o.k. what's the deal? - shocked?

SpaceNut · 2005-04-07 05:25:28

What about miniature nuclear power reactors such as a pebble reactor for powering our new age cars and trucks of the future.
Not to mention besides the alternative fuels mentioned before in bio-desiel, solar and hydrogen.. there are ethynols, methane, propane and others to exploit as well including pedal power...

flashgordon · 2005-04-07 09:18:52

last I heard, the chinese were the guys working on and planning on using the peddle power; i don't think the U.S. is prepared for transfering to peddle power any time soon.

GCNRevenger · 2005-04-07 11:24:37

but the exercise of extracting hydrogen from water is so utterly inefficient its not worth the bother

Well, somebody's been living in a cave recently... There are ways to make Hydrogen besides throwing electricity at it:

-High temperature electrolysis, perfect for nuclear plants, uses the wasted heat to greatly reduce the electricity needed to break down the water molecules. Use plants' excess electrical capacity at night to crack water.

-Biological, that we have sucessfully geneticly modified bacteria that produce Hydrogen from waste organic matter. They don't do it very quickly, but that can probobly be improved... How would you like to build a Hydrogen "farm?"

-My favorite, the Copper/Chlorine thermal cycle. Able to operate at a very mild ~500C, uses Copper Chloride to break down water molecules catalyticly, and is quite efficent. Building a very modest solar farm or a small nuclear plant could produce a great deal of Hydrogen this way.

Once organic solar pannels are invented, our electrical supplies will grow signifigantly too, since you can put them just about anywhere. This can help provide Hydrogen directly to the end customer, permitting fast deployment of Hydrogen technology since infrastructure is cellular, scaleable, and modular.

As far as storage, high-pressure Hydrogen tanks are probobly good enough, but filling them with a carbon nanotube batting will increase the capacity by two or three times perhaps. This combined with polymer nanocomposits for vehicles, and you need less Hydrogen to push them too.

The people pushing the Hydrogen economy aren't foolish dreamers... and I think they are ultimatly right.

dicktice · 2005-04-07 14:39:59

My sentiments, pretty much, regarding the hydrogen economy being ultimately right. The key word is "ultimately." The intermediate economy between now and then, the hybrid gas/electric economy, is what I fail to see being planned. Why not?

flashgordon · 2005-04-07 15:40:30

i just can't help commenting that these new solar energy technologies are because of quantum dot technology; this is a sophisticated quantum technology, not just something you can pick up off the ground somewhere.

GCNRevenger · 2005-04-07 16:33:15

I don't think its all about quantum dots, but self-assembling polymer or small molecule quantum dots could possibly be used for high-efficency cells. Low efficency cells, the ones I am talking about, can be mass produced once the technology is nailed down.

I think that the time between when oil becommes uneconomical probobly won't be much sooner then the time Hydrogen starts becomming practical, but yes we are probobly not preparing as well as we should.

Dook · 2005-04-07 16:33:37

Whether the infrastructure for hydrogen/bio-diesel is there or not it doesn't stand a chance against oil/gasoline until the price of oil gets very high. It may need to double the current price per barrel before the new fueled vehicles become cost competitive.

Organic solar panels hitting efficiencies of 2.7%. 5% efficiency imagined in the near future. I see huge solar panel farms in Arizona and New Mexico producing power for the country.
http://www.physorg.com/news2339.html]ht … s2339.html

GCNRevenger · 2005-04-07 16:54:04

I see huge solar panel farms in Arizona and New Mexico producing power for the country

Oh no, no no thats not where they will be used. They will be eventually used on every concieveable flat surface in cities and towns, close to where the energy will used, so there is less loss to transmission.

srmeaney · 2005-04-07 18:05:47

And this talk of the end of civilization and crap because of the oil supply... nonsense. You are right up there with the zero-sum Communist economists. You don't give humanity near enough credit when it needs to do something to save itself.

It takes energy to mine the Coal. A jump from twenty-five dollars a barrel to fifty dollars a barrel means a significant increase in the cost to even mine coal, They will need to produce food on site. It also takes energy to mine metals such as Copper which are used to make shell casings for bullets, so the weapons of war will be very expensive (unfortunatly never expensive enough). Uranium for reactors will need to be mined, processed and refined by the nation that has the supply because the need for energy efficiency will be critical.

They can pretty much burn the nuclear non-proliferation treaty now.

A large number of cities in the Cold North will require unsustainable amounts of energy to stay warm.

Short of resorting to the Acetelyne Engine for Automobiles. Which uses a man made Hydrocarbon produced from CO2 and H20, using Calcium as an in-process production material (effectivly a recyclable).

Planes on the other hand can be run on a Hydrogen Economy, but not big planes. Personal Jet aircraft & Gliders Using the sixty year old technology of the V-1 Rocket Motor will only need Hydrogen as an on-board fuel. Personal (hydrogen fueled) jet aircraft will be the popular choice.

Steam Trains will be the only replacement for overland bulk people and freight movement. Coal will be it's fuel of choice for the next hundred years. Eventually it will be nuclear powered trains (of course rail accidents will now involve a NEST cleanup).

Hydrogen Zeppelins will be prefered as Cargo lifters, Surveilance Platforms, International Passenger Movers.

For someone who touts the free market system, intimidating OPEC to keep the price of oil low is anti market, i'm surprised you condone it. If we had been forced to pay it's real value, we would have had to abandon oil long ago.

Why sell it to the West for an argueable fifty dollars a barrel when they can sell it to the Mega-Economy of China for a hundred dollars a barrel?

Of course there is the Gulf of Mexico with it's untapped 660 billion barrels of oil...I'm Surprised Cuba isn't the richest Oil producing Nation on the Planet.

GCNRevenger · 2005-04-07 18:11:57

Umm. WTH?

Dook · 2005-04-08 07:38:39

Yeah, WTH?? What are you talking about?

Your first paragraph is difficult to understand. "It takes energy to mine coal and they need to produce food on site". Are you talking about mars or earth, or somewhere else? Why do they need to produce food on site?

The use of nuclear reactors is diminishing.

Cities in the north requiring 'unsustainable' energy to keep warm? Where did you get this idea from? It will be sustained from coal for the next 200 years and by then I'm sure we will have some new sources of energy: fusion and solar panels of much higher efficiency.

Nuclear powered trains? Hydrogen Zeppelins? I doubt it. Bio-diesel can be used as a fuel in current diesel engines and the infrastructure for those engines/vehicles is already in place. You're not going to beat that kind of efficiency.

Condone the intimidation of OPEC to keep oil prices down? Of course. They have a monopoly on the worlds energy supply. They could reduce the output anytime they wanted to, the price would skyrocket and they would still make the same amount of money but it would hurt the USA a great deal. I would support a war for oil in that case.

Cheap oil is what made America go from a world power to a super power. Everything we have done in the last 100 years is connected to it. What do you think is behind China's economic boost? They were all about mules and push carts for thousands of years.

OPEC can't sell to china for $100 a barrel, while OPEC does set the price it isn't purely set by supply vs demand. The good ole USA puts a little political pressure on them from time to time to keep it reasonable.

SpaceNut · 2005-04-08 07:48:56

Here is food for thought in that the engine loses 70 percent in energy to waste heat. This article talks about capturing it and converting it to electrical energy. The difference of temperature on a set of different material conductors at each coupling point cause the equilibrum to make use of the electrons that are at higher energy levels to flow.

Scientists Discover Better Way To Generate Power From Thermal Sources

Nanostructured thermoelectric devices involve using extremely thin nanowires to capture the power-producing potential of thermal heat.

Grypd · 2005-04-08 09:10:12

The use of nuclear reactors is diminishing.

Actually it was diminishing but with most nations relying on gas or oil burning power stations and with a lot of countries reducing there CO2 output has resulted in a reversal of this view.

It just has to be the UK, France, Germany have all increased there greener renewable sources of energy but it is still not enough so Nuclear is becoming the perfered option and the public seem to be willing to accept it as they perfer nuclear to higher electricity bills. Even the scandinavian countries are commisioning new Nuclear power stations.

The problem for these countries is that to turn to coal a resource they still have in plenty produces a rate of pollution which is totally unaceptable to the public now and though it has storage issues for nuclear waste it is still seen as cleaner energy and the public view of windfarms is actually becoming more anti as they are noisy and spoil the view.

Grypd · 2005-04-08 09:28:46

Condone the intimidation of OPEC to keep oil prices down? Of course. They have a monopoly on the worlds energy supply. They could reduce the output anytime they wanted to, the price would skyrocket and they would still make the same amount of money but it would hurt the USA a great deal. I would support a war for oil in that case.
Cheap oil is what made America go from a world power to a super power. Everything we have done in the last 100 years is connected to it. What do you think is behind China's economic boost? They were all about mules and push carts for thousands of years.
OPEC can't sell to china for $100 a barrel, while OPEC does set the price it isn't purely set by supply vs demand. The good ole USA puts a little political pressure on them from time to time to keep it reasonable.

OPEC does not have a monopoly on the production of Oil it is very powerful but it cannot control the prices rising as they have. Due to the factors now prevalent and this is unlike what occured in the past.

Actually, the last time OPEC and the USA tangled the USA came out worst and it was definitly a victory for OPEC. Epecially when OPEC managed to get the world to start paying 10 times more for its product and to gain a lot of respect and money.

This was in 1973 and resulted in the devalueing of the Dollar mass unemployment, national speed limits of 55mph and even in the USA having to change its clocks...

But OPEC is powerless to stop prices rising at the moment as it has zero spare capacity to pump oil as the demand for it is so great and the demand is not likely to fall greatly with the end of winter for the northern hemisphere. There are few places that have spare capacity to pump Oil and those are due to the inefficiency to do so. One of these is Russia and it is hiring a lot of people to get its inefficient backward oil system up to scratch and this hiring has increased in the recent months.

Dook · 2005-04-08 09:35:03

The amount of solar insolation received annually by Arizona and parts of New Mexico is almost double that received by the rest of the country so I imagine that there will be large solar farms there, and solar panels on top of buildings in cities as well.

The 5% efficient solar panel should greatly reduce the USA's foreign oil needs. Also if they can make these 5% efficient solar panels thin and flexible they could be mounted on the hood, roof, and rear deck of vehicles. These panels mounted on the top of hybrid diesel/electric truck cargo modules could greatly reduce their fuel consumption.

There is no reason to be pessimistic about the future.

Dook · 2005-04-08 09:45:52

Actually, the last time OPEC and the USA tangled the USA came out worst and it was definitly a victory for OPEC. Epecially when OPEC managed to get the world to start paying 10 times more for its product and to gain a lot of respect and money.
This was in 1973 and resulted in the devalueing of the Dollar mass unemployment, national speed limits of 55mph and even in the USA having to change its clocks...
But OPEC is powerless to stop prices rising at the moment as it has zero spare capacity to pump oil as the demand for it is so great and the demand is not likely to fall greatly with the end of winter for the northern hemisphere. There are few places that have spare capacity to pump Oil and those are due to the inefficiency to do so. One of these is Russia and it is hiring a lot of people to get its inefficient backward oil system up to scratch and this hiring has increased in the recent months.

And just why hasn't OPEC drastically reduced it's output since 1973? The world is at their mercy now just as then.

Maybe they haven't because strong American leaders have sent them a warning. Everybody complains about how much we spend on defense but they don't recognize the invisible successes that a strong military provides.

Yes supply vs demand is and will continue to drive the price of oil upward. You're just repeating what we've already said.

When we are given a challenge the US has the incredible ability to adapt. Third world countries will benefit, somewhat, from this. Imagine solar powered dehumidifiers providing water to desolate areas in Africa.

SpaceNut · 2005-04-08 10:25:37

Can the U.S. stop using oil by 2050?

Yes, says visionary Amory Lovins. So long as we get serious about improving energy efficiency. The cost? $180 billion over 10 years.

So where do I fill up on that low cost alternative ???

dicktice · 2005-04-08 10:28:51

GCNR: I try to go along with you, but after reading the posts following your uninformative "um WITH" reply, can only conclude you are just being provocative. I can't fault them, especially since Sweden (my 2nd home) has reversed it's fission reactor shutdown policy ... and they've got coal to burn.

Grypd · 2005-04-08 12:32:54

And just why hasn't OPEC drastically reduced it's output since 1973? The world is at their mercy now just as then.
Maybe they haven't because strong American leaders have sent them a warning. Everybody complains about how much we spend on defense but they don't recognize the invisible successes that a strong military provides.
Yes supply vs demand is and will continue to drive the price of oil upward. You're just repeating what we've already said.
When we are given a challenge the US has the incredible ability to adapt. Third world countries will benefit, somewhat, from this. Imagine solar powered dehumidifiers providing water to desolate areas in Africa.

OPEC did reduce its output and actually kept a check on how much was produced just to keep oil prices at a stable rate. But with the increase in demand OPEC has had to up and up its production to stop OIL prices rising too high. Now the OPEC countries are mostly at full production or not far of it and cannot moderate the prices as they used too. The high price of OIL and the costs involved hurt the OPEC countries too believe it or not. They rely on oil for a lot like gas powered water reclamation systems and they are heavy users of cars too. Not to mention there repair and maintenance of the oil pumping system has had to be downgraded as they cannot pull any fields of production.

It has allways been in the Interests of OPEC to keep production and consumption relatively stable and it allows these countries where oil is there staple supply of currency to actually have a stable economy. The current situation is that with demand so high OPEC has tapped into all its reserves and in the future will run out a lot sooner than they are prepared for. Look at Bharain which is turning itself into the tourist trap of the gulf states so it has a future income after its oil is depleted.

And for those who want to know 5% efficiency solar panels are now well out of date tech we have solar panels that are in the 38% efficient stage and typical cheap commercial panels are of a minimum of 15%. Actually have a set of 18% ones which I was planning for a little home experiment of mine.

SpaceNut · 2005-04-08 13:16:21

Are the more efficient ones more costly and where might they be purchased?
At more than $2.30 a gallon for regular gas I must start looking at other ways to get to and from work. Since wages will not follow the cost increase and everything that we need to survive will also start to cost more in time.

Dook · 2005-04-08 13:22:29

Your right, the 5% solar panel I was referring to is just the organic panel which would simply reduce the cost of purchasing solar equipment and not improve the energy supply. In order to do that we would need to, at least, double the efficiency of solar panels from 36% to 72%. Not sure if that is possible and even so it is likely very far into the future.

Grypd · 2005-04-08 13:55:25

Your right, the 5% solar panel I was referring to is just the organic panel which would simply reduce the cost of purchasing solar equipment and not improve the energy supply. In order to do that we would need to, at least, double the efficiency of solar panels from 36% to 72%. Not sure if that is possible and even so it is likely very far into the future.

Actually its not the problems with the solar panels that is holding back there use but basically where it is sunny all the time is where there is few people. Transportation of energy is the real problem.

Electricity can only be transported so far before resistance of the medium used basicly uses all the energy up in heat etc. Which is why if we had a super conductor that worked well and at reasonable high tempatures then we would find our energy grids incredible.

We need regular power production stations just to keep the grid running in effect keeping the pressure on. And sometimes we have situations where there has to be a power station but it can only be the one type as this is the only fuel source that can be economically available.

Dook · 2005-04-08 14:16:37

The power company transmits the power at very high amounts which reduces the line loss. It's not a significant loss. Sure, superconductivity will help but not nearly as much as a new more powerful energy source.

Grypd · 2005-04-08 14:47:54

The actual loss is proportional to the amount that is transmitted and with power lines they can actually only hold so much before they melt

Commodore · 2005-04-08 14:54:46

Each home with its roof covered with solar panels could provide most, if not all of the power needed, no matter were on Earth they are. At least enough to seriously reduce the need for outside power.

The trouble is the things are so expensive and have a limited lifespan to be of little savings to the consumer over time. The companies that produce them seem more than willing to suck up huge profit from a niche market with little investment.

New Mars Forums

Announcement

#26 2005-04-07 05:25:28

Re: o.k. what's the deal? - shocked?

#27 2005-04-07 09:18:52

Re: o.k. what's the deal? - shocked?

#28 2005-04-07 11:24:37

Re: o.k. what's the deal? - shocked?

#29 2005-04-07 14:39:59

Re: o.k. what's the deal? - shocked?

#30 2005-04-07 15:40:30

Re: o.k. what's the deal? - shocked?

#31 2005-04-07 16:33:15

Re: o.k. what's the deal? - shocked?

#32 2005-04-07 16:33:37

Re: o.k. what's the deal? - shocked?

#33 2005-04-07 16:54:04

Re: o.k. what's the deal? - shocked?

#34 2005-04-07 18:05:47

Re: o.k. what's the deal? - shocked?

#35 2005-04-07 18:11:57

Re: o.k. what's the deal? - shocked?

#36 2005-04-08 07:38:39

Re: o.k. what's the deal? - shocked?

#37 2005-04-08 07:48:56

Re: o.k. what's the deal? - shocked?

#38 2005-04-08 09:10:12

Re: o.k. what's the deal? - shocked?

#39 2005-04-08 09:28:46

Re: o.k. what's the deal? - shocked?

#40 2005-04-08 09:35:03

Re: o.k. what's the deal? - shocked?

#41 2005-04-08 09:45:52

Re: o.k. what's the deal? - shocked?

#42 2005-04-08 10:25:37

Re: o.k. what's the deal? - shocked?

#43 2005-04-08 10:28:51

Re: o.k. what's the deal? - shocked?

#44 2005-04-08 12:32:54

Re: o.k. what's the deal? - shocked?

#45 2005-04-08 13:16:21

Re: o.k. what's the deal? - shocked?

#46 2005-04-08 13:22:29

Re: o.k. what's the deal? - shocked?

#47 2005-04-08 13:55:25

Re: o.k. what's the deal? - shocked?

#48 2005-04-08 14:16:37

Re: o.k. what's the deal? - shocked?

#49 2005-04-08 14:47:54

Re: o.k. what's the deal? - shocked?

#50 2005-04-08 14:54:46

Re: o.k. what's the deal? - shocked?

Board footer