Keep in mind that I never said that conservation was a bad thing. I just said its effects were likely not large, and used (or at least attempted to use) a humorous metaphor for the effects. The effect of inventing a really cheap (per watt) solar panel will be much, much, much larger.
Now, outlawing those monsters would save a meaningful amount of energy.
How about instead, we fill up the monsters' unused cargo space with thousands of pounds of batteries?
Mostly, SPORTY little rice burning cars.
Proving that small != stupid.
Do you think he might be able to get the girls, if he turns down the stereo?
He should get an old Mercedes diesel, fix it up, and make his own biodiesel. That would save serious CO2 production and be affordable (some people are homebrewing for 0.5 dollars/gallon).
Personally, I think he needs to re-think his priorities. I told the kid not to buy that huge ass gas guzzling piece of shit, but do kids listen to their parents?
He will hopefully learn from the experience and buy something cheaper. Reality speaks louder than the loudest voice in the world.
Sorry if it was not clear in that post, but I meant that conservation cannot reduce energy use, not that it will not improve productivity.
The problem is that if you use less, someone else will use more because the price will go down. Let's say a lot of people used less gasoline by having an apartment inside their workplace. This would cause the price of gasoline and oil to go down. So, more economic activity would occur. Here are some ways that could happen:
-Car lovers (such as myself) could drive more
-Kids could buy more plastic toys
-People could buy larger cars because gas prices are lower
-People could take more airplane trips
-etc
Also, mods, please do not mod posts like the GP's down because you do not agree with them. Write a response instead.
The reason it is BS is because more gasoline has been used to produce the food we ate to power our hands and brains will typing this post (gasoline is consumed to produce food). Sure, some conservation is smart - higher value insulation, draft guards, etc. This will reduce the price of energy use. However, conservation cannot reduce the amount of energy used. IT CANNOT. Here's why it cannot: Jevon's paradox. I am a proud American, but I am not fascinated by one thing. I am only interested in efforts that actually produce results.
Wind will become popular because it is cheap. Solar panels, in there current form, are not workable. For solar energy, we will end up with solar thermal, concentrating panels, or solar chemical. Think about millions of little steam engines made of plastic, all put together in a Chinese toy factory. It is always more economical to have concentrating PV instead of just direct PV, as long as PV material is more expensive by area than plastic. Solar chemical energy could be used to produce hydrogen from water, and produce more usable fuels such as gasoline by reacting the hydrogen with carbon dioxide.
Nuclear is now safe. See Japan and France for more information.
Most green policies are BS, even if you think global warming is real. They are the equivalent of turning down the radio in a Hummer to save gas. However, renewable energy is a potentially profitable business, because its raw material (wind, sun, tides, etc.) is free. The problem is that it is rarely profitable, because the cost of the energy conversion devices (turbines, solar panels, etc.) are very expensive. There are a variety of reasons why this is the case, but the low cost was unfortunately not designed in at the start (rare and ultrapure materials were used). If the devices cost a lot less, renewable energy would be extremely profitable.
You forgot the real food produces. The truck drivers, oil refiners, ammonia producers, phosphate miners, all those people that are critical to the food production chain that aren't actually farmers. If we tried to farm without that stuff, society would starve.
Pure water will definitely not work. Even with organics, there will probably need to be other trace elements to act as catalysts (zinc, copper, iron, etc). Think about how proteins and molecules usually "hold" some other atom (eg, chlorophyll contains magnesium). It should be noted that CO2 + Hydrogen + Certain Minerals = Organics, so the minerals might already be there.
In addition, even if Enceladus was all ice, I think the tidal forces in the ice would generate heat. Some would be high grade heat. Think about the scary noises you sometimes hear in frozen lakes - those are the ice heaving as it melts. The same thing would happen on Enceladus because of the gas giant's gravity (huge). If you were in the water, you would probably here some loud noises from the ice breaking down.
The 1982 seems to have had an engine rebuild. I imagine most non-rebuilt vehicles (not just these, but made by anyone) of this vintage need new rings and a valve job
My friend told me to watch out for diesel/motor oil bifuel vehicles. Looks like I'll have to be really careful to check if I buy one of these. I'll definitely be carrying a wood board around.
Oh, and the GP makes one error: these cars do have a digital signal, used for the tach....
Thanks. At least it's way less complex than today's cars. I'm tired of all the safety, ODB-2, ECM, etc. I have about 100 million lines of code on my desktop. I see at least one bug everyday. We going to have a complexity crisis in the automotive sector.
The vehicle is VERY simple and VERY easy to work on, not least because it has an inline five-cylinder motor with a bosch mechanical injection pump, meaning simple motor with lots of room.
Being able to fix it myself is also an attraction.
Tin cannot replace the unobtainium. I'm not sure doing that weird strategy that you suggested would help. Any technology that contains unobtainium is a nonstarter. There is a breakthrough every day in solar energy - but it requires gold or ruthenium or other such nonsense. The real breakthrough will not be a %80 efficient silicon solar panel, but a %5 percent efficient one made out of scrap iron. Thanks for bringing this up.
"Nanotech" always seems to require expensive metals, and it almost always requires high purity. That's the biggest problem with today's solar panels: high purity. This means you have to run everything through a huge purification process, consuming a lot of energy, and decreasing your EROEI (really important). Silicon is everywhere, but a layer of unobtainium (indium) does have to be added. The solution, however, is right here. Figure out how to make them out of plastic and mass produce them in China.
We don't need to replace the cars. Just use those nuclear reactors to electrolyse water, react the hydrogen with CO2, and make the oil that's needed for everything.
It also sounds like you seriously overreacted - probably shouting and threatening - and they in turn over reacted by filing a restraining order.
That kind of behavior is typical of anyone who does not have any checks and balances on their authority. Unfortunately, many apologists will blame the victim. School is a window into a third-world dictatorship.
The thing is that curve is already bent to green. Raw solar energy is basically free. The problem is that the conversion of sunlight to useful work (electricity), requires expensive devices. This is because a solar panel is essentially one big plate of high purity silicon, coated with pure unobtainium. If it was a sheet of scrap aluminium, an armada of bulldozers would be heading towards your local gas/coal powerplant. If batteries were made of scrap iron and plastic containers instead of high purity lithium, every car would be plug in hybrid, but the batteries are not. I'm not a "randroid", but the switch to clean energy would happen anyway. The government could accelerate it, but is the reduction of danger to the planet worth the economic cost? This depends on how severe the environmental crisis - some are real, but environmentalists have this nasty habit of exaggerating.
Nitrogen won't make it through the membranes, but in SOFCs the air cathode is hot, so you are right that nitrogen oxide formation is a real problem. It seems like some are experimenting with stuff to use up the nitrogen oxides, but that will increase cost and complexity. High temperatures are a pain.
Can't alkaline fuel cells work without platinum catalysts?
Since you are a fuel cell guy, I would like to bounce an idea of you. I call it either the "process catalysed fuel cell" or "robot catalysed fuel cell". Here's how it works:
1. a metal oxide is reacted with the fuel (hydrogen, methane, maybe even gasoline), to produce metal.
2. the metal is burned in a metal-air fuel cell (simple and cheap).
3. repeat.
The metal is anything easy to "smelt", probably copper or tin. I've done experiments with copper-air fuel cells - they are nice because operate happily with baking soda as an electrolyte - I haven't made a "real" one yet. I'm just a highschool student, so if this won't work I'm sorry.
Yes, you're much better off being homeschooled (my kids sisters were, and they came out great). Unfortunately, most families have all parents working, so that option is not available to them. Consider yourself lucky that you have a parent that can afford to spend that kind of time with you.
Very lucky. Very very lucky indeed. Although my parents have mentioned that it required less time when all the nonsense was taken into account. You see, most time in school is wasted - moving from classroom to classroom, in PE "class", in recess, while the teacher battles idiots, etc. I am lucky that my parents have jobs that have very flexible hours.
I complained that a teacher was discriminating against my daughter, and pointed out the specific statute that were violating.
Kudos for standing up to these criminals. It's a shame they could not be sued to hell. School is a window into a third-world dictatorship. People wonder why kids behave badly - this is where they get it from. Anyway, sorry about your daughter's condition.
Slashdot Mirror
Thank you.
Keep in mind that I never said that conservation was a bad thing. I just said its effects were likely not large, and used (or at least attempted to use) a humorous metaphor for the effects. The effect of inventing a really cheap (per watt) solar panel will be much, much, much larger.
Now, outlawing those monsters would save a meaningful amount of energy.
How about instead, we fill up the monsters' unused cargo space with thousands of pounds of batteries?
Mostly, SPORTY little rice burning cars.
Proving that small != stupid.
Do you think he might be able to get the girls, if he turns down the stereo?
He should get an old Mercedes diesel, fix it up, and make his own biodiesel. That would save serious CO2 production and be affordable (some people are homebrewing for 0.5 dollars/gallon).
Personally, I think he needs to re-think his priorities. I told the kid not to buy that huge ass gas guzzling piece of shit, but do kids listen to their parents?
He will hopefully learn from the experience and buy something cheaper. Reality speaks louder than the loudest voice in the world.
Sorry if it was not clear in that post, but I meant that conservation cannot reduce energy use, not that it will not improve productivity.
The problem is that if you use less, someone else will use more because the price will go down. Let's say a lot of people used less gasoline by having an apartment inside their workplace. This would cause the price of gasoline and oil to go down. So, more economic activity would occur. Here are some ways that could happen:
-Car lovers (such as myself) could drive more
-Kids could buy more plastic toys
-People could buy larger cars because gas prices are lower
-People could take more airplane trips
-etc
Also, mods, please do not mod posts like the GP's down because you do not agree with them. Write a response instead.
The reason it is BS is because more gasoline has been used to produce the food we ate to power our hands and brains will typing this post (gasoline is consumed to produce food). Sure, some conservation is smart - higher value insulation, draft guards, etc. This will reduce the price of energy use. However, conservation cannot reduce the amount of energy used. IT CANNOT. Here's why it cannot: Jevon's paradox. I am a proud American, but I am not fascinated by one thing. I am only interested in efforts that actually produce results.
Wind will become popular because it is cheap. Solar panels, in there current form, are not workable. For solar energy, we will end up with solar thermal, concentrating panels, or solar chemical. Think about millions of little steam engines made of plastic, all put together in a Chinese toy factory. It is always more economical to have concentrating PV instead of just direct PV, as long as PV material is more expensive by area than plastic. Solar chemical energy could be used to produce hydrogen from water, and produce more usable fuels such as gasoline by reacting the hydrogen with carbon dioxide.
Nuclear is now safe. See Japan and France for more information.
Most green policies are BS, even if you think global warming is real. They are the equivalent of turning down the radio in a Hummer to save gas. However, renewable energy is a potentially profitable business, because its raw material (wind, sun, tides, etc.) is free. The problem is that it is rarely profitable, because the cost of the energy conversion devices (turbines, solar panels, etc.) are very expensive. There are a variety of reasons why this is the case, but the low cost was unfortunately not designed in at the start (rare and ultrapure materials were used). If the devices cost a lot less, renewable energy would be extremely profitable.
Make sure you use biofuels for those flames, or purchase carbon offsets. Otherwise this thread will become a major contributor to global warming.
You forgot the real food produces. The truck drivers, oil refiners, ammonia producers, phosphate miners, all those people that are critical to the food production chain that aren't actually farmers. If we tried to farm without that stuff, society would starve.
What about nuclear?
Pure water will definitely not work. Even with organics, there will probably need to be other trace elements to act as catalysts (zinc, copper, iron, etc). Think about how proteins and molecules usually "hold" some other atom (eg, chlorophyll contains magnesium). It should be noted that CO2 + Hydrogen + Certain Minerals = Organics, so the minerals might already be there.
In addition, even if Enceladus was all ice, I think the tidal forces in the ice would generate heat. Some would be high grade heat. Think about the scary noises you sometimes hear in frozen lakes - those are the ice heaving as it melts. The same thing would happen on Enceladus because of the gas giant's gravity (huge). If you were in the water, you would probably here some loud noises from the ice breaking down.
No, and you already asked that.
That's what I get for typing that late at night.
The 1982 seems to have had an engine rebuild. I imagine most non-rebuilt vehicles (not just these, but made by anyone) of this vintage need new rings and a valve job
My friend told me to watch out for diesel/motor oil bifuel vehicles. Looks like I'll have to be really careful to check if I buy one of these. I'll definitely be carrying a wood board around.
Oh, and the GP makes one error: these cars do have a digital signal, used for the tach....
Thanks. At least it's way less complex than today's cars. I'm tired of all the safety, ODB-2, ECM, etc. I have about 100 million lines of code on my desktop. I see at least one bug everyday. We going to have a complexity crisis in the automotive sector.
The vehicle is VERY simple and VERY easy to work on, not least because it has an inline five-cylinder motor with a bosch mechanical injection pump, meaning simple motor with lots of room.
Being able to fix it myself is also an attraction.
Thanks for all your advice.
Nice car. Can I ask you a few questions about it, because I might want one :-)?
Is it very reliable?
Does it break down a lot?
Is it burning oil?
Thanks. The whole "no computers" is quite attractive, as well as biodiesel.
Or, better yet, you could just use a skimmer to buy yourself one of these.
Tin cannot replace the unobtainium. I'm not sure doing that weird strategy that you suggested would help. Any technology that contains unobtainium is a nonstarter. There is a breakthrough every day in solar energy - but it requires gold or ruthenium or other such nonsense. The real breakthrough will not be a %80 efficient silicon solar panel, but a %5 percent efficient one made out of scrap iron. Thanks for bringing this up.
"Nanotech" always seems to require expensive metals, and it almost always requires high purity. That's the biggest problem with today's solar panels: high purity. This means you have to run everything through a huge purification process, consuming a lot of energy, and decreasing your EROEI (really important). Silicon is everywhere, but a layer of unobtainium (indium) does have to be added. The solution, however, is right here. Figure out how to make them out of plastic and mass produce them in China.
We don't need to replace the cars. Just use those nuclear reactors to electrolyse water, react the hydrogen with CO2, and make the oil that's needed for everything.
...the flame war here will ensure there is.
Thanks :)
It also sounds like you seriously overreacted - probably shouting and threatening - and they in turn over reacted by filing a restraining order.
That kind of behavior is typical of anyone who does not have any checks and balances on their authority. Unfortunately, many apologists will blame the victim. School is a window into a third-world dictatorship.
The thing is that curve is already bent to green. Raw solar energy is basically free. The problem is that the conversion of sunlight to useful work (electricity), requires expensive devices. This is because a solar panel is essentially one big plate of high purity silicon, coated with pure unobtainium. If it was a sheet of scrap aluminium, an armada of bulldozers would be heading towards your local gas/coal powerplant. If batteries were made of scrap iron and plastic containers instead of high purity lithium, every car would be plug in hybrid, but the batteries are not. I'm not a "randroid", but the switch to clean energy would happen anyway. The government could accelerate it, but is the reduction of danger to the planet worth the economic cost? This depends on how severe the environmental crisis - some are real, but environmentalists have this nasty habit of exaggerating.
Nitrogen won't make it through the membranes, but in SOFCs the air cathode is hot, so you are right that nitrogen oxide formation is a real problem. It seems like some are experimenting with stuff to use up the nitrogen oxides, but that will increase cost and complexity. High temperatures are a pain.
Can't alkaline fuel cells work without platinum catalysts?
Since you are a fuel cell guy, I would like to bounce an idea of you. I call it either the "process catalysed fuel cell" or "robot catalysed fuel cell". Here's how it works:
1. a metal oxide is reacted with the fuel (hydrogen, methane, maybe even gasoline), to produce metal.
2. the metal is burned in a metal-air fuel cell (simple and cheap).
3. repeat.
The metal is anything easy to "smelt", probably copper or tin. I've done experiments with copper-air fuel cells - they are nice because operate happily with baking soda as an electrolyte - I haven't made a "real" one yet. I'm just a highschool student, so if this won't work I'm sorry.
Yes, you're much better off being homeschooled (my kids sisters were, and they came out great). Unfortunately, most families have all parents working, so that option is not available to them. Consider yourself lucky that you have a parent that can afford to spend that kind of time with you.
Very lucky. Very very lucky indeed. Although my parents have mentioned that it required less time when all the nonsense was taken into account. You see, most time in school is wasted - moving from classroom to classroom, in PE "class", in recess, while the teacher battles idiots, etc. I am lucky that my parents have jobs that have very flexible hours.
I complained that a teacher was discriminating against my daughter, and pointed out the specific statute that were violating.
Kudos for standing up to these criminals. It's a shame they could not be sued to hell. School is a window into a third-world dictatorship. People wonder why kids behave badly - this is where they get it from. Anyway, sorry about your daughter's condition.
I understand the whole zero-tolerance policy
When it comes to authority, I have a zero tolerance policy.