Exponential Growth of Solar Powered Industry

tahanson43206 · 2022-12-05 07:02:42

A plant grows from a seed, and it proceeds to assemble matter in order to break through into sunlight. After it reaches sunlight, the plant begins a phase of exponential growth.

The ideas of kbd512 (in particular) and a few ideas of Calliban are capable of Exponential Growth.

The first post in this new topic is from Calliban, who reminds us of a decades old idea of Exponential Growth using nanotechnology.

I would like to see, and am actively encouraging, posts by forum members showing understanding of how Exponential Growth of solar powered industry is possible, after the initial starting seed of "egg yolk" resources are exhausted.

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ex·po·nen·tial growth
[ˈˌekspōˈnen(t)SHəl ɡrōTH]
NOUN
exponential growth (noun)
growth whose rate becomes ever more rapid in proportion to the growing total number or size:
"the exponential growth of the world's population"
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Images for what part of a plant's growth is exponential and what part is geometric

images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT2chg7fBD_RR-ZOiVEvM5qTjd0gjZJ0N5khr4AluYPmA&s
images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQTqgr3PqwgCwDQ6MegHALCbAMO-xdjdct7tOGe0CFnFQ&s

(th)

tahanson43206 · 2022-12-05 07:03:31

This post is reserved for a copy of a post by Calliban, entered into a topic of Void...

Calliban wrote:

How to conquer the entire universe with Von Neuman machines.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fVrUNuADkHI
Quite an old idea. Technology seems to be bringing us closer to it. The idea is simple. Truly self replicating machines would allow a technological civilisation to spread throughout the universe, by launching seed machines to other stars using coil gun accelerators, at a significant fraction of C. The expansion of the universe actually provides braking for probes dispatched to very distant galaxies. When the probes arrive, they build space stations and factories, and grow human beings from stored genetic codes. This is how humanity could conquer the universe at a low energy cost.
I put this topic under 'terraforming' because that is likely to be one of the first applications of Von Neuman machines. Terraforming planets on human timeframes, requires huge amounts of energy and infrastructure. Not really possible until we produce robots that can build other robots. Of course, by creating a truly self replicating machine, we also run the risk that they will become the ultimate vermin of the universe.

images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT2chg7fBD_RR-ZOiVEvM5qTjd0gjZJ0N5khr4AluYPmA&s
images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQTqgr3PqwgCwDQ6MegHALCbAMO-xdjdct7tOGe0CFnFQ&s

(th)

Calliban · 2022-12-05 07:22:14

In free space, at least in the inner solar system, solar power is available without the constraints that it faces on Earth. On Earth, we need backup powerplants or energy storage, due to diurnal cycles, seasonal fluctuations and weather effects. Not so in space. There, solar power is available 24/7 at an impressive flux of 1300W/m2 at Earth distance from the sun.

Secondly, in a vacuum, without wind or weather effects, solar power can be concentrated by mirrors that are as thin as foil. Most of the millions of tonnes of steel, glass and concrete needed to construct a solar facility, are due to the need to resist forces imposed by gravity and weather and to protect PV surfaces from abrasion. Again, very little of this is needed in space.

Both of these factors suggest that space solar power will not suffer from the huge embodied energy costs that make solar power so impractical and unwealdy on Earth. Factories built in space, far away from any planetary body, will have high EROI energy available in almost unlimited quantities. Solar power stations in space do not need backup and can be produced with far less material inputs than any Earth based equivelent. The high EROI (i.e the ratio of energy produced by a powerplant to the energy needed to create it) will make it easy to build new solar powerplants using the surplus energy from existing solar powerplants. These are the conditions needed for exponential growth.

When combined with automation with self-replicating machine systems, they could allow humans living in space to achieve truly unimaginable levels of wealth and industrial capability. They also free humanity from the demographic constraints, because living space can be manufactured in endless quantities, so long as the moon, asteroids and other bodies, yield raw materials and the sun continues to provide energy. It is possible to imagine a giant automated equivelent of a car factory in space, which produces Bernal spheres instead of cars. Such automation aloows human beings to create new land in almost limitless quantities. As bleak as things look for human beings stuck on planet Earth right now, the future could be brighter than any of us can presently imagine.

Last edited by Calliban (2022-12-05 07:34:37)

Void · 2022-12-05 07:55:05

I like that message.

Mars could be the focus of energy captured around it in space. As that planet has about 1/2 of our natural reception of energy on Earth, the energy to go to Mars could be doubled. That would probably assist in some sort of terraform. And of course it would not just be people on the surface of Mars, but artificial pressurized habitats in orbits.

But of course, that is only one sub-system. Lots of other expansion might be done.

-------

The notion of accumulation of tech is important. That is why I support the intentional continuous nurture of any type of energy providing technology, so long as it's dangers can be kept in check.

Our problem is binary conflict. The notion of the best and brightest is a problem. In that contest, then you just pick one winner, and specialize in it.

Basically, you sell paper certificates to "Students", and tell them they are the best and the brightest. You also foster some thuggish in the sports realms, so that you can use them to physically control those who will not goosestep.

And I understand that the education system does produce very productive people such as Calliban. But the main purpose of it is to generate meat robots suitable for a control system to control a 20th century industrial system.

The meat robots have their minds destroyed by a sort of memorization of the library.

But we are fortunate, the internet bypasses that to a great degree. Young people can learn to think instead of being meat robots.

And so, I agree, accumulation of tech, will very likely bring technology like solar to a very productive state. We are certainly moving in that direction.

Done.

Last edited by Void (2022-12-05 07:57:37)

kbd512 · 2022-12-05 09:30:53

tahanson43206,

As of right now, there are precisely zero off-world manufacturing plants, which means any exponential growth in the solar industry won't come without exponential increases in the consumption of coal, oil, and gas used to create such devices. That's the primary reason why we need to start synthesizing and storing liquid fuels, which is also good practice for what we intend to do on the moon and Mars. If they are not sourcing recycled CO2, then that means the input energy will surely come from heat engines that require create more emissions from oil and gas drilling or coal.

Current solar power tehcnology generates electricity, but no solar panels are made using electricity. Does that not strike you as the least bit peculiar? That our new miracle technologies cannot be used to self-replicate? Nuclear reactors can at least breed more fuel, but even those machines were made using fossil fuels. If this is not obvious to anyone else, then with what energy sources do we suppose these devices will be made? With all the science experiments conducted aboard ISS, which rely upon photovoltaics and batteries, why did it not occur to anyone to make at least one new photovoltaic cell there, rather than use a Dragon capsule to carrying entirely new arrays up to space for installation? Providing power is an obvious first step, is it not? There had to be at least some scientific value associated with making photovoltaics in space.

At some level, thus stuff must be doable. Redwire, the same company that built the ROSA to replace the aging photovoltaics used aboard ISS, also created the "turbine super alloy casting module". If we can cast turbine super alloy blades in an Easy-Bake Oven aboard ISS, then surely we can make some replacement PV cells to supply power to such experiments. Paying for the power bill is not glamorous work, but keeping the lights on is literally the difference between life and death in the vacuum of space. This is starting to look a bit like how California doesn't want oil and gas production within their own state, so 70% of their oil now comes from the Middle East, where the emissions associated with shipping the crude from the other side of the world produces double the total emissions from all motor vehicles operated within California.

I remain skeptical because I've yet to see the very first attempts to mass-produce anything except human waste products in space, using what is essentially two sheets of plastic with some special ink sandwiched between the plies of plastic. If those are undesirable, then where are our "Made in Space" Silicon-based cells? There's a very long way to go to space colonization at our present rate of progress. I think it's all doable, but the will must exist to prioritize it. When manufacturing in space becomes a real priority, I think we'll see serious money devoted to it, but not before then.

Calliban · 2022-12-05 09:42:45

At Earth's distance from the sun, solar energy is distributed thinly at 1.3kW/m2. Making a solar economy achievable is not really a question of technology. It is about exploiting the characteristics of a different environment. You can do things in space, like making very thin mirror structures, 0.001mm thick. That will never be achievable on Earth surface. We cannot build such slender structures on Earth, either with the technology we have now, or any technology that we will ever discover in the future. For this to work and produce enough surplus energy to be useful to us, it needs to be built in space. Solar systems are intercepting a thin energy flux. For EROI to be good, the systems need to be slender. Such slender structures would buckle under Earth gravity and atmospheric wind loadings would blow them apart even on an average day. In space, far away from planetary bodies, a solar array needs virtually zero structural strength, because there are no net forces that can induce stresses.

In a truly automated space manufacturing system, we could build mirrors of almost any size. The energy requirements for producing a breathable atmosphere on Mars or the moons of Jupiter, appear prohibitive from our Earth bound perspective. Producing a breathable atmosphere in a century, woukd take thousands of times present power consumption of human civilisation. But a million thin mirrors, each 100km in diameter in free space, would have a surface area approaching Jupiter. Such mirrors could be tethered to asteroids and focused onto ceramic recepticles containing water vapour. At temperatures of 2500K, we could dissociate enough water to produce enough oxygen for a 0.2 bar breathable atmosphere on Mars in just a few short years.

These sorts of things are impossible, almost unimaginable today. Maybe not in an industrialised asteroid belt a few centuries hence.

Last edited by Calliban (2022-12-05 10:17:42)

SpaceNut · 2022-12-05 22:02:03

The only chance of off world is when we are on the surface of some other place or places since a vacuum has no resources to build from until a rock comes by for you to catch to make use of or an asteroid to anchor to gather up its volatiles and other materials from to make use of.
This is the main problem for even the ISS to be a factory it's got nothing until you bring it up to it for use.

So where is the most favorable place to start in for solar in the US
https://www.solar-nation.org/images/top … states.jpg

https://www.chooseenergy.com/solar-ener … ry-growth/
https://www.solar-nation.org/top-solar-states
https://modernize.com/homeowner-resourc … -for-solar

not all have good incentives
https://inxeption.com/resources/article … incentives

then again locations are not going to get the same amount of energy received for the same array either
https://www.electricrate.com/solar-ener … roduction/

tahanson43206 · 2022-12-06 08:25:11

For all .... this post is offered to try to clarify what I have in mind for the topic ....

kbd512 has proposed an ambitious project that could (if realized) replace all carbon fuels used on Earth with equivalent fuels made from primary materials.

i consider this to be a worthwhile vision, and would like to see it happen, or at the very least, a plan to make it possible generated and published in this forum.

A point often made in this forum, that using traditional energy supply (ie, fossil fuel sourced from underground repositories) would simply extend the reign of fossil fuel, and add CO2 and other pollutants to the atmosphere.

The purpose of ** this ** topic is to (at least attempt to) provide a "smoothing" function to the vision of kbd512, so that while the first plant would be constructed using traditional ground sourced energy, that plant would build the next one using all non-ground (*) sources (of energy), and the two plants would each make another in the same way, and the process would continue until a point is reached at which the flow of output is sufficient to reduce the rate of grown of new plants.

I opened this topic with images Google found showing exponential growth as a phase in the growth of plants.

In order for this vision (of kbd512's vision) to come to pass, humans would need to demonstrate the ability to imagine how a solar powered plant could duplicate itself. That happens all over the world in Nature ... Nature figured out how to perform this feat millions of years ago, and humans naturally participate without a lot of thought or planning.

Design of a solar powered plant able to duplicate itself is "out there" as an aspiration. Science Fiction writers have been talking about such plants for decades, and serious writers in the hard sciences have invested some time in thinking about the problem.

This topic is a place where serious thought might be published, if anyone is so inspired.

(*) Uranium comes from the ground and it is NOT renewable, but it is a candidate energy source for this vision, because it does not add to the carbon content of the atmosphere.

(th)

kbd512 · 2022-12-06 12:40:49

tahanson43206,

We do not mass-produce anything without burning fuel to create the heat energy to do that. That was my overriding point. Making metals, ceramics, and plastics involves heat engines. There are very few electrically-powered heat engines. They've already been implemented wherever there was a good reason to use them, which I assure everyone related back to the relative efficiency of electricity vs combustion. People associate energy efficiency with electricity where objective reality says there is none.

You need 39.6875kg of metals and plastics (Tesla battery pack, 160Wh/kg) to do what 1kg of diesel (50% efficient engine) fuel does. The energy to create 40kg of metal and plastic has to come from somewhere, and as of right now 100% of that stuff is being dug out of the ground. This is an obvious "energy trap" for anyone who can count.

If each battery pack weighs 500kg and you intend to create 1 billion of those (so that most passenger vehicles are electric), then we're talking about moving 500,000lbs (average amount of earth moved per 500kg battery) * 1,500,000,000 (approximate number of passenger motor vehicles used around the world) equals 750,000,000,000,000lbs of earth that must be processed. 750 trillion pounds. That figure does not including farming machinery, earth moving machines, or other types of construction equipment.

Every year, this is the total quantity of metals mined on Earth, (all kinds, regardless of type- be it Iron / Copper / Aluminum / Silver / etc) in pounds: 7,165,015,000,000 (7.165 trillion pounds)

In rough general terms, creating just the batteries (no other part of the vehicle) to convert all passenger motor vehicles to use Lithium-ion batteries (the best we know how to make when gravimetric energy density is important), involves mining a tonnage of metals equal to 105 years of production at current rates. To make the batteries for farming machinery (tractors alone, actually), that's equal to another 105 years. To make the batteries for mining and construction equipment, I have no idea, but I'll wager it's probably about another 105 years (because the machines involved in mining drink fuel like a Blue Whale drinks sea water).

CO2 emission from mining alone represent 8% of the yearly total. It doesn't matter where on the planet the CO2 is emitted from, because it still counts towards the grand total, either way. An Iron mine in Australia is still burning diesel to create Iron ore, even if you don't see it being done. Whatever gains you falsely believe you're making in "de-carbonizing" transportation, you're immediately giving back up in the form of mining-related CO2 emissions, unless and until the mining machines stop burning diesel. This says nothing about metal refining, which is even more energy-intensive than mining. This says nothing about shipping the materials from the mines to the forges and smelters, to the battery factories, and ultimately to the car dealership lots.

Are we going to increase ore extraction rates to achieve the equivalent of at least 105 years of mining to make all these new batteries, plus the mining required to create everything else, without increasing emissions at all?

Someone please show me how that's going to work if they truly believe that we're going to complete 105 years of mining in the next 10 years, without wildly increasing mining emissions, metal refining emissions, transportation emissions, and construction emissions.

I'll tell you what will happen if we do that without completely replacing all of the mining equipment:

Yearly emissions from mining will be at least 80% of our present total CO2 emission, for the next 10 years, so 180% of present total yearly emissions, then for another 10 years to replace the farming tractors, so 20 years at 180% the present rate, and then another 10 years at 180% of the present rate for another 10 years. That's 30 years of emission at 180% of our present rate. That's 48 years worth of CO2 emissions, at the present yearly rate, crammed into 10 years.

Are the batteries going to last for 48 years so we can at least break even on our CO2 emissions over the next half century?

Obviously not.

After 10 years when the batteries cease to be useful for the cars they've been placed into, we must recycle them, which requires even more energy than digging virgin material out of the ground, which is why nobody does it without government mandate to do it, and we have to accomplish that with essentially zero emissions.

How probable is that?

What is the most likely outcome?

This is why I question if these people truly think climate change is real.

This is why I ask what their true intentions are.

This is why I think their "solution" is to make the problem worse than it already is.

If you think CO2 emissions are a problem now, then in what world does it make sense to double them?

This is why I think the solution is to synthesize our fuels from existing CO2 in the air or oceans, and then to make batteries that last longer, and then make them at a rate that doesn't involve going bat guano crazy with our CO2 emissions.

This is why I put so little faith in these "green dreams" that fly in the face of objective reality regarding how the secret sauce is made.

Tell me if you think we'll need more mining machines to mine 100 years worth of metal in 10 years, plus new factories to make more mining machines, more forges and smelters to refine the metal, plus a lot more steel and concrete to build 10X more mining machines and battery factories.

That's why I call this stuff insanity. It doesn't address the root of the problem. All this stuff requires vastly more energy to do, and all of it presently comes from burning something. We don't have any nuclear powered mining trucks or trains, very few non-military nuclear powered ships, nor solar powered smelters.

If someone else has a different plan, then show your math. Show me where your energy is coming from. I showed my plan. It's available for critique or comment. I have realistic cost projections, realistic efficiency, and noted all caveats and stipulations about how it must work in order to be economically viable. It does not require the use of Unobtanium, nor even Uranium, in order to function. Plant operators do not require PhDs in nuclear-electric rocket surgery, no new technology has been invoked, and someone with a background in finance and experience in oil and gas could analyze its economic viability using what they already know about the equipment already used in that industry.

I suggested using government funding because energy to power transportation machinery is a national defense / national security issue. We routinely kill people who mess with oil wells and oil refineries using missiles and guided bombs launched from aircraft, so oil must be worth killing people over. If the infrastructure is built on American land, then presumably we only have to shoot terrorists or nut jobs to keep it secured, hopefully reducing the cost associated with doing that. FYI, 7.62mm is a lot cheaper than AGM-114s and GBU-53s. Predator drones aren't all that cheap, either. Aircraft carriers and stealth strike fighters or bombers all cost a pretty penny. When we have a limitless onshore energy supply, we have little reason to fight with anyone else, not that that's ever stopped us in the past. Our allies can also get their energy supply from America, which also improves our national security posture. We devote more money than any other nation to national defense, and all the reports I've ever read plainly state that energy security is critical to national security. As such, this makes the most sense to me. Aircraft and ships are not battery-powered, nor will they ever be using any presently known technology. If we spread this infrastructure out over enough areas in enough different states, then not even a nuclear attack could disable all of it (and everyone knows you can't have a good Mad Max style Hollyweird dystopian post-nuclear apocalypse fantasy world without it).

Calliban · 2022-12-06 14:38:13

I am somewhat sceptical that the solar thermal synfuel idea will work. These powerplants will not be miles away from PV in terms of embodied energy. Solar PV is 20% efficient at converting sunlight into electric power. With solar thermal, raising steam at 400°C, efficiency will be around 30%. You don't need glass or silicon, which saves a lot of energy. But you will need similar amounts of steel per MWh. We still don't know how much steel will cost when solar energy must be used to make it. We are then using electric power to make hydrogen, which makes synfuel. Somewhat less than half of the input energy will be captured in the fuel. I still think the idea is worth developing. An EROEI analysis should be carried out for the concept. If EROEI compares favourably with tight oil wells, then we it will provide confidence that this concept provides a sustainable option for producing fuel.

In space away from Earth, solar power is available close to 100% of time. It is more intense than at Earth surface and powerplants can be far more structurally efficient.

Last edited by Calliban (2022-12-06 14:40:24)

tahanson43206 · 2022-12-06 18:23:42

For Calliban re #10

Your post here is helpful for the sturdy growth of this topic! Thanks for both your skepticism that the idea is worth pursuing, ** and ** for your support of an investment of time in doing an analysis.

Your opening statement is (as I read it anyway) ambiguous ... the idea of kbd512 (as I understand it anyway) would appear likely to "work" if we are only talking about the physics and chemistry involved. Since the idea of kbd512 is based (again as I understand it) upon known science and engineering, and (I am pretty sure)_everything in the proposal of kbd512 has been done, my understanding is that a plant built according to the specifications of the vision of kbd512 would "work".

Perhaps your phrasing is more about the economic concept .... can a plant built according to the specifications provided by kbd512 actually pay for itself?

That is a different question from whether or not the plant can perform the functions for which it is designed.

Your closing paragraph contains the idea that I think carries the day .... if the system can be designed to succeed on Earth, where so many factors are aligned against it, then it should be easy enough to replicate in open space. (in comparison).

In any case, thanks for your interest in and support of this topic!

(th)

kbd512 · 2022-12-06 20:05:41

Calliban,

A trough-type solar concentrator can generate 300C to 400C temperatures, and Aluminum can be 90% efficient at converting photons into heat. A Sabatier reactor requires 300C to 400C temperatures. I fail to see how we lose 70% of that heat energy on its way to the Sabatier reactor, unless our insulation is exceptionally poor.

There are literally hundreds of different methods to make Hydrogen gas. Many of them require electricity and heat. Others, such as Silicon nanoparticles or Boron nanoparticles or Aluminum-Gallium mixtures (generates its own Aluminum nanoparticles, as well as chemically cleaning off the captured Oxygen molecules), require zero input of heat or electrical energy (after the catalyst is generated, obviously). The Silicon and Boron oxides are turned back into pure metal using CO2 lasers. Silicon particles will eventually oxidize (turn back into Silica), whereas the Aluminum Gallium mixture does not. Assuming we use Silicon or Aluminum-Gallium in most cases, our photovoltaic enthusiasts haven't been de-justified. We're still using Silicon and Aluminum and Gallium. If we run out of Silicon, then I assert we have much bigger problems, such as the crust of the earth disappearing.

We can also use coal or wood chips or other dried biomass as the Carbon source, if CO2 capture comes up short (but it really shouldn't, because that's what 50% of the power plant has been devoted to- atmospheric CO2 capture). Presumably, a battery of fans can be run using expanding hot CO2 instead of electricity.

3,153kg of CO2 per 1t of diesel fuel (2.68kg of CO2/L). Carbon Engineering says they need 8.8GJ of energy per 1t of CO2 removed, via DAC, so let's say about 2.45MWh. If 1m^2 receives 4.8kWh/day, and we get 50% overall efficiency in terms of heat energy only, no electrical generation, then 1,042m^2 of collector area (32.275m by 32.275m). We need enough CO2 for 110,000,000 gallons / 416,395,100L of diesel fuel, so we'd need 1,115,938,868kg / 1,115,939t of CO2 per day, so 2,734,050,550,000Watt-hours or 2.735TWh. 2,735,000,000,000Watt-hours per day / 4,800Wh/m^2 = 569,791,667m^2 / 570km^2, or 23.875km by 23.875km. 2mm thick steel is 15.7kg/m^2, so I minimally need 8,949,000,000kg of steel reflector surface area, or 8,949,000t. November 30th, 2022 price for cold-rolled (better surface finish than the much cheaper hot-rolled product) steel coil is $1,016 per metric ton, which is $9,092,184,000 / $9.1 billion USD. This is less than the purchase price of a Ford class nuclear powered super carrier. Each panel needs to be hot-dipped in Aluminum. Let's say the hot-dip coating is 0.2mm thick (0.1mm front and back), because such coatings are typically up to 0.3mm thick, maximum. Each 1m^2 has 0.55kg of commercially pure Aluminum applied to it, so 313,500,000kg of Aluminum or 313,500t * 2,522.35 = $790,756,725 USD. Let's call it $10B for the reflectors alone. Let's say we need another $30B for the steel and concrete support structures.

Each onshore oil well we drilled cost somewhere between $2M and $6M, and we drilled 22,600 in 2022. The materials used to build the solar thermal power plant to capture the CO2 is therefore equal in cost to drilling 20,000 oil wells. We drill that many oil wells in America alone, PER YEAR.

Let's assume that the equipment to convert the captured CO2 into diesel is another $160B.

Well... We still come out waaaay ahead on cost if we can operate the plant for 25 years.

Drilling 20,000 oil wells over the next 25 years will cost 1 trillion dollars, and assumes current rates of productivity per well.

This plant will make 40,150,000,000 gallons of fuel per year. If we charge $2.50/gallon, then we make $100,375,000,000 per year. Let's say the entire project costs $250B. We pay for the entire project in less than 2.5 years.

Since our fuel source is guaranteed, we can afford to monkey with whatever kind of batteries look good at the moment, pretty much forever, until someone finds one that

We just blew $392B on the "Climate Change Action Bill", which the American tax payer is now on the hook for.

Now that we have all these new illegals in America, maybe we can put them to work building the plant, offer them room and board, plus free gasoline or diesel for 25 years.

The GigaFactory in Texas cost $1.06B, so why can't we have a steel stamping GiggityFactory (with a giant picture of Quagmire on the roof, which raises the net value to potential investors, especially those with a sense of humor, by at least a billion dollars)?

We then need another step, or possibly several, where we convert Methane into longer chain hydrocarbons, but this is commercial / industrial technology, and already used to synthesize Ethanol or Methanol by the tens of millions of gallons (here in America where we put that stuff in the gasoline, maybe not anywhere else). The commercial units tend to be electrical, though.

Who would actually give a crap if we had something at the end of the day that generated 2.5 trillion in revenue over 25 years. We can still have endless academic debates about relative worth of Ford vs Chevy vs Tesla while the money continues to roll in, people have jobs, cars they can afford to buy to go to work, electronic gadgets that make them forget what planet they're on and behave as if their pet rock is a budding rocket scientist, etc.

At the very least, my solution doesn't require US Electric Grid Extreme Makeover Edition, where we double to quadruple the electric grid capacity and replace nearly every power plant in the country with something that costs a significant multiple of the existing grid's cost.

kbd512 · 2022-12-07 11:04:49

Over time, I began to wonder about what the actual plan is. I haven't seen one that looks viable. The notion that we're going to stop using hydrocarbon fuels in the next 10 to 20 years is as much a pipe dream today as it was 20 years ago. People who claim to care have come up with a very lengthy wishlist of ideas that cannot happen simultaneously because nothing remotely approaching a viable alternative to what we're doing now has ever been presented by anyone. It's more like, "Well, it would be really great if we had a magic wand and could make fossil fuels disappear using my favorite technology." Mind you, fossil fuels are the only energy generation / storage technology that's created any of their favored energy generation and storage technologies to begin with.

There's not enough mining and manufacturing capacity to make photovoltaics and wind turbines, much less batteries, and all of it is a byproduct of fossil fuel consumption. That's a fairly obvious (and serious) problem to someone who is genuinely interested in a solution, but there are only vague assertions that we're going to "make more" (of these fossil fuel-derived machines), without any thought given as to how that's being accomplished (burning more and more fossil fuels). This is a vain effort to try (and still fail) to compensate for the fact that solutions with energy densities nearly two orders of magnitude below fossil fuels will never be "more efficient" in any absolute sense. This is why all of the proposed technologies cost dramatically more than what they're intended to replace. That's not an accident or immature technology- it's a feature of low energy density. You have to be deliberately obtuse to believe otherwise.

So, yeah, "just stop burning oil", and then we "just stop making photovoltaics, wind turbines, and batteries". That means we default back to living the way we did before industrialization, but nobody claiming to care about the issue is willing to stop using their iPhone or laptop or TV or cooking their food or heating / cooling their home or stop driving to work, which means their ask and their willingness to sacrifice is at odds. I guess they think we're going to starve the undesirables (from their perspective) to death, and at the same time that will not severely affect them. From where I'm sitting, that's evil and stupid and self-centered beyond belief.

No photovoltaic or wind turbine power plant has actually replaced anything that came before it. Instead of a single coal or gas or nuclear power plant that provides all the power 24/7/365, now we have three or more smaller yet more expensive power plants, yet none of them can generate the total required output for equal dollars. This has resulted in a fantastic increase in the cost of power, which means fewer dollars are available to build the next power plant, or else everyone goes bankrupt pursuing this agenda to energy poverty.

The part that really makes me wonder is how or why a lot of the people here, who are by no means opulently wealthy, still support this manifestly self-destructive radical change agenda that utterly lacks all the fundamentals that would prove out the notion that it's both a good idea and also practical to do. On a more human level, I have zero trust in the people promoting this agenda, because nothing they've stated or done makes me think that their intentions are motivated by anything except pure narcissism (self-interest, to the exclusion of anyone else's interests), greed, envy, and/or hatred (of humanity itself, which truly is "deplorable"). Unless and until they radically change their thinking and how they treat other people (especially people they dislike), I can think of no reason to feel differently.

At a personal level, I can even tolerate people who hate me so long as I can assess that they're minimally competent to make the sorts of decisions that they're making, because competence is a proxy for having workable ideas. Everything I've seen politically and personally leads me to believe that they're not minimally competent, that they shouldn't have the ability to exercise power over other people, and that people who are competent should be in charge of energy decisions, rather than emotionally-invested ideologues searching for outcomes that agree with their emotional or aesthetically-pleasing perceptions of what valid solutions look like.

If someone wants to change my mind, then they can start by:

1. admitting that math is real (cost matters, energy investment sunk into any given tool or technology matters, sustainability without merely asserting that "things will be different in the future" matters, etc)
2. accepting that there is no silver bullet solution that fixes all problems (stop proposing fanciful ideas that run afoul of total cost or resource availability)
3. working off of the premise that some combination of existing rather than notional energy generating and storage solutions is required (to progress towards a worthwhile goal)
4. act as if any purported solution that ends with mass murder or mass impoverishment of a bunch of people who are already poor is never a viable solution (show some measure of love and devotion to the least of your brothers and sisters)
5. constructively deal with objective reality (which is always less than ideal)

Void · 2022-12-07 11:46:59

Well, I can suggest some possible hope, and possibly annoy you. Oh well:

From Japan: https://japan-forward.com/nuclear-hydro … 0Important

From Sweden: https://www.dw.com/en/will-sweden-lead- … a-57263616

I still favor some local green energy for homes, as it distributes the power production and may reduce the amount of expansion of power distribution methods needed.

I am sorry to have to point out that there seem to be some cultures that try to use words like magic spells, and some that actually manipulate objects to achieve results.

Harry Potter was very entertaining, and there is no reason to put it down. But it is an example of how words and perhaps a wave of the hand with a wand in it causes a servant force to give those with magic what they want.

This is not so different than the attitude that the hive mind rulers fall into. I don't think that they all do, but the loud ones often drown out rational and productive actions.

When children are educated to believe that they should be doing work where the speaking of words is all that matters, I think that has a tendency to replace science and technology with religious forms. So, they don't actually examine reality.

I see a great value in much of the religious method. But it should not be used in place of science and technology.

It is easy to see that the word cannibals in politics, who often turn the wheels of reality as much as they can, often take us down the wrong path.

Problems are often solved in spite of their power grasping antics.

Of course, I sort of like the Japan and Swede, as they tend to not send as much BS our way, but there is this one little Swede.....

Done

Yes, there is also hot bricks under development: https://www.freethink.com/energy/brick-heat-batteries
They think that they can work with a lot of high temperature processes.
Quote:

Brick batteries may be a key to decarbonizing heavy industry
Rondo Energy wants to store renewable energy as heat.
By B. David Zarley
September 23, 2022

Done

Last edited by Void (2022-12-07 12:13:45)

kbd512 · 2022-12-07 14:08:46

Void,

We keep going right back to fantasy land whenever it comes to emissions and energy sources.

Where are the solar panels being made?

What is being used to create the solar panels?

Here's a tiny hint: It's not other solar panels!

Ditto for wind turbines.

Ditto for nuclear, with the significant caveat that the nuclear fuel produced from mining is "only" approximately 24,000,000X as energy dense as the fossil fuels used to extract the Uranium or Thorium.

You have to be deliberately obtuse not to acknowledge that or act as if there's no meaning attached to it.

It costs 5 billion dollars to build a 1GWe / 3GWt to 4GWt nuclear reactor in the US. On top of that, NRC is bound and determined to prevent anyone from building another nuclear reactor. NRC exists for the express purpose of bankrupting companies that act in good faith to follow all rules and regulations concerning the design, development, and construction of new nuclear reactors. That means there will be no new nuclear reactors until different management is in charge, which demonstrates far greater interest in using nuclear energy for what it's good for (making enormous amounts of power with very few emissions attached to it). If any of those people truly cared about CO2 emission, which they clearly do not, then America's electricity grid would be almost entirely nuclear by now.

As such, oil and gas must be king of the hill. There are no other plausible explanations. My only proposed modification to what we're presently doing is to stop milling around, doing nothing constructive, and to start recycling our existing CO2 emissions, while we still have the energy and therefore materials to do something about it.

I am not so blind that I cannot see that all the messing about with solar panels and wind turbines and batteries is all about burning through fossil fuels at even faster rates, because to complete a build-out of such technology, which can only occur using existing technology, that is what is required to make that happen.

I am not dazzled by the flurry of activity. I see no accomplishment. That's why emissions keep going up and up, every single year that we squander by screwing around with technologies that clearly don't work. If they burn coal in China or Chile to create your photovoltaics or wind turbines or batteries, all of those emissions still count towards the grand total. Playing a shell game with where you burn more coal at, while pretending that it's not happening, doesn't make your energy "green". It makes you look silly through the eyes of anyone who can see what's actually happening.

Accomplishment would be a year where the total emissions actually decreased, or minimally a reduction in the rate of increase. Good intentions, assuming there are any, don't count. Can you imagine how medicine would be viewed if ever single patient died shortly after treatment began, but the medical establishment came back with, "Oh, but the doctor's heart was in the right place"? That's what watching this clown show is like for someone like me. So, how will any accomplishment take place if we keep doing what we're doing?

How about we start now?

Use no oil, gas, or coal to make new wind turbines, photovoltaics, and batteries.

Let's make some wind turbine blades without plastics.

Let's make mine and refine some Copper and Iron burning diesel and coal. Let's power the mining equipment with batteries.

If we can't do any of that, then it's past time for a "come to Jesus" moment regarding where the energy is actually coming from.

If Houston is truly powered by 100% renewable energy, as the Democrats in charge here claim, then let's shut off all those gas turbines so everyone understands how many seconds we still have an electric grid.

I'm guessing we won't do any of that, now or ever, because we already know what the answer is.

Void · 2022-12-07 20:21:24

I have formulated my thinking in "Index» Terraformation» Worlds, and World Engine type terraform stuff." post #659. Do as you like. I will remove myself from this conversation.

Done.

kbd512 · 2022-12-07 21:43:56

Void,

I feel as though we're going backwards. All of human history teaches us what energy poverty means.

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