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If Climate Change Is a Problem Then Lunar Helium-3 Fueled Fusion Is the Solution (examiner.com)
MarkWhittington writes: With the Paris Climate Conference apparently ending in failure and experts such as Matt Ridley suggesting that, in any case, global warming is not a cause for immediate concern, the private sector is casting about to fund "green" energy solutions. Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg are starting a renewable energy research and development fund, for example. The Chicago Tribune pointed to a possible area of investment that Gates and Zuckerberg might look into if they would like to get out of the solar and wind box that many green energy enthusiasts find themselves in. The key to evolving from a fossil fuel energy economy, perhaps, is fusion energy powered by helium-3 from the moon.
It is the topic of the movie Moon, which I strongly recommend to all hard SF fans.
http://www.npr.org/templates/search/index.php?searchinput=climate&dateId=0&programId=0
NPR has had some decent coverage.
Perhaps not, but he's been debunked repeatedly. I find it amusing that slashdot would label a politician with no background in science as an "expert" on climate change and the best guys like you can come up to defend this guy are lame dismissals.
The only thing I'd call Matt Ridley and expert in is climate science denial. But he has motivation because his family owns coal mines.
You know, it's the climate science deniers that pay more attention to Al Gore than the rest of us.
The only thing I'd call Matt Ridley and expert in is climate science denial. But he has motivation because his family owns coal mines.
He has also invested heavily in fracking, and is opposed to regulating same.
Oh, and he is extremely hostile to wind and solar power.
He must really be panicking about solar and wind since the deployment costs have plummeted, and expansion rates have been averaging 25% annually, year after year. Currently wind and solar 11% of the entire annual electricity production in the EU, yet Ridley keeps asserting that it is impossible for these to make any significant contribution.
Anything to promote burning fossil fuels, which puts dollars directly into his pocket.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
Look at the website of any major media outside the US. Lots of coverage. BBC, CTV, CBC, The Globe and Mail, the Guardian ... or download their apps.
Also, the first sentence of the summary, "With the Paris Climate Conference apparently ending in failure" is total BS. The summit is only 1/3 through, has 8 days left to go, and is making progress. But of course anyone listening to US media wouldn't know that. Same as the rest of the world knew Saddam wasn't making centrifuges when Colin Powell was lying in the UN.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
That is where it belongs. Helium-3 is the dumbest, most impractical solution to our energy problems imaginable. Unicorn farts would be a more realistic power source. We don't actual have any helium-3, and even if we did, it is far harder to fuse, with far less energy out, than deuterium, and deuterium fusion still isn't anywhere near breakeven after 60 years of effort.
Well said. Though you'll find yourself arguing with people who thought you said it's a dumb idea. It's a great idea --- good enough for practical old NASA to drop it into their distant-futurist visions of lunar colonies --- but a dumb solution for Earth right now, even directed research. There's an energy crisis happening down here.
Lunar H3 mining along with the idea of solar energy collected in orbit are 'fails' in my book because both would place Earth society in the grip of the consortium that manages the infrastructure, and that infrastructure (though awesome) would become an absurdly simple single point of failure. These ideas lead directly to One World Government and it's probably not the one you want. Even if it works out it's lights out for mankind when the first Bad Thing, Who'da Thunk It happens.
In order to ensure that nations can maintain their sovereignty, even to ensure there are nations at all, the fossil free energy solution we pursue should comprise power generated directly from elements that can be mined locally with a reasonable footprint, technology that can be manufactured and maintained locally. Mining is a 'given'. If you think wind and PV solar are mining-free solutions, you haven't looked into the process or run the numbers necessary to scale them. Wind and solar and the chemistry necessary for grid storage are environmental disasters waiting to happen.
Grid electricity should become the universal medium of exchange and should be used for almost all ground transportation, and must be available in such abundance that we can use it to manufacture synthetic fuels for air and sea travel. Continental grids should consist of power plants pushing HVDC into regional 'loops' from which tuned HVAC is extracted from several points to power the legacy grids, which can then be separated into smaller islands than are currently used. Efficiently doing DC/AC conversion and the means to better switch and properly utilize HVDC should be a top research priority --- what ever the energy source.
We are also approaching a time when the purification of ocean/waste water and its transport will become a top priority on a scale that exceeds any present oil and gas pipelines. Within fifty to a hundred years' time, additional terawatts of energy will be needed to bring fresh water into regions that are presently depleting water tables faster than they replenish. I'm not just talking tap water. Our food supply relies on massive irrigation. If you think wind and solar could purify and move this much water, let alone power an industrial society, please think again.
It's time to finish taming fire. Nuclear fission and specifically the two fluid molten salt reactor with active processing with it's "safe in 300 years" waste decay profile is the single best and most practical solution yet devised to produce energy on the scale necessary to survive and prosper.
I'm not fond of these so-called "small scale micro-fission reactors" either, where conventional nuclear power manufacturers re trying to trump the safety issue (while aggravating the waste generation problem) by proposing a great many smaller light and heavy water reactors. Yes of course they want to sell one to every town, including yours. It's an absurd notion borne out of the an
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
People, companies and investors chase dollars. There's a reason people are STILL building those large polluting pieces of shit.
Is it because they're Chinese? Because in the United States, 170 coal power plants have been cancelled over the last 15 years, with only 40 completed, and are 20 still in development and 17 whose current status is unknown. There's also 12 "abandoned" plants but I'm not sure what the difference between abandoned and cancelled is. All of this is according to SourceWatch. If those numbers are accurate it means that Americans aren't really building many new coal plants, and the even the ones they did plan to build, two thirds of them have been cancelled.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, 1,507 MW of new coal plants were added in 2013. However, in the same year 6,861 MW of natural gas and 2,959 of solar was added. For the math challenged that means almost twice as much new solar was added compared to new coal (and over 4 times as much natural gas). There was also 1,032 MW of new wind added. Sure it was only 2/3rd of coal in 2013 (partly because of a subsidy deadline for end of 2012 where 10x the amount of solar was completed in 2012 compared to 2013), but I would bet that new wind projects will continue growing while new coal projects continue to disappear.
Fanatically anti-fanatical