandemic of the unvaccinated.’
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/as-th … d=msedgntp
Follow the advice of health care workers and scientists, not quacks who falsely pretend to have medical skills or knowledge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGi94A6r4q8&t=543s
Some of Joe's finds are really good and I would put this one in that category.
Certainly makes the case for getting people to Mars to check out these objects.
There's no reason why evolution on Mars would not have followed along very similar lines to processes on Earth if life did evolve there.
I've always said the Nixon-Kissinger China policy was one of the worst geopolitical mistakes of the 20th century. I've always argued China should be contained, as was the Soviet Union, as long as it remains a ruthless Communist dictatorship.
louis wrote:Not liking the fact that "Chine-yah" as the legitimate President of the USA used to call it is involved in yet another UK energy project. At this rate they could just shut us down within 24 hours.
Louis,
It's "Chai-nah"... or something like that. I'm not sure why you're trying to blame this on President Biden. Your government set this deal up. President Trump offered American coal / oil / gas to Europe, but your leaders would rather trade with the Russians and Chinese. That's who you're relying on now, so make an effort not to upset them.
Do you accept that creating an effective storage system e.g. utility scale hydrogen (produced by electrolysis using wind and solar energy during times of surplus) will address your concerns over intermittency.
You can't possibly have concerns over service life when we know wind and solar work well for 25 years plus with regular maintenance.
As for material consumption, a fair comparison with nuclear power would involve how much material is going into the station on a daily basis including, for instance, the amount of petrol or battery life consumed by cars used by staff to travel to and from work. How much energy goes into lighting such a facility on a daily basis? What about the tarmac for the car park? What materials are brought into a nuclear power station to help it function? I doubt it's none.
As for recycling, I believe that 90% of a decommissioned panel can be recycled already. A great deal of effort is going into dealing with the final 10%. The nuclear industry hasn't even resolved the issue of nuclear waste yet.
Louis,
My underlying objection is not related to the material consumption, cost, useful service life, or intermittency alone. It's the combination of all of those factors together that make wind and solar unsuitable for use as base load power, which is still a big part of what industrialized society actually needs to function well. And no, denying that there is such a thing as base load power or that all industrialized nations rely upon it is not an actual solution.
If someone could make a solar panel that lasts 60 to 100 years, then despite the high initial energy investment, it pays for itself over time, and thus is not an "energy trap". If solar panels / wind turbine blades / batteries were much longer lasting or easier to recycle than they presently are, then I would take far less issue with using them. If we had the storage solution figured out, rather than "throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks", then I would take far less issue with "the vision" for the solution. Throwing stuff at the wall is a giant red flag that you don't even know what the solution even looks like.
Whenever we attack an engineering problem such as running an electric power cable between two points with known voltage and amperage requirements, we're not flailing about, hoping that something works. We don't try random wire diameter gauges or random materials to act as conductors to transmit electricity. We use Aluminum if the power must be transmitted over great distances, Copper over much shorter distances (generally within buildings), or Silver over very short distances (electronics), and we know exactly what gauge to use for a specified voltage and amperage, to assure good performance.
If we can figure out how to solve those problems, then I have no objections to using solar / wind / batteries, if that's what everyone else is dead-set on doing, but present technology simply will not allow us to do that. This is presently a variation of that 500 pound V8 that lasts 20 years and makes 5,000hp. No such animal exists, and it would be foolish to throw money at that specific problem, rather than trying to engineer something that actually could work (solar thermal / nuclear thermal / geothermal / tidal / some storage using new types of batteries like NaS or SOXE fuel cells that run on Methane).
Does anyone know the answer to the following: is water ice at, say, -60 degrees celsius harder than at, say, -6 degrees celsius? Or is "ice" just "ice"? I'm thinking probably the latter.
Anyway, I imagine that we would mine water ice in the afternoon on Mars, preferably in summer though that might not always be an option, certainly on Mission One.
I imagine we would use diggers and that lasers or microwave beams would be used to create "cracks" in the ice that could then be worked on by robot mining devices, to break off chunks that can then be transported in sealed containers to a processing facility.
Way beyond my pay grade on the technology front! lol If I could help I would. Only to note in passing - I thought about this in relation to sublimation of ice in a vacuum - how do you collect the water molecules?
For Louis re above ...
compromise 4 people
I enjoyed reading that prose << grin >>
Thanks for the lift!
I have something to toss your way, in hopes it inspires you along solar power lines ....
I'm slow cooking a pot of broth on the stove, and when I looked at the clear glass lid, I saw beads of distilled water on the underside. The outside of the glass is exposed to room temperature, while the liquid below is simmering.
The image that came to mind as i studied that lid was the MIT design for a remote wilderness solar fresh water distiller. You (most likely) recall the image that SpaceNut showed us recently, with a clear glass frame set at an angle with respect to the surface of the Earth, so that as the Sun's rays pass through and heat the brine below, liberated water molecules rise and condense on the glass, from which they slowly descend to a catch trough, and from there to a catch basin.
So here is the challenge for your creative energies .... is there a way to redesign the basic MIT concept so that the water is collected without interfering with the flow of photons into the liquid?
Related ... is there a way to encourage water molecules to descend more rapidly under the influence of gravity toward the catch trough, spending less time on the condensing surface?
(th)
BS.
You only get "regulatory ratcheting" where there is real risk e.g. construction sites where, 50 years ago, we tolerated horrendous death and injury rates. Now such rates are simply not acceptable.
The risk of a nuclear reactor disaster in a country like the UK is tremendusly high risk in terms of impact. No part of the UK with its 68 million people is further than 70 miles from the sea. We are a very concentrated land area. One nuclear power station going Chernobyl could potentially make tens of millions of people homeless and maybe reduce our agricultural output by 20%.
SpaceNut wrote:So what makes the steam nuclear plant need such high regulation and what is that reasoning?
This explains why nuclear power plants have grown steadily more expensive to build a operate since the 1970s.
http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter9.htmlRegulatory ratcheting is listed as the primary cause, which on its own has increased the cost of building a reactor plant by a factor of four. In addition to what Cohen describes, a more recent problem is loss of supply chains. To build nuclear reactor components it is now necessary to rebuild supply chains, which necessitates restarting entire industries.
All things considered, a new nuclear powerplant like Hinkley C, is probably 10 times more expensive than it would be in a sane world. Nuclear power has grown relatively expensive only because we in the western world forced it to grow more expensive. There is nothing inherently expensive about nuclear power plants. They are simply steam plants using uranium fuel rods to raise heat instead of pulverised coal. Quite a cheap and well established technology in itself.
Not liking the fact that "Chine-yah" as the legitimate President of the USA used to call it is involved in yet another UK energy project. At this rate they could just shut us down within 24 hours.
We need to distinguish between the early colony and a mature city colony.
In the early colony the proportion of energy going to fuelling a return Starship will be huge - certainly at least 90% for Mission one. That will decline as people come to live on Mars for several years and, eventually permanently. Mining will be another significant energy item, proportionally, in the early years as the colony builds up stocks of materials like silica and iron ore.
There is currently no KRUSTY-style reactor available for deployment on Mars. NASA hope to complete a demonstration project on the Moon in the late 2020s. If all goes well, that will be after Space X land people on Mars.
https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/kilopower
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/demo … tion-power
They indicate 4 x 10Kw reactors could power an "outpost" on the Moon. A Wikipedia article suggests the lunar outpost would comprise 4 people - so that would be 10Kw per person or 250 Kwhs per person per sol for basic life support etc. if we are transferring that approach to Mars.
I think we keep forgetting that here on earth we have the natural power of the suns contribution of that 1Kwatts for a all surfaces for the most part unobstructed and that we still as individuals consume on an order some where about the same every hour of the day when counting all energy needs from the car to getting the groceries.
Mars day is 25hrs x 2 kw = 50 kwhrs to meet minimal daily allowance per crewmen.
The catch 22 is we need more than that to do an EVA or build let alone do science exploration….then to top that off we need even more to make fuel and oxygen let alone find and keep our water for use.
Sure due to activities that are shared we get a lower number but we need to plan as if we were doing this for each person.
That said the KRUSTY units power test at 2 kw would be a minimal power source for just 1 or 2 people....
Or it could be political interference in the guise of bureaucratic niceties. Wouldn't be the first time.
They do NOT have clearance yet.
This from 15 July's "Daily Launch" email newsletter from AIAA:
FAA Says Tower At SpaceX’s Boca Chica Launch Site Has Not Yet Been Approved
Reuters (7/14) reports that the FAA has warned SpaceX “that its environmental review of a new tower at its Boca Chica launch site in Texas is incomplete and the agency could order SpaceX to take down the tower.” A May 6 “letter from the FAA to SpaceX seen by Reuters said recent construction activity on one of the two proposed towers ‘may complicate the ongoing environmental review process for the Starship/Super Heavy Launch Vehicle Program.’” SpaceX “told the FAA in May that it did not believe the review was necessary because it only intends to use the ‘integration tower for production, research, and development purposes and not for FAA-licensed or -permitted launches,’ the FAA said.” However, the agency “said description in documents ‘indicates otherwise.’” The FAA “cited a SpaceX document that the towers would be used to integrate the Starship/Super Heavy launch vehicle.”****************
It takes reading between the lines, but the FAA dispute may possibly be boiling down to whether Spacex will be allowed to launch a Superheavy from the Boca Chica site. It would appear that Spacex built the tower to put a Starship atop a Superheavy, when they have yet no approval to fly the configuration from the site.
If I am guessing correctly, they could be forced to wait until the offshore platform is finished. Depends upon which agency's bureaucrat is upset with them. Since the problem is "environmental review process" in description, I do believe it would be the EPA that is really involved, with FAA approval dependent upon whether the EPA is satisfied. We have seen that licensing processing sequence reported before.
I've warned about how unforgiving the EPA is before, quite unlike the FAA. This is what happens when you cavalierly piss off the wrong bureaucrats. EPA is involved because the environmental "impact" of a Superheavy launch is enormous, whether there is an explosion or not, just because of the lethal noise. The impact statement has to consider noise as well as fumes and pollution, and also the dangers of an explosion (and fire).
GW
Three potentially helpful technologies:
Waste heat from industrial processes - there may be processes where crushed ice could be perfect for controlling temperature and would eventually result in the ice being melted.
Use mylar solar reflectors to heat ice in containers.
I've seen video of ice being sublimated in a vaccuum. Sublimation could be a useful tool in the context of Mars.
Well probably but not necessarily and there is no direct relationship between EROI and cost otherwise nuclear power would be the cheapest power on Earth, whereas it's one of the most expensive.
Regarding efforts to boost solar panel lifetime. You will notice that the same factors that will make solar panels more affordable (life extension), reduced wastage, economy of scale, etc, also boost system EROI. Looking for ways to improve whole system EROI, will usually make the project more cost competitive as well.
Yes, this could become a big part of the PV story. You don't have to sacrifice your farmland.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/singapore-un … 21443.html
This story is about solar panels floating on water ...
Reuters Videos
Singapore unveils huge solar panel farm
Wed, July 14, 2021, 10:23 AM
This is one of the world's largest floating solar farmsLocation: Singapore
It’s made up of 122,000 solar panels
making it as big as 45 football fields
It produces enough electricity to power the island's five water treatment plants
The project is part of Singapore's plan to quadruple its solar energy production by 2025
to help tackle climate change
(th)
That's fine. I never thought you'd need this technology in Texas. But in drought affected areas in Africa this might be the difference between life and death and in desert or arid areas this might allow cultivation of food that could not otherwise take place, especially if they use polytunnel systems that allow water to be retained in the structure.
Louis,
Here in Texas water costs an average of $39.76 per 5,000 gallons, or $0.007952 per gallon, or $0.0021 per liter. That equates to $0.42 for 200 liters of water. Somehow I don't think we'll be switching over to your plan to triple the cost of potable water any time soon.
I don't and my reason would be that you would soon have a favoured currency which would then become a private monopoly.
Stephen W. Houghton II wrote:I would favor a private monetary system. The Company that starts the settlement could issue its own script. Banks and other major players could do likewise.
Welcome to NewMars Stephen W. Houghton II, Maybe the universal plastic would be in the plans to have A Mars Credit/Debt card for all that goes... now all we need is an ATM....
We've manufactured gas before now...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_gas
Pipelines, ships and ports are expensive installations that require ongoing maintenance. I think we'd have to see what the experience was on Mars and how low the cost of green energy can go on Earth. Other factors may include whether advances can be made in duct technology for concentration of air. The constituents of methane are freely available in water and air, so it really comes down to the relative cost of the machines and the chemistry. To assume it's always more expensive than prospecting for gas, drilling wells, pumping it out, sending it along pipelines, putting it on ships, transporting it from one port to another and then pumping it out into smaller packages, is - well - simply an assumption.
Regarding Mars one of the attractions of the identified landing zones in the Erebus Mountains area is that there are there ice deposits located in hillocks, with just a few metres of regolith cover. They sound similar to pingos in Alaska but not sure that is the technical name. The purity of the ice can be very high - above 95%.
Felix's latest video:
I've written on this before. It seems pretty clear to me that the language will be English, unless the Chinese succeed in getting there first or otherwise dominating the planet.
English is now the language of science, academia, commerce, entertainment, and international politics. It also serves as a kind of lingua franca across the whole of Planet Earth.
It seems highly likely that English would without any other intervention establish itself as the language of Mars. However, if the early colonisation is undertaken by Space X, and Space X is successful in its colonisation plans, that will be even more certain.
I suspect the culture will be quite close to the feel of American university campuses. Probably very PC and culturally a little "shallow". It might be an Aspergers-friendly sort of place, where people who want to focus obsessively on isolated pockets of experience are welcomed rather than mocked.
Now this rather narrow culture might change over time if Mars becomes a place for homesteaders, artists and designers.
If Space X gets there first and succeeds Mars could become a functioning democracy with embedded human rights. If the CCP regime , Putin's lot or Saudi billionaires get there first, it will be a straightforward dictatorship, with severely curtailed human rights.
I am strongly in favour of Space X handing over control of the planet to a Mars Consortium that can then evolve into an independent Mars Republic. A "free for all" will be won by the CCP regime eventually (might take them 100 years, but they will be determined to dominate the planet).
The only other approach I see working is an Antarctic Treaty style approach where colonisation will be put on the back burner and we will see only science and reserach outposts. That would suit the CCP regime at the moment so I am expecting them to push for that. Corrupt Biden may agree.
People often talk about Mars as a new frontier, a new scientific and political commitment to building a place a Nation of Mars people, a place to put Ships, the New Colony or Outpost of Mankind on Another planet. ...what kind of midset and culture would Mars be, would the langauge of English or Russian or Chinese or French or Hindi or Japanese change the way Mars thought and explored the new planet.
What if the first on Mars the explorers and builders were for example 'Boer Afrikaans' speakers?...Would it change anything??
Do you think you are possibly not keeping up with developments?
There are mines already deploying large solar power installations e.g. this gold mine:
https://www.aggreko.com/en-gb/case-stud … olar-power
The renewable energy element will produce 18 GwHs of power per annum. The capacity is 8 MW with a 2 MW battery storage facility.
Robotics are now being used extensively in mining:
https://eos.org/features/underground-ro … g-industry
So none of what I am referring to as possiblities is ludicrous nonsense as you would like it to be.
I see no reason in principle why you couldn't have far less environmental degradation from mines if we use robots in the right way. I am not saying we are there yet - these are just possibilities opening up e.g. burrowing robots that bring out ore. These robots could work in water, avoiding some of the huge costs of mining under the ground ie creating human sized tunnels and pumping out water. Open case mines are of course a different situation. But using robots you could probably cover most of the mine in solar panels to generate power for the robotic mining processes.
I have a question for you:
Do you accept that in some circumstances Power Generation (PG) Type A can be cheaper than PG Type B even though Type B has a better EROI than Type A? If your answer is no, how would you explain your answer?
It seems to me that it is perfectly possible for Type A to be cheaper but have a poorer EROI. If Type A is 50% cheaper but its EROI is 25% less it seems to me Type A wins out. You are getting 50% more power per currency unit. Why wouldn't you choose Type A over Type B?
You seem to be arguing that even if green energy plus storage goes below 2 cents per KwH in terms of cost generation we still shouldn't use it for fear of this mythical beasty called EROI.
As I explained on another thread, space transport can be powered by manufactured methane which is a green fuel. That's exactly what Space X intend to do on Mars. It could be done on Earth. The space transport industry is tiny compared to the Earth airline indsutry. The latter carried over 4 billiion passengers in 2018. Space transport won't get anywhere near than in the next 30 years even if Musk Million Person City on Mars becomes a reality. So it's impact is far, far smaller.
louis wrote:5. Preserving natural habitat is more about education and getting people out of poverty. The green lobby go on and on about plastic in the oceans, quite rightly, but imply we (in the UK, US and other advanced economies) are chucking it in the oceans. Virtually all of it comes down the Indus, Congo, Nile, Niger and Amazon put there by very poor people with sub-standard education. Green energy offers a solution to poverty and will power opportunities in education e.g. by enabling poor children to receive education online, once their village is being powered by solar or wind energy.
Undoubtedly green energy like all energy systems does use up resources. However, there are a lot more resources on Earth than we sometimes allow for. I favour putting much more effort into developing recycling. But we can also look to responsible mining. For instance lithium mines are now being opened in Cornwall where there are plenty of old tin mines. Using robotics means we can probably reduce the cost of mining dramatically over time and create less environmentally damaging types of mining. Even mining on the ocean floor could be undertaken responsibly with robots.
Louis, you are living in a fantasy world. You are quite literally picking things out of thin air, without any real clue of their practicality or associated problems, just to support your chosen pet solution.
The link below lists the world's ten largest copper mines.
https://www.mining.com/featured-article … per-mines/They are all (with possibly one exception) open cast mines. This is one of the most environmentally destructive activities that human beings do. Open cast mines are highly mechanised and energy intensive operations. You don't find many machines smaller than a three story building. Where exactly do you think robots are going to fit into this? You could operate the machines via some form of remote control I guess. How much that is worth, I have no idea. The mining itself runs on diesel power and it is a 24/7 operation. Ore benefication involves crushing and grinding, followed by floatation. This stage may also involve heating, which is usually provided by natural gas or LPG.
These are the sorts of operation that will need to scale up enormously to meet the enormous materials budget of a switch from fossil fuel based energy systems to systems based on solar energy. We will be trying to do this whilst also shrinking our consumption of liquid fuels, as oil enters its imminent decline phase.
Copper is just one mineral that would be needed in much greater abundance. You will also need gigatonnes of steel every year to build the solar plants and wind farms that replace fossil fuels and then more to replace the ones that wear out. You will need to somehow produce this steel using electricity from your solar and wind plants. If you are going to use coal to make that steel, then you might as well burn the coal to produce electricity.
The higher embodied energy of wind and solar based energy systems essentially means that your net energy supply will be diminishing, at the same time as energy requirements for maintaining the energy supply are increasing. This diminishes the energy available to every other activity that human beings carry out. Falling net energy yield will initially express itself as rising prices and falling income, I.e poverty. But if it falls beyond the point where there is no longer sufficient energy to maintain essential infrastructure, then the result is collapse. This is what Joseph Tainter described as a maintenance crisis. It is one of the ways in which complex societies collapse; they no longer have sufficient surplus energy to maintain the infrastructure that they depend upon.
This is the danger that we are now toying with. Up to this point, human beings have witnessed an enormous explosion in wealth and capability, thanks entirely to their sudden ability (200 years ago) to access the stored energy locked up in fossil fuels. All of the material wealth that we enjoy, that our ancestors could only dream of, is enabled by unlocking that low cost stored energy and using it to rework matter. We have built infrastructure to assist in this endeavour, that itself required enormous energy investment and will require even more to maintain and replace.
You appear to be blind to the contradictions in your philosophy. On the one hand you advocate space colonisation, which is a hugely energy intensive endeavour. On the other hand you advocate a transition to low EROI energy, depriving humanity of the surplus energy that would enable space travel. Might I suggest that your goals appear to be contradictory. The Apollo moon landings were only achievable by the US due to the enormous surge in economic growth and technological development that were enabled by low cost oil and natural gas in the years following WW2. It was precisely the abundance of surplus energy that allowed the US to industrialise to the level where it could carry out such a project just two decades after WW2.
It's a good question.
I think the industry standard is now moving to 25 years:
https://www.sunrun.com/go-solar-center/ … eally-last
https://news.energysage.com/how-long-do … nels-last/
Manufacturers guarantee 80% of the starting efficiency. It doesn't mean they stop working at 25 years. Many work quite effectively for 30 years. They don't stop dead.
The link below reports that:
" a study conducted by The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) shows a more accurate picture of solar panel degradation. This study took a look at the degradation rates for almost 2,000 solar systems across the world in a variety of climates and found that monocrystalline panels made after the year 2000 degraded at a rate of just 0.4% - less than half of the 1% rate used in the warranties."
https://www.paradisesolarenergy.com/blo … lar-panels
So it seems to be a picture of all-round technical improvement translating into cheaper "per unit" panels. This has no doubt been one of the things driving down the price of utility scale PV power generation.
The following site explains the reasons for degradation:
https://ratedpower.com/blog/solar-panels-degradation/
Light-induced degradation
There are different forms of mechanical and chemical degradation caused by the panel’s exposure to light, these include:
Light-induced degradation (LID). Interaction between the crystalline silicon cells on the panel with the outside environment. LID can last days or over a week.
Direct light-induced degradation (DLID). Direct exposure to sunlight during the initial setup period can cause the electronics within the photovoltaic cells to warp or buckle from the heat. DLID can last a few hours.
UV light-induced degradation (UVID). Initial exposure to sunlight causes the crystalline silicon oxide on the surface of the panel to form a layer of boron dioxide that reduces its efficiency.
Potential-induced degradation (PID)
Unlike LID, PID does not necessarily affect every solar panel, but can happen if the different components, such as the photovoltaic cells and the frame, operate at different voltages. This disruption causes voltage leaks, reducing the amount of electricity the panel can send to the inverter.
Age-related degradation
By nature of their exposure to the elements, solar panels degrade over time. Heavy rainfall, snowfall, ice, as well as high temperatures cause hardening of the crystalline silicon, frame corrosion, and cell contamination. Hail, ice, dust, and sand can also cause microcracks on the surface of the panel, and damage to the seal on the panel can result in water getting inside.
Moreover, reactions in the semiconductor materials used in the cells can create shadowing that reduces the amount of light that the panel can convert into power.
I haven't been able to find any references suggesting we could extend lifespan to 100 years. Presumably that is because of the above factors which seem intrinsic to the way PV panels generate electricity (ie they largely cannot be removed as degradation factors). But certainly it looks like we can move to a 25 year lifespan and beyond. Certainly sounds like 30 years might be achievable.
A 50% increase in standard lifespan coupled with incremental improvements in output combined to greatly increased power output per unit coupled with 2 or 3 decades ago.
For Louis .... occasionally a member of the forum will report the expected lifetime of solar panels ...
Usually the number of (Earth) years is around 20 years on the upside.
Since you are currently carrying the entire pro-solar argument by yourself, can you (possibly?) enlist help to show that there are reasons why solar cells deteriorate, and that whatever those reasons are can be countered by improved design.
I have no idea if the answer is yes or no, but I'll toss out: Can solar cells last 100 years?
If not, why not?
(th)
1. Agreed. Same as they don't social distance during lockdowns. Just for the plebs.
2. Agreed.
3. You can manufacture methane, just as Space X plan to manufacture methane on Mars. So no need to use fossil fuels. By 2050 it will probably be much cheaper to manufacture methane on site rather than to pay for it to be pumped out of reserves in the Middle East and transported to Boca Chica.
4. Encouraging mass vaccination (with an experimental vaccine that has not completed its trials) for a coronavirus that gives 99% of infected people the equivalent of a bad cold or a dose of flu, or even no symptoms at all, thereby compromising the health of hitherto healthy people.
5. Preserving natural habitat is more about education and getting people out of poverty. The green lobby go on and on about plastic in the oceans, quite rightly, but imply we (in the UK, US and other advanced economies) are chucking it in the oceans. Virtually all of it comes down the Indus, Congo, Nile, Niger and Amazon put there by very poor people with sub-standard education. Green energy offers a solution to poverty and will power opportunities in education e.g. by enabling poor children to receive education online, once their village is being powered by solar or wind energy.
Undoubtedly green energy like all energy systems does use up resources. However, there are a lot more resources on Earth than we sometimes allow for. I favour putting much more effort into developing recycling. But we can also look to responsible mining. For instance lithium mines are now being opened in Cornwall where there are plenty of old tin mines. Using robotics means we can probably reduce the cost of mining dramatically over time and create less environmentally damaging types of mining. Even mining on the ocean floor could be undertaken responsibly with robots.
Louis,
1. Nobody in government or banking believes in climate change, no matter what they claim, because their actions are the exact opposite of what you'd do if you did believe in it. From that standpoint, they either ignore science or we've been using junk science as a stand-in for the genuine article.
2. Yes, it's pretty clear that anyone who drowns from melting ice that takes centuries to melt is too stupid to live.
3. If people aren't using fossil fuels in 30 years, then how do you imagine rockets like SpaceX's Starship will be launched?
What unilateral actions has Bill Gates taken that make him an "idiot", in your opinion?
4. Partisan though GW's speculation may be, or may NOT be (I'd wager that you've never considered that possibility), what he's describing absolutely can happen, because it has happened in the not-so-distant past. In geologic terms, 10,000 years is the blink of an eye. Murphy's Law: Anything that can happen, will happen. 7.5M of sea level rise would inundate virtually all of the cities on the coastlines of most industrialized nations. And yes, over enough time, that will happen anyway. Why mankind thinks anything he's built will survive into perpetuity is beyond my understanding.
5. Humanity as a whole quite clearly doesn't give a rat's rear end about the habitat loss of other species. We imagine ourselves to be "above the natural world", because we have tools that all the other animals don't. We must have missed that seemingly inconsequential point about the fact that all of our tools came from that natural world. The proof for that is this "green dream" religion, which requires clear-cutting millions of square kilometers of land to make room for solar panels or wind turbines and strip mining every last nugget of metal ore we can lay a hand to, in order to attempt, yet still fail thus far, to compensate for the fact that "green energy" requires an order of magnitude more land use and natural resource extraction than fossil fuels did and at least two orders of magnitude more than nuclear power.
1. I wouldn't deny there is a lot of utopianism to be found in both the world of space exploration/colonisation and the world of green policy. However I think I am fairly level-headed when it comes to both. For example I reject Musk's simplistic model of colonisation. I don't think it's practical. Equally I totally oppose XR-Thunbergian nonsense economics (which would lead to the deaths of hundreds of millions possibly billions within a few years).
2. I have always been interested in energy economics and there's nothing wrong in that. I've been interested in cold fusion/LENR as well. But I am certainly enthused by the growing practicality of green energy. I think we are seeing huge potential changes in how society is organised in coming decades. Everything points to us being to supply many more of our own needs as individuals, urban areas and nations. We can see that already with solar power. We could probably create our own water supply through dehumidification - whether we would be able to deal with waste water is another matter. 3D printing is another powerful tool. So is robotics. Vertical farms, polytunnel farming - all part of the same theme.
3. I don't deny a society is an energy system. All living things are. EROI is just a rather simplistic and misleading analytical tool. I think the fundamental problem with it is that it doesn't price anything. If you price things, then you see that fundamentally price is reflecting the amount of labour put into a product or service - and it is the amount of labour that determines whether something can be done or not. This is obviously complex stuff but I would sum it up by saying that if we are confident the markets are telling us x is cheaper than y, then whatever your energy analysis might tell you, x is more practical and beneficial in the long term. Until recently green energy wasn't remotely telling us that. But now it seems to be increasingly in more and more parts of the world.
4. You can make methane, so your fuel to Mars doesn't have to be a fossil fuel. But clearly we will eventually find other ways to power craft. I don't think there are any major incompatibilities. Spacecraft don't use anywhere near as much fossil fuel as aviation or automobiles, buses and trains in any case. The technologies we use to help us live on Mars will be useful on Earth as well. [Edit - Just to add a stat: in 2018 airlines carried over 4 billion passengers. In that year the space industry probably carried no more than 10 to orbit! Even if Musk's fantastic prognostications come true and he can build a city of 1 million permanent residents on Mars within 30 years, he would be carrying no more than about 34,000 passengers a year compared with maybe 10 billion being carried by the airlines. Of course E2E Starships could potentially change that but even in the next 30 years I doubt that will be anything more than the preserve of a small elite (not so much because of theoretical cost but because of the limits to where you can site Spaceports).
Louis's world view is a fascinating piece of psychology that I cannot help poking at. It is heavily influenced by green-tech utopianism. The idea of colonising other planets is utopian and depends on a certain amount of wishful thinking. So it shouldn't be surprising that board members here would be vulnerable to other types of utopian thinking and prone to wishful thinking and fantasism. The Green movement is first and foremost an ideological movement. In an increasingly secular and agnostic world, it provides people with certainty and meaning by replacing a belief in God, with a belief in nature, as the all kind and all giving mother, to be nutured, respected and worshipped. A lot of people need that sort of anchor in life. It provides emotional security in an otherwise uncertain and threatening world. Hence many people's emotional connection to certain ideas and concepts that may appear bizarre from the outside.
The idea of generating power from the sun and wind is ideologically attractive to a lot of people. It appears to provide a sort of natural symmetry and a lot of people, Louis included, end up obsessing over the idea. It is pointless attempting to debate with these people using facts and figures, just as it is pointless trying to convince a religious fanatic that their specific take on morality and the meaning of life is misguided. Exactly the same mindset is at work here. Solar power is clearly an essential part of Louis's world view. It is emotionally important to him in ways that many people won't understand and accepting its limitations would throw his entire world view into chaos. Hence the reason these discussions end up going round and round in circles, with him making the same points over and over, even after they have been refuted over and over again. You might as well blow your time trying to convince a creationist that humans and apes had common ancestors. These people go to excessive lengths, devising quite complex alternative anti-evolutionary theories, to avoid having to accept conclusions that would sink their worldview. Hence, the creationists intelligent design framework, which posits that complex structures like the eye, could not have evolved from simpler forms as they contain irreducible complexity. Examples of simpler light sensing constructs available in fossil records, are ignored because they do not fit the narrative. The last thing that these people want to do is critically examine their own theories.
Louis I think has fallen into the same line of thinking. He rejects the idea that the economy is an energy system, precisely because the implications of this fact pour cold water on the idea of using low EROI solar energy as the dominant energy source for an industrial economy. Studies that suggest that EROI of solar energy is too low to power an industrial society are rejected in favour of those that do not, without any understanding of specifics, simply because they fail to support the chosen narrative. Nuclear power is hated by adherents of green-tech utopianism, precisely because it demolishes the need for solar electricity. Why develop an expensive solar energy system harnessing the diffuse energy arriving from nuclear reactions in the sun, when we can instead build our own equivalent of the sun, with orders of magnitude greater power density? Technological specifics are often lacking from the utopianism expressed on this board. We hear a lot about 'solar and storage' being cheap and apparently getting ever cheaper. But Louis often isn't interested in the specific technologies involved, nor does there appear to have much understanding as to how they work, or what their limitations are. Likewise 'Nuclear' is often discussed by Louis in a way that suggests he lacks knowledge as to what it specifically is and how this set of technologies work. He reached a predetermined conclusion that he was opposed to all things Nuclear
because it is a threat to the solar narrative. With this in mind any knowledge of nuclear technology is superfluous, unless it is useful in bolstering the predetermined solar narrative. One gets the sense that he is disinterested in the technology or even frightened to dig into these things because of what he might find. He is obsessed with the idealism of solar energy to the point where specifics are meaningless distractions at best, or worse, exploring them may contradict the chosen narrative. Hence, the continuous one liner statements that 'solar is now cheaper than any other energy source' without any critical analysis of the concepts involved.What I do find a little puzzling is the obvious contradictions between the different utopianisms. On the one hand, we witness a passionate belief in solar electricity, which has been demonstrated to be low EROI, with an enormous requisite materials budget. On the other hand, a passionate belief in space colonisation, which cannot be carried out without bucket loads of excess energy and the sort of surplus wealth that is only available right now thanks to abundant fossil fuels (an advantage that is disappearing before our eyes). The two worldviews are obviously incompatible with each other. Most green tech obsessives are mindful of these sorts of contradictions and they tend to advocate simpler and less energy intensive lifestyles, in which spiritual value in some way compensates for reduced material abundance in the inevitably poorer world that a solar economy would bring. The idea of space colonisation is ridiculous and a superfluous goal to these people. This line of thinking is perfectly logical given the far more limiting resource base that a solar economy would impose upon humanity. On the other hand, space travel utopians (my self included, if I am honest) shun the idea of a solar economy precisely because it renders my own utopian view of interplanetary future impossible.
What I find remarkable about Louis, is his ability to accept the solar power narrative without accepting its implications. This sets him apart from most other adherents of the green-tech quasi-religious movement. There is an obvious logical contradiction in his belief system that does not appear to recognise the incompatibility between an energy future based on ground based renewable energy on the one hand, and on the other, an interplanetary human society that would be impossible to build with the limited surplus energy that ground based renewable energy would impose. Religious movements are replete with incompatibilities like this, and no believer ever seems to smell a rat, because their adherents are strongly discouraged from applying critical thinking to the chosen narrative. Hence the idea that Christ was a multicultural pacifist, when numerous passages from the Bible paint him as a Judean racial nationalist, opposed to Roman rule, but without the resources needed to mount an armed rebellion. These sorts of contradictions are obvious to someone on the outside. Yet religious people are not dissuaded by them. They find ways of reconciling the incompatibilities of their belief system in a way that allows core beliefs to remain intact. Louis has found ways of doing the same thing here, in spite of contradictions that would appear irreconcilable to an observer on the outside.
You do know the Maldives is building 4 international airports on these islands supposedly threatened with submersion and that they have been able to borrow money to fund this huge capital investment? Seems like the government of the Maldives don't believe their own propaganda.
Several million Dutch people live metres below sea level - quite happily. Being below sea level is not a death sentence.
You're talking about events happening over a century - or more. No one is going to be using fossil fuels in 30 years. There will be no further addition to CO2 levels by 2050 and we may even be taking CO2 out of the atmosphere by international agreement. (What you can't allow though is idiot billionaires like Bill Gates taking unilateral action.)
I have yet to be convinced there has been any unprecedented increase in sea levels and we have apparently had global warming since the early 1800s. All we get is propaganda e.g. "Miami is being flooded because of climate change" when the truth is it's built on porous limestone and the huge weight of recent construction is pushing the city down into the porous limestone.
Most of your speculation is pointless being based on very partisan reporting from the media and climate change proponents who like to spread alarm.
Rather than focus on carbon emission, we should be focussed on loss of natural habitat which is a far greater threat to the ecosystems on the planet.
Louis's "canary in the coal mine" is something we will live to see, even me at my age. The Maldives and some other places will be first.
As for Robert's 3.2 mm per year, that's the steady-state average rate over the last millennium or so. There is no reason to believe there is anything "sacred" about 3.2 mm/yr, either in the past or in the future. In point of fact, about 11,000 years ago, the geologic record shows a glacial meltback sea level rise rate between 1 and 2 ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE greater. And again about 8000 years ago.
So far most of the ice melt has been for floating ice shelves and ice packs, which cannot affect sea levels, quite as Robert says. The exception is the meltback of the mountain glaciers, on a time scale of only a century or so remaining, with an on-land ice volume corresponding to a meter of sea level rise. That would average close to 10 mm/year, rather out of line with the 3.2 mm/yr seen up to now.
The Greenland ice cap is showing serious signs of instability, something seen for at least 25 years now, threatening a partial deglaciation, which the geologic record says has happened before. The total above-sea-level ice volume is estimated to produce about 6 m sea level rise. If only half melts (as happened the last time in the geologic record), that would be a 3 m sea level rise. If that happens over a century, you are looking at an average rate of 30 mm/year.
In the last few years, signs of instability have become apparent in the West Antarctic ice sheet. Part of this is above-sea-level ice, and part is resting on rock below sea level. The best estimate we have says that if it were all to melt, that would create a 7 m sea level rise. So, if only half of it deglaciated (as good an assumption as any), that would be a 3.5 m sea level rise.
So over the next century or two, there is the distinct possibility of 1 + 3 + 3.5 = 7.5 m sea level rise. That would average around 37 to 75 mm/yr. Quite the "sudden change" from past trends.
The East Antarctic ice sheet is all located on rock above current sea level. It is not currently showing any credible signs of instability, but if it were to melt, the estimate is 60 m sea level rise. Think about that!
Now, think about what happens if the mountain glaciers finish melting and half of Greenland deglaciates. That's about 4 m sea level rise, based on the simple math of volumes. And it could easily happen in a century or so, for a sudden change to an average rise rate in the 20-40 mm/yr range.
There's more than a billion humans that live within 2 m of current sea level. They would be displaced, on the move looking for new places to live, and desperate enough to commit ANY act to survive! You think you have refugee problems now ...
GW
An intriguing set of images from Mars:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__tLVeTm_60&t=53s
Could be the equivalent of an indented limestone pavement but it is very regular, and so the speculation about a sign from an ancient civilisation should not be dismissed lightly.