Not that I buy the whole thing either, but certain things seem clear.
There is a finite amount of oil, coal, natural gas. It seems that eventually these will be so expensive that they cannot be used by most of the population in the way that we use them now.
The options that follow this are solar power, hydroelectric power, nuclear power, tidal power (generators that use tides to turn turbines, basically), and wind power (forget the technical name; think windmills).
All follow the three following rules: 1st Law-Energy can be changed from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed. The total amount of energy in the universe remains constant, merely changing from one form to another. 2nd Law-In all energy exchanges, if no energy enters or leaves the system, the potential energy of the state will always be less than that of the initial state. This is also known as the law of entropy. 3rd Law-It is impossible to cool a body to absolute zero by any finite process. This is actually more of a postulate than a law. In any case, it has little application to our discussion and is presented here merely for thoroughness.
Most are presently too inefficient to actually produce more power than they use to be created. Hydrogen fuel created from water creates 25% less energy than is used to produce the hydrogen, for example. Nuclear power is not sustainable, just another version of oil/coal, etc, and seems (from what I have read, again, remember the internet is not exactly reliable) to be scarcer than fossil fuels, overall.
Basically I am concerned that a source of renewable energy will not be developed (if in fact it CAN be developed) before the basic societal infastructure that we use to support our world population (farms, trucking and such of food, etc) slows to the point it no longer works.
Not that I know, nor does anyone else as far as I can tell. I wonder if I should learn how to ride horses?:>
Horses are less efficient than cars, otherwise we would ride horses. And their pollution is much more obvious and stinky ^_^.
Yes yes, thermo, I did take highschool physics, thanks.
The notion that alternative energies are too inefficient is silly. Why do you think they built hydroelectric dams on just about every major river in the country, flooded ancient historic sites on the Nile, and are putting that monstrocity up on the Nile? Because they expect to never get their money back or get enoufh power out of the dam to pay for its construction?
I find it unbelievable that tidal power would not be similarly efficient.
Meanwhile, the country of Iceland is currently run largely on geothermal energy (it helps that they have volcanoes and not many people,) and wind farms could easily produce massive amounts of energy. If windmills were inherently inefficient, the mideaval economy wouldn't have been so improved by them.
And while the supply of uranium isn't infinite, have you *seen* our nuclear stockpile? That's a fuckton of uranium. (No, I don't know whether it's actually the sort we would want to put in a reactor.)
As for hydrogen, I don't know anything about it, but there's a reason it's just a developing technology.
America and Europe at least have pretty extensive coastlines, and the majority of our populations live on those coasts.
Geothermal's probably not going to do shit for you unless you happen to live near a volcano, and generally we shouldn't *encourage* that sort of behavior.
Well, there are standard fucktons and metric fucktons. A metric fuckton = 1.34 standard fucktons. A standard fuckton probably = about two assloads.
Not that I buy the whole thing either, but certain things seem clear.
There is a finite amount of oil, coal, natural gas. It seems that eventually these will be so expensive that they cannot be used by most of the population in the way that we use them now.
The options that follow this are solar power, hydroelectric power, nuclear power, tidal power (generators that use tides to turn turbines, basically),
and wind power (forget the technical name; think windmills).
All follow the three following rules:
1st Law-Energy can be changed from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed. The total amount of energy in the universe remains constant, merely changing from one form to another.
2nd Law-In all energy exchanges, if no energy enters or leaves the system, the potential energy of the state will always be less than that of the initial state. This is also known as the law of entropy.
3rd Law-It is impossible to cool a body to absolute zero by any finite process. This is actually more of a postulate than a law. In any case, it has little application to our discussion and is presented here merely for thoroughness.
Most are presently too inefficient to actually produce more power than they use to be created. Hydrogen fuel created from water creates 25% less energy than is used to produce the hydrogen, for example. Nuclear power is not sustainable, just another version of oil/coal, etc, and seems (from what I have read, again, remember the internet is not exactly reliable) to be scarcer than fossil fuels, overall.
Basically I am concerned that a source of renewable energy will not be developed (if in fact it CAN be developed) before the basic societal infastructure that we use to support our world population (farms, trucking and such of food, etc) slows to the point it no longer works.
Not that I know, nor does anyone else as far as I can tell. I wonder if I should learn how to ride horses?:>
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Yes yes, thermo, I did take highschool physics, thanks.
The notion that alternative energies are too inefficient is silly. Why do you think they built hydroelectric dams on just about every major river in the country, flooded ancient historic sites on the Nile, and are putting that monstrocity up on the Nile? Because they expect to never get their money back or get enoufh power out of the dam to pay for its construction?
I find it unbelievable that tidal power would not be similarly efficient.
Meanwhile, the country of Iceland is currently run largely on geothermal energy (it helps that they have volcanoes and not many people,) and wind farms could easily produce massive amounts of energy. If windmills were inherently inefficient, the mideaval economy wouldn't have been so improved by them.
And while the supply of uranium isn't infinite, have you *seen* our nuclear stockpile? That's a fuckton of uranium. (No, I don't know whether it's actually the sort we would want to put in a reactor.)
As for hydrogen, I don't know anything about it, but there's a reason it's just a developing technology.
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Also, what I love that term Fuckton.. but I wonder what the scale for it is?
For example is an assload 1/2 a fuckton? :>
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Geothermal's probably not going to do shit for you unless you happen to live near a volcano, and generally we shouldn't *encourage* that sort of behavior.
Well, there are standard fucktons and metric fucktons. A metric fuckton = 1.34 standard fucktons. A standard fuckton probably = about two assloads.
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