Oil’s up…
03-14-2022, 09:38 PM
#31
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jun 2010
Position: DOWNGRADE COMPLETE: Thanks Gary. Thanks SWAPA.
Posts: 6,614
Originally Posted by SonicFlyer
That's because, just like COVID, it isn't about preserving the environment, it's about pushing their agenda of control and implementing socialism / communism. Conservation and taking care of our resources? Yes, absolutely. Changing the global economy because of some theories about how it might possibly maybe be damaging the atmosphere, but has yet to be proven? Uh no.
Notice how they keep changing the goal posts.... it was global cooling, then it was global warming, now it's just climate change (hint: climate is dynamic and always changing). And then it was the ozone layer, and now it is carbon.....
We are the carbon they want to eliminate.
And then nuclear was the answer, but now that isn't good enough, so it is solar and batteries... well those damage the environment too so can't have that, wind turbines kill birds, and take more energy to manufacture than they produce...
They want us to all live in caves and eat grass.
That group of people are about 2 steps away from openly calling for mass sterilization and population control. Ever read the Georgia Guidestones?
Notice how they keep changing the goal posts.... it was global cooling, then it was global warming, now it's just climate change (hint: climate is dynamic and always changing). And then it was the ozone layer, and now it is carbon.....
We are the carbon they want to eliminate.
And then nuclear was the answer, but now that isn't good enough, so it is solar and batteries... well those damage the environment too so can't have that, wind turbines kill birds, and take more energy to manufacture than they produce...
They want us to all live in caves and eat grass.
That group of people are about 2 steps away from openly calling for mass sterilization and population control. Ever read the Georgia Guidestones?
03-16-2022, 01:09 AM
#32
Banned
Joined APC: May 2021
Posts: 166
Originally Posted by rickair7777
I'm an environmentalist. I almost never look at FNC, although they very occasionally cover legit news that everybody else is ignoring (ex Cuomo brothers).
By "climate clowns" I'm referring to the people who approach the problem with feel-good sound-bite policies which look good to the base (almost none of whom are scientists or engineers), but have no practical basis in reality. One big reality: people (worldwide, especially third world) will not give up their lifestyle until the climate problem affects them personally and painfully. Even if a developmentally impaired child tells them to. You can't make them do it either, except possibly in North Korea. Swap out their 100W bulbs for 12W LED's? Sure, no problem. Give up driving to work, recreational travel, and general consumerism? No. Even if you could enforce that, it would lead to global economic collapse, war, famine, genocide, etc. Most likely worse than climate change, and sooner.
And yes I'm old enough to remember when the forecast was actually an ice age, then global warming, then climate change... I guess they needed a brand that could blow whichever way the wind goes (pun intended).
We absolutely don't know the pace or ultimate result of climate change. We do know what the CO2 levels are, and if we choose to assume that correlates in some fashion to a certain amount of climate change, then CO2 emissions have to be reduced, and we may even need pull some back out of the atmosphere and put it back where we found it (underground). The math on that does not work without nuclear, at least for the timelines being assumed. There's just not enough solar, geo, hydro, wind available... especially if you need more power to extract carbon from the atmosphere.
To say nothing of inevitable population growth... the carbon problem is TOTAL, not per capita.
It's a hard problem... SOMEBODY needs to man up and tell people the hard truth, even if they don't want to hear it. FFS even China gets it... 150 new nuke plants are currently planned.
Someday fusion and/or space-based solar should offer essentially unlimited energy, but fission power is probably needed to bridge the gap. Use thorium fuel if you're worried about long-term waste... it actually should have a lower cost/kW hour anyway.
By "climate clowns" I'm referring to the people who approach the problem with feel-good sound-bite policies which look good to the base (almost none of whom are scientists or engineers), but have no practical basis in reality. One big reality: people (worldwide, especially third world) will not give up their lifestyle until the climate problem affects them personally and painfully. Even if a developmentally impaired child tells them to. You can't make them do it either, except possibly in North Korea. Swap out their 100W bulbs for 12W LED's? Sure, no problem. Give up driving to work, recreational travel, and general consumerism? No. Even if you could enforce that, it would lead to global economic collapse, war, famine, genocide, etc. Most likely worse than climate change, and sooner.
And yes I'm old enough to remember when the forecast was actually an ice age, then global warming, then climate change... I guess they needed a brand that could blow whichever way the wind goes (pun intended).
We absolutely don't know the pace or ultimate result of climate change. We do know what the CO2 levels are, and if we choose to assume that correlates in some fashion to a certain amount of climate change, then CO2 emissions have to be reduced, and we may even need pull some back out of the atmosphere and put it back where we found it (underground). The math on that does not work without nuclear, at least for the timelines being assumed. There's just not enough solar, geo, hydro, wind available... especially if you need more power to extract carbon from the atmosphere.
To say nothing of inevitable population growth... the carbon problem is TOTAL, not per capita.
It's a hard problem... SOMEBODY needs to man up and tell people the hard truth, even if they don't want to hear it. FFS even China gets it... 150 new nuke plants are currently planned.
Someday fusion and/or space-based solar should offer essentially unlimited energy, but fission power is probably needed to bridge the gap. Use thorium fuel if you're worried about long-term waste... it actually should have a lower cost/kW hour anyway.
Thorium is like fusion, always 25 years off. It's not a proven technology and presently science fiction.
Anytime someone says nuclear is the solution, they never have a real plan for the waste that doesn't involve magic.
and CO2 storage is also a fantasy. There's no proven technology.
and your attitude is the one will doom future generations.
03-16-2022, 07:13 AM
#33
Prime Minister/Moderator
Joined APC: Jan 2006
Position: Engines Turn Or People Swim
Posts: 39,293
Originally Posted by DropTank
Thorium is like fusion, always 25 years off. It's not a proven technology and presently science fiction.
Same reason we fly wing and tube planes instead of the vastly more efficient flying-wing... that's what our ecosystem is built for, have to change gates and jetways around. But I bet we see BWB pax aircraft designs in about a decade, sucks for those jetways.
I could build a thorium reactor in my garage, and it would probably be easier to get the fuel than uranium. It would not be remotely safe or efficient, but it could be done.
Thorium, like anything else, has minor trade-offs but it has several big advantages including very short waste half-life and low dollar cost/kWh.
Originally Posted by DropTank
Anytime someone says nuclear is the solution, they never have a real plan for the waste that doesn't involve magic.
But the concerns about buried waste are all total science fiction/science fantasy... it's only a potential problem if there's a global apocalypse leading to a mad-max world. That's the basis of the argument, a fantasy movie
Originally Posted by DropTank
and CO2 storage is also a fantasy. There's no proven technology.
What it's not is *cheap* but there's no possible solution to this that's cheap.
Maybe CO2 levels will decline naturally such that carbon capture isn't required, who knows. But if the global warming fairy tale is for real, the math says gonna need some capture eventually and capture requires X amount of energy, no way around that.
But even if all energy production is green, we still have industrial processes (including cows) which produce CO2... have to capture that somewhere, at some point. No, I'm not converting to vegan to save the planet.
Originally Posted by DropTank
and your attitude is the one will doom future generations.
Hard, hard reality: your visceral emotional attachment to the global warming religion and your visceral knee-jerk anti-nuclear emotional reaction are incompatible... need to pick one, can't have both.
Human society will not stop doing it's thing, and you cannot make them... no amount of wailing and teeth-gnashing will get it done. The developed world needs to lead the way, and then help the rest along.
It's going to be politically challenging and expensive, to say the very least but the alternative is apparently catastrophic global disruption on an unprecedented scale.
This guy is actually pretty liberal (man bun and everything); he provides a good summary of the case for nuclear as a safe and vital component of future energy production. He has a lot of other videos on related topics, and I've never heard him say anything non-factual.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3znG6_vla0&t=808s
03-16-2022, 07:31 PM
#34
Banned
Joined APC: May 2021
Posts: 166
Originally Posted by rickair7777
Utter BS. It's basic fission physics and engineering, nothing remotely like fusion at all. The reason we don't do it is because the US (and other nations) in the early days of nuclear focused on a uranium ecosystem because that facilitated the production of plutonium, which was needed for bombs. That's it, period. Needs some fine tuning on the engineering for large-scale production, but people are doing that now.
Same reason we fly wing and tube planes instead of the vastly more efficient flying-wing... that's what our ecosystem is built for, have to change gates and jetways around. But I bet we see BWB pax aircraft designs in about a decade, sucks for those jetways.
I could build a thorium reactor in my garage, and it would probably be easier to get the fuel than uranium. It would not be remotely safe or efficient, but it could be done.
Thorium, like anything else, has minor trade-offs but it has several big advantages including very short waste half-life and low dollar cost/kWh.
No magic required. Bury in a geologically stable facility in the middle of nowhere, like .gov has been *trying* to do for years. If you're worried that our distant descendants will be too stoopid to not know not to open it up, then use thorium for the short half-like. Or just bury it deep... if they have the technology to get to an old mine shaft a mile below the surface, they'll probably be smart enough to deal with it.
But the concerns about buried waste are all total science fiction/science fantasy... it's only a potential problem if there's a global apocalypse leading to a mad-max world. That's the basis of the argument, a fantasy movie
Sure there is, it's quite easy. You're obviously severely lacking in technical credentials, regurgitating GND sound bites.
What it's not is *cheap* but there's no possible solution to this that's cheap.
Maybe CO2 levels will decline naturally such that carbon capture isn't required, who knows. But if the global warming fairy tale is for real, the math says gonna need some capture eventually and capture requires X amount of energy, no way around that.
But even if all energy production is green, we still have industrial processes (including cows) which produce CO2... have to capture that somewhere, at some point. No, I'm not converting to vegan to save the planet.
Only one way out of that, and I just explained it. There is not enough potential capacity from other non-fossil energy sources, the math just doesn't work... you cannot cover the planet in solar and windmills, and doing that has it's own environmental ramifications.
Hard, hard reality: your visceral emotional attachment to the global warming religion and your visceral knee-jerk anti-nuclear emotional reaction are incompatible... need to pick one, can't have both.
Human society will not stop doing it's thing, and you cannot make them... no amount of wailing and teeth-gnashing will get it done. The developed world needs to lead the way, and then help the rest along.
It's going to be politically challenging and expensive, to say the very least but the alternative is apparently catastrophic global disruption on an unprecedented scale.
This guy is actually pretty liberal (man bun and everything); he provides a good summary of the case for nuclear as a safe and vital component of future energy production. He has a lot of other videos on related topics, and I've never heard him say anything non-factual.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3znG6_vla0&t=808s
Same reason we fly wing and tube planes instead of the vastly more efficient flying-wing... that's what our ecosystem is built for, have to change gates and jetways around. But I bet we see BWB pax aircraft designs in about a decade, sucks for those jetways.
I could build a thorium reactor in my garage, and it would probably be easier to get the fuel than uranium. It would not be remotely safe or efficient, but it could be done.
Thorium, like anything else, has minor trade-offs but it has several big advantages including very short waste half-life and low dollar cost/kWh.
No magic required. Bury in a geologically stable facility in the middle of nowhere, like .gov has been *trying* to do for years. If you're worried that our distant descendants will be too stoopid to not know not to open it up, then use thorium for the short half-like. Or just bury it deep... if they have the technology to get to an old mine shaft a mile below the surface, they'll probably be smart enough to deal with it.
But the concerns about buried waste are all total science fiction/science fantasy... it's only a potential problem if there's a global apocalypse leading to a mad-max world. That's the basis of the argument, a fantasy movie
Sure there is, it's quite easy. You're obviously severely lacking in technical credentials, regurgitating GND sound bites.
What it's not is *cheap* but there's no possible solution to this that's cheap.
Maybe CO2 levels will decline naturally such that carbon capture isn't required, who knows. But if the global warming fairy tale is for real, the math says gonna need some capture eventually and capture requires X amount of energy, no way around that.
But even if all energy production is green, we still have industrial processes (including cows) which produce CO2... have to capture that somewhere, at some point. No, I'm not converting to vegan to save the planet.
Only one way out of that, and I just explained it. There is not enough potential capacity from other non-fossil energy sources, the math just doesn't work... you cannot cover the planet in solar and windmills, and doing that has it's own environmental ramifications.
Hard, hard reality: your visceral emotional attachment to the global warming religion and your visceral knee-jerk anti-nuclear emotional reaction are incompatible... need to pick one, can't have both.
Human society will not stop doing it's thing, and you cannot make them... no amount of wailing and teeth-gnashing will get it done. The developed world needs to lead the way, and then help the rest along.
It's going to be politically challenging and expensive, to say the very least but the alternative is apparently catastrophic global disruption on an unprecedented scale.
This guy is actually pretty liberal (man bun and everything); he provides a good summary of the case for nuclear as a safe and vital component of future energy production. He has a lot of other videos on related topics, and I've never heard him say anything non-factual.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3znG6_vla0&t=808s
I don't know what GND is, so yay
There are no money making Thorium reactors. PERIOD.
None, zero, zilch, nada.
You can make a thorium reactor in your garage (sure you can) but it's not going to power anything.
You can make a fusion reactor in your garage too, big whoop!
A HUGE problem with Thorium reactors is the processing and reprocessing, and depending on the reactor and techniques used, and additional burner reactor is required pulling in even MORE money.
Pick environmentalism or economy?
That's a false dichotomy and a waste of my time.
and you can cover small areas with solar and power the world, it's not difficult, and it's not expensive (relatively)
Wind is nice too and cheap to build
Batteries are easy to make and recycle.
But no, let's make million year lasting waste because LIBURALS or something.
I know math isn't your strong point but good christ get an education!!
edit, and your link sucks.
03-19-2022, 07:55 PM
#35
Prime Minister/Moderator
Joined APC: Jan 2006
Position: Engines Turn Or People Swim
Posts: 39,293
Originally Posted by DropTank
A lot of angry and stupid to unravel here:
Originally Posted by DropTank
There are no money making Thorium reactors. PERIOD.
None, zero, zilch, nada.
You can make a thorium reactor in your garage (sure you can) but it's not going to power anything.
None, zero, zilch, nada.
You can make a thorium reactor in your garage (sure you can) but it's not going to power anything.
As long as we're talking about stopping all global travel and starving while freezing in the dark, might as well think outside the box a little.
Originally Posted by DropTank
You can make a fusion reactor in your garage too, big whoop!
Originally Posted by DropTank
A HUGE problem with Thorium reactors is the processing and reprocessing, and depending on the reactor and techniques used, and additional burner reactor is required pulling in even MORE money.
Originally Posted by DropTank
Pick environmentalism or economy?
That's a false dichotomy and a waste of my time.
That's a false dichotomy and a waste of my time.
Originally Posted by DropTank
and you can cover small areas with solar and power the world, it's not difficult, and it's not expensive (relatively)
1. Water. 70% of the planet is water.
2. Incidence angle. Sunlight has the best energy density at the equator. Drops off as you go north and south.
3. Cloud cover. Lots of places have clouds.
4. Replacement cost. The panels wear out.
5. The biggy, and this is your gross conceptual error, electricity cannot actually be shipped over long distances. Want solar power in Seattle? Can't really collect it in AZ and send it up.
6. Another GCE: Night. The sun doesn't come out at night. So you need massive storage mechanisms... $$$
7. NIMBYs. The large scale arrays required to power industry are not going to be popular with the locals. Nuclear can be located anywhere reasonably remote, on a few acres (as opposed to a few states).
Should we put panels on our roofs? Maybe if you can afford it, can't hurt.
But nobody other than internet wingnuts seriously thinks we can run human civilization on solar. That's for ground-based... space-based solar would be different but due to the cost of mass transfer to orbit we'd probably need to build the infrastructure on the moon (lot cheaper to launch from there for all kinds of physics reasons). Need more technology for that.
Originally Posted by DropTank
Wind is nice too and cheap to build
2. Environmental problems.
Wind/hydro/geo should be used where available, but personally I don't want to look at windmills especially if the view is otherwise scenic.
Originally Posted by DropTank
Batteries are easy to make and recycle.
There's a reason we're not all driving teslas... they're expensive (and expensive again every time you need new batteries) and it doesn't have the range to get me to work.
Also: GROSS CONCEPTUAL ERROR: Batteries are an not energy source, they're a storage device.
Originally Posted by DropTank
But no, let's make million year lasting waste because LIBURALS or something.
03-19-2022, 09:38 PM
#36
Occasional box hauler
Joined APC: Jan 2018
Posts: 1,684
Originally Posted by rickair7777
Insult me again, or anyone else here, and you get an infraction. Obviously the last resort of a losing argument
Because the industry evolved around uranium, to make bombs, like I explained above. There are tradeoffs to any nuclear generation technology, the big advantage of thorium is 500 year half-life of the waste. But I don't really GAS, use uranium if you want.
As long as we're talking about stopping all global travel and starving while freezing in the dark, might as well think outside the box a little.
No, you cannot.
None of this is going to be cheap. But the net cost per Kw/hr for thorium power is less than uranium.
You can have the latter. Or possibly the latter while accommodating the former. But you cannot kill the economy... try it and see what happens, you won't like it.
No. In theory if you just calculate the surface of the earth and the surface area needed. But pesky reality...
1. Water. 70% of the planet is water.
2. Incidence angle. Sunlight has the best energy density at the equator. Drops off as you go north and south.
3. Cloud cover. Lots of places have clouds.
4. Replacement cost. The panels wear out.
5. The biggy, and this is your gross conceptual error, electricity cannot actually be shipped over long distances. Want solar power in Seattle? Can't really collect it in AZ and send it up.
6. Another GCE: Night. The sun doesn't come out at night. So you need massive storage mechanisms... $$$
7. NIMBYs. The large scale arrays required to power industry are not going to be popular with the locals. Nuclear can be located anywhere reasonably remote, on a few acres (as opposed to a few states).
Should we put panels on our roofs? Maybe if you can afford it, can't hurt.
But nobody other than internet wingnuts seriously thinks we can run human civilization on solar. That's for ground-based... space-based solar would be different but due to the cost of mass transfer to orbit we'd probably need to build the infrastructure on the moon (lot cheaper to launch from there for all kinds of physics reasons). Need more technology for that.
1. Limited suitable locations
2. Environmental problems.
Wind/hydro/geo should be used where available, but personally I don't want to look at windmills especially if the view is otherwise scenic.
No they're not. They're expensive, have short lives, and are toxic to the environment.
There's a reason we're not all driving teslas... they're expensive (and expensive again every time you need new batteries) and it doesn't have the range to get me to work.
Also: GROSS CONCEPTUAL ERROR: Batteries are an not energy source, they're a storage device.
Again, thorium. And it's not millions of years in any case. And who gives a crap if you bury it in a geologically stable location that is actually going to remain stable for hundreds of millions of years?
Because the industry evolved around uranium, to make bombs, like I explained above. There are tradeoffs to any nuclear generation technology, the big advantage of thorium is 500 year half-life of the waste. But I don't really GAS, use uranium if you want.
As long as we're talking about stopping all global travel and starving while freezing in the dark, might as well think outside the box a little.
No, you cannot.
None of this is going to be cheap. But the net cost per Kw/hr for thorium power is less than uranium.
You can have the latter. Or possibly the latter while accommodating the former. But you cannot kill the economy... try it and see what happens, you won't like it.
No. In theory if you just calculate the surface of the earth and the surface area needed. But pesky reality...
1. Water. 70% of the planet is water.
2. Incidence angle. Sunlight has the best energy density at the equator. Drops off as you go north and south.
3. Cloud cover. Lots of places have clouds.
4. Replacement cost. The panels wear out.
5. The biggy, and this is your gross conceptual error, electricity cannot actually be shipped over long distances. Want solar power in Seattle? Can't really collect it in AZ and send it up.
6. Another GCE: Night. The sun doesn't come out at night. So you need massive storage mechanisms... $$$
7. NIMBYs. The large scale arrays required to power industry are not going to be popular with the locals. Nuclear can be located anywhere reasonably remote, on a few acres (as opposed to a few states).
Should we put panels on our roofs? Maybe if you can afford it, can't hurt.
But nobody other than internet wingnuts seriously thinks we can run human civilization on solar. That's for ground-based... space-based solar would be different but due to the cost of mass transfer to orbit we'd probably need to build the infrastructure on the moon (lot cheaper to launch from there for all kinds of physics reasons). Need more technology for that.
1. Limited suitable locations
2. Environmental problems.
Wind/hydro/geo should be used where available, but personally I don't want to look at windmills especially if the view is otherwise scenic.
No they're not. They're expensive, have short lives, and are toxic to the environment.
There's a reason we're not all driving teslas... they're expensive (and expensive again every time you need new batteries) and it doesn't have the range to get me to work.
Also: GROSS CONCEPTUAL ERROR: Batteries are an not energy source, they're a storage device.
Again, thorium. And it's not millions of years in any case. And who gives a crap if you bury it in a geologically stable location that is actually going to remain stable for hundreds of millions of years?
03-21-2022, 05:36 PM
#37
Prime Minister/Moderator
Joined APC: Jan 2006
Position: Engines Turn Or People Swim
Posts: 39,293
Of interest... For portability, storage, and use in large vehicles (anything much larger than a tesla, such as trucks and airplanes) there are a variety of sustainable fuels which have already been developed. The best prospects appear IMO to be air to liquid fuel systems since they don't rely on waste products from other industries (such as cooking oil), or biomass which takes up arable land.
Prometheus Fuels for example has a promising system which uses air, water and electricity (and catalysts) to create alcohol which is then catalyzed to fuels equivalent to gasoline and jet A.... simple because it works with 4 and 6 carbon chains throughout the process. This class of alcohol-based SAF is already approved for 50% use in airliners, and should get 100% approval soon enough. The process is extremely scalable and they're starting to build production units. The electrical/chemical efficiency is very high, such that cost can most likely beat fossil fuels (eventually, with economy of scale).
SAF made from electrical power is still probably lower-carbon than Jet A, even if the power source is a utility natural gas plant, due to the fact that a big utility plant is much more efficient at extracting energy per ton of carbon than a jet engine (or any vehicle-size IC engine). Green power would of course be the ideal way to power SAF production.
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/ma...ofuels-company
I suspect that Prometheus (assuming their IP is legally airtight) might be a household name 100 years from now, kind of like GE and AT&T. Maybe even in ten years if they can scale it fast enough.
Prometheus Fuels for example has a promising system which uses air, water and electricity (and catalysts) to create alcohol which is then catalyzed to fuels equivalent to gasoline and jet A.... simple because it works with 4 and 6 carbon chains throughout the process. This class of alcohol-based SAF is already approved for 50% use in airliners, and should get 100% approval soon enough. The process is extremely scalable and they're starting to build production units. The electrical/chemical efficiency is very high, such that cost can most likely beat fossil fuels (eventually, with economy of scale).
SAF made from electrical power is still probably lower-carbon than Jet A, even if the power source is a utility natural gas plant, due to the fact that a big utility plant is much more efficient at extracting energy per ton of carbon than a jet engine (or any vehicle-size IC engine). Green power would of course be the ideal way to power SAF production.
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/ma...ofuels-company
I suspect that Prometheus (assuming their IP is legally airtight) might be a household name 100 years from now, kind of like GE and AT&T. Maybe even in ten years if they can scale it fast enough.
