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Also, renewables may be increasing at a high rate but that doesn't mean they aren't about to hit their practical limit. If everyone only ate a McDonald's then their growth rate in this country would look pretty darn good. The mere fact that everyone won't and never will means their growth rate is limited to fighting over margins in their portion of the economy. Renewables seem to me to be approaching the point where they'll be fighting over margins. Especially wind power.
You base this conclusion on what? If wind and/or solar were reaching their limit wouldn't we see their growth slowing down year by year? Instead, it is speeding up. Why would they be 'fighting over margins' when more than half of the existing power generation still comes from fossil fuel sources that they have been rapidly replacing?
Basically... your position seems like someone looking at the smartphone revolution two years in and concluding that smart phones were hitting their practical limits and would be fighting over margins... instead of continuing to replace feature phones at a steady clip until those were all gone.
A lot of modern tech relies on rare earth elements and such. So the tech is tied to far far less abundant resources from the get go.
The only reason 'rare earth elements' are at all 'rare' is that nobody bothers to mine for them any more. China cornered the market with cheap labor, so everyone has been able to buy all they need at low prices from the Chinese. If that ever stops being the case we can resume mining the other 94% of the Earth's land surface for them.
Misleading because there's like ten countries in the world, all of them small, who can make choices like Norway.Talking point:
Certain countries look good (talk'n about you Norway!) but they make a huge portion of their GDP off of selling fossil fuels to other places. So saying they are sourcing 96% of their needs from renewable energy is more than a little misleading.I don't see what's misleading about that. A vegetarian who works in a steak house is still a vegetarian, even if they cook and/or serve meat to others. Oil is a valuable resource, but so is wheat, and so are diamonds.
Norway is in an enviable position because they have a resource that they can sell to get money to buy whatever they need -- and one thing they need are power plants. Ironically, it works better for them to use renewable energy rather than burning oil. That's like an Idaho farmer who finds he would rather eat wheat and corn than potatoes, and it says something about how cheap renewables really are, if that's an option.
That makes no sense to me at all; I'm afraid you're going to have to unpack it.
Most countries in the world are small, especially if you consider Norway (which is actually about #119 on the list of 233 UN nation-states, pretty much dead average) to be small. So the fact that any randomly chosen subset of ten countries are all small is not surprising.
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Quark, solar energy can be harnessed using silicon wafers. Silicon is abundantly available.
Also, the elements that make up storage items like batteries are called rare earth not because of their scarcity on the planet.
Rare earth magnets are not uncommon and not expensive for example.
As for distributing power to cities, how do you think,that happens now? Cities don't have power stations in the centre of them. Energy gets created elsewhere and runs to the cities via high power lines.
Imagine the potential for building solar farms in arid zones and then just directing that power as needed.
Now, also realise they've just manage to make a plastic capable of harnessing solar energy for use in electronics. The best part is this is super thin and completely transparent. Every window in the world could have this coated over it.
These renewable options are opening doors where we aren't relying on fixed locations nor fixed companies to provide what we need. We are now moving into an era where every human will be contributing to power needs of the population. I mean, there are cities that are modifying sidewalks now so that as people walk over the pavements it makes electricity. Something to do with vibrational displacement of micro magnets in tight coils. They believe that this could be used to power the street lights of every city, greatly reducing the need for external power consumption for a population. I believe it is being trialled in New Yourk? But it's been a year since I read about it so I cannot be sure of the facts.
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Small countries can do relatively big things and be making no difference on the global scale (Cf. the OP of this thread).
Norway in particular is doing this not by buckling down and getting to it (like most of the rest of the countries would have to do)
Really? The 900+ hydropower stations in Norway just built themselves?
Norway went big on hydropower over a century ago and never looked back. Most other nations with high renewable electricity generation are similar... and no, not all of them are 'small'. Brazil gets over 85% of its electricity from renewables and has the fifth largest population in the world.
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Yes Quark, all minerals require mining processes sadly. And yes all mining processes have an impact on local,environment. Also sad.
However, these can and are minimised in many countries. I guess the issue here is we are talking about reducing the impact on Global warming so the entire planet doesn't become too hot for human habitation any more.
Harvesting rare earth minerals will reduce the carbon footprint do humans substantially. Assuming it allows us to replace the current practice of burning fossil fuels.
Fossil fuels will still be mined and drilled for. Oil is still the primary source of materials required for the manufacture of plastics and lubricants. However, it is not the mining of those resources that is the issue being discussed here, it is the impact on global,warming.
Local environmental issues and pollution are indeed big issues, but are currently being dwarfed by the Global environmental issue. Let's fix the big one first so we then have enough time to maybe fix the smaller ones. After all, it's pointless changing China's human rights and environmental,impact policies if the world ceases to,be able to support life not long after.
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Quark, you also need to be careful,of,over exaggeration of your statements.
China has not ruined Mongolians environment at all,through mining. In fact, I believe China may actually be a world leader in its efforts to create environmentally sound practices in its building and mining areas. Will need to check that more thoroughly though.
Also, less than 20% of the total Amazon has been cleared. More importantly, of the stuff that has been cleared, the vast majority has been done so in Oder facilitate cattle farming.
Sugar cane and mining aren't even contributing 5% of the rainforest clearing according to anything I've read so for on that topic.
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Also the term "rare earth minerals" isn't actually a reference to their scarcity.
It's more about the state they are in before being properly cooked. After all, you never find "well done earth minerals" in the ground.
That's a total gloss on what we would need to coordinate 150,000,000 battery locations plus another 250,000,000 EVs.
And that' just the USA.
I don't think it's feasible anytime before about 2050. The tech is still too crude and the costs are up front (not hidden like with fossil fuels) so people, being people, just won't move fast enough.
Yeah, 2050 might be too hopeful. You keep leaving people out of the equation.
You realize that without people, and their consistently bad choices en mass, there wouldn't even be a "Conspiracy theories surrounding human influenced climate change, what's up with that?" thread?
Note: I am biased towards solar energy as I have a stake in a solar energy company.
Solar energy is VIABLE NOW. We have the tech, we have the means, we just don't have the money devoted to it. We could replace a majority of the energy in the US with Solar within a year if we had the funding...and the funding would probably only be in the tens of billions if we dedicated (our company of course) an adept and able group to do so.
If we had 300 Billion, we could make it so that every house and probably most industries had more than enough energy if we reused the parts of the grid that are compatible...that probably could be done within 5 years or less.
PS: before people claim that 300 Billion is expensive...remember, that's for all the people and businesses in the US overall. That's less than a thousand dollars per customer. That's actually a MAJOR bargain if people think about it. On a smaller scale, spread out over 25 years, just for individual jobs, we have it so that people can pay equal or less for their electrical needs over that time period (including upkeep) for clean solar and hydro energy than they would for other forms of energy.
"Use more solar panels" is overly simplistic IMO
Using the 2050 estimate of over 9 billion people as a template, the problem extends far beyond the simple need for power.
The numerous infrastructure requirements are simply colossal when youre talking about that many people.
The basic concept of land availability becomes enormous.
In terms of size of land required vs energy output nothing comes remotely close to nuclear. I definitely think within a generation the technology of fusion reactors will become do-able. This swings the argument even further in the nuclear direction.
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I definitely think within a generation the technology of fusion reactors will become do-able.
You do realize that your great-grandfather held that same opinion -- "within a generation, the technology of fusion reactors will become do-able" -- don't you? Research into fusion reactors has been going on for literally 60 years (the first patent on fusion reactor technology issued in 1946) , and it's always been just around the corner. At this point, there have been so many "corners" involved it looks like an F1 race.
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Using the 2050 estimate of over 9 billion people as a template, the problem extends far beyond the simple need for power.
The numerous infrastructure requirements are simply colossal when youre talking about that many people.
The basic concept of land availability becomes enormous.
Well, let me whip out the old back-of-the-Mk.-I-envelope here.
The world consumption of energy right now is about 400 exajoules. Let's run that up to 1 zettajoule to allow for population growth, increased per-capita consumption, and because I rarely get to use the zetta- prefix.
Yeah, that's big. But so is the earth. A one hectare solar farm can generate about 1GWh, which is about 3600 gigajoules (GJ) or 3.6 TJ. Let's round down to 1TJ for simplicity.
One million hectares of land (ten thousand km^2) would supply the entire world's power. To put matters in perspective, that's about three thousand square miles. Every US state except for Delaware and Rhode Island is larger than that. The Federal government owns roughly ten times that much land in New Mexico alone. The nation of Israel has enough land by itself to supply the world needs and would still have half left over, as does El Salvador, as does Belize. Tunisia has more than fifteen times the required land area. China could supply the entire world's needs with less than 1% of the province of Inner Mongolia.
So, New Mexico and El Salvador can supply the Americas; Tunisia can supply Africa and Europe, and China can supply Asia. Australia, of course, can supply itself and the rest of Oceania via the outback, and none of those countries would be unduly burdened except for the sudden influx of money....
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I definitely think within a generation the technology of fusion reactors will become do-able. This swings the argument even further in the nuclear direction.
This is far too optimistic.
Here, lets review current and proposed research efforts. The news is not good.
The ITER research reactor will (hopefully) be the first reactor that produces more energy than it consumes sustaining a fusion reaction for a few minutes. Note that "produces energy" is not the same as "generates electricity". A dumpster fire "produces energy". A coal power plant generates electricity. We are about to take the giant step of not needing to hold a blowtorch to our nuclear dumpster just to keep it burning. Actually getting *useful* energy is another matter. It is less of a giant leap in technological progress (since heat is heat, regardless of the source) but useful power extraction is still yet another engineering hurdle that has to be cleared (and that takes time).
My google-fu says that a "generation" is about 15-20 years long.
The ITER will be completed in 4 years.
The ITER will start deuterium-tritium testing in 11 years (2027). Going by the ITER website, all of the time spent before that will be testing and refining the ITER's design, as well as working out the best operating parameters.
On this basis, it will take about a generation just to get our nuclear dumpster fire.
The ITER itself is intended to be a proof of concept for the DEMO reactor. The DEMO is scheduled to produce power for the first time around 2048. Bear in mind that fusion research has been plagued with delays, so this estimate is probably optimistic.
Also bear in mind that this is the first time the reactor will generate power. Lets say that the first power generation happens around 2055, accounting for delays. Toss in another 10 year of research, and it will probably be possible to design a fusion generator that is fit for commercial purposes around 2065. Design and construction of the first set of generators* will probably take another decade (2075). Lets slap on a decade for fusion power to become widescale(2085), and another decade for it to become a dominant part of the world's power generation(2095).
You say 15-20 years until fusion generation is possible, I say 60 years until we can theoretically get our deuterium-tritium coal (about 4 generations), and 80 years till fusion coal plants will substitute for regular ones (or what the heck ever we are using in 5 generations time), and I think I am being very optimistic. A lot of people (many of who are smarter than me and you) thought that fusion was 50 years away in the 1950s, so take my estimate as a rough lower bound. If the world gets hit with any periods of serious instability that hinder pie-in-the-sky research then fusion might take over a century. Wildly successful renewable energy would also hinder fusion research, by making it largely unnecessary, so...don't keep your hopes up.
*if they only build a single generator or a very small handful of "proof-of-concept" reactors in the first reactor generation, then we can add even more time.
Along with more efficient energy usage - no one needs to waste as much as we do in the US, especially not us.
As well as whatever we can do to bend that population curve, make it top out sooner and lower.
Let's say we do none of that.
Double the population (15 billion)
Double the global average power consumption per personOh noes! We're using 0.08% of the available solar power at the Earth's surface!
Not that I disagree with the goal, but this is a lit less feasible than you are implying here.
Let us assume your figure of 0.08% is correct.
Right off the top, available land mass to place solar collectors is about 29% (Or, 57 million square miles of land mass) of the surface of the planet. (Placing collectors at sea would be an astronomical increase the cost of using solar.)
The current world record for solar collection efficiency is about 46%
This means that we need about 342,000 sq miles of solar collectors to go 100% solar under your scenario. And that is with world record collectors, not you average collectors that are closer to 25-30%. In all likelihood, we would be closer to needing 500,000 sq miles of solar collectors to pull it off.
Which also doesn't account for loss in transmission or loss from moving it in/out of storage. You can't use solar power on-demand, because over the course of the year any given place is dark 50% of the time. (I know, it isn't "dark," but I'm talking about area-under-the-curve of peak [ie, direct sunlight] collection.)
So, it is really appropriate to include solar in a final solution, saying that we could depend 100% on solar is kinda out there. We really should be looking at integrated solutions which include solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, tidal, and nuclear.
There is also something to be said for the limited continuation of fossil fuel use because of its modularity. Ie, a gas can full of gas will still start my truck if the power grid is offline from a storm or purposeful military destruction. And, I can carry gasoline with me (which has a MUCH better energy density than stored energy) more easily than I can haul batteries around. It will also be a much longer-off time frame before we can realistically expect air-travel to become fully electric if it ever can.
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(Placing collectors at sea would be an astronomical increase the cost of using solar.)
Not really. Floating solar farms are already a thing and the cost would come down significantly if they were mass produced.
This means that we need about 342,000 sq miles of solar collectors to go 100% solar under your scenario.
Presumably that is from;
0.08% of available solar energy to cover four times our current energy needs * 197,000,000 sq mi Earth surface area / 46% max efficiency = 342,609 sq mi
And that is with world record collectors, not you average collectors that are closer to 25-30%. In all likelihood, we would be closer to needing 500,000 sq miles of solar collectors to pull it off.
Sure.
So, when the population of the Earth has doubled and we are all using twice as much electricity as we do now, we'd need to cover an area equal to one sixth of Australia in solar panels to meet the world's energy needs... assuming no further improvements in technology between now and then. Note that we currently cover more than that in buildings, roads, et cetera... so simply installing solar on top of all our existing infrastructure would allow us to cover our energy needs for the foreseeable future w/o using up ANY additional land.
I'm not seeing the problem.
So, it is really appropriate to include solar in a final solution, saying that we could depend 100% on solar is kinda out there.
I wasn't saying that we should. Rather, I was disputing the (ridiculous) claim that we will soon run out of available solar energy.
The fact that we CAN get all of our power from solar, and won't stop being able to until some future world that has changed so profoundly as to be unrecognizable, does not mean that it would be the most efficient solution. At the very least, we should continue to build out wind and some hydro as well. Whether nuclear, fossil fuels, geothermal, and/or other options will continue to make sense at the margins will depend on how various technologies develop in the near future (i.e. next few decades). For example, if battery technology were to suddenly stall out (it won't) then pumped hydro and 'clean baseload' like nuclear would remain significant portions of the energy mix.
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The numbers you guys are throwing around for future population should not even worry you for energy consumption. We can supply energy as needed for a very long time.
The big problem with those numbers is food. Feeding that many people will cause more environ,entail,impact than energy use for sure.
Particularly if we look at the fact that th majority of humans rely on the sea for food supply. We are already overfishing. That is going to,be very grim with extra couple of billion people to feed.
The numbers you guys are throwing around for future population should not even worry you for energy consumption. We can supply energy as needed for a very long time.
The big problem with those numbers is food. Feeding that many people will cause more environ,entail,impact than energy use for sure.
Particularly if we look at the fact that th majority of humans rely on the sea for food supply. We are already overfishing. That is going to,be very grim with extra couple of billion people to feed.
The number one way to staunch population growth is with an industrialized economy. Really, current trends in population growth will reverse themselves, but we probably will crest 9 billion before we start to see a decline.
The number one way to staunch population growth is with an industrialized economy. Really, current trends in population growth will reverse themselves, but we probably will crest 9 billion before we start to see a decline.The numbers you guys are throwing around for future population should not even worry you for energy consumption. We can supply energy as needed for a very long time.
The big problem with those numbers is food. Feeding that many people will cause more environ,entail,impact than energy use for sure.
Particularly if we look at the fact that th majority of humans rely on the sea for food supply. We are already overfishing. That is going to,be very grim with extra couple of billion people to feed.
We are starting to see a leveling off though. Certain countries like Japan are now having a DEpopulation problem. Japanese sex drives seem to be emulating those of pandas right now.
Okay... you REALLY think the US is going to be pleased with getting their energy from El Salvador? I KNOW Europe isn't going to go for getting all theirs from Tunisia. But maybe a compromise could be reached? Tunisia could agree to become a colony for the EU, so the EU can legally fortify its energy supply, move in a s*@!load of military, and make every important decision for the Tunisian people...
Okay... you REALLY think the US is going to be pleased with getting their energy from El Salvador? I KNOW Europe isn't going to go for getting all theirs from Tunisia. But maybe a compromise could be reached? Tunisia could agree to become a colony for the EU, so the EU can legally fortify its energy supply, move in a s~*%load of military, and make every important decision for the Tunisian people...
I'm not quite up to date. Does El Salvador sit on a geothermal goldmine the way Iceland does? I wasn't aware that it had energy to export. I know that the US had some material interest in the country, enough to back yet another murderous dictatorship, but I don't recall what it was.
We are starting to see a leveling off though. Certain countries like Japan are now having a DEpopulation problem. Japanese sex drives seem to be emulating those of pandas right now.The number one way to staunch population growth is with an industrialized economy. Really, current trends in population growth will reverse themselves, but we probably will crest 9 billion before we start to see a decline.The numbers you guys are throwing around for future population should not even worry you for energy consumption. We can supply energy as needed for a very long time.
The big problem with those numbers is food. Feeding that many people will cause more environ,entail,impact than energy use for sure.
Particularly if we look at the fact that th majority of humans rely on the sea for food supply. We are already overfishing. That is going to,be very grim with extra couple of billion people to feed.
And what a honking big surprise it is, too. Married japanese women are expected to stop working, and devote themselves to the home, including but certainly not limited to caring for the older generations in both families (which live for a very long time and had very few children) in a country without nursing homes for the elderly. Further, if a woman DOESN'T get married, she will have to work massive hours to maintain her carreer. Sure, some of this is stereotype, but far from enough.
And what a honking big surprise it is, too. Married japanese women are expected to stop working, and devote themselves to the home, including but certainly not limited to caring for the older generations in both families (which live for a very long time and had very few children) in a country without nursing homes for the elderly. Further, if a woman DOESN'T get married, she will have to work massive hours to maintain her carreer. Sure, some of this is stereotype, but far from enough.We are starting to see a leveling off though. Certain countries like Japan are now having a DEpopulation problem. Japanese sex drives seem to be emulating those of pandas right now.The number one way to staunch population growth is with an industrialized economy. Really, current trends in population growth will reverse themselves, but we probably will crest 9 billion before we start to see a decline.The numbers you guys are throwing around for future population should not even worry you for energy consumption. We can supply energy as needed for a very long time.
The big problem with those numbers is food. Feeding that many people will cause more environ,entail,impact than energy use for sure.
Particularly if we look at the fact that th majority of humans rely on the sea for food supply. We are already overfishing. That is going to,be very grim with extra couple of billion people to feed.
Working massive hours seems to be the norm for both Japanese women AND men. People have literally worked themselves to death in several highly publicized incidents.
Working massive hours seems to be the norm for both Japanese women AND men. People have literally worked themselves to death in several highly publicized incidents.And what a honking big surprise it is, too. Married japanese women are expected to stop working, and devote themselves to the home, including but certainly not limited to caring for the older generations in both families (which live for a very long time and had very few children) in a country without nursing homes for the elderly. Further, if a woman DOESN'T get married, she will have to work massive hours to maintain her carreer. Sure, some of this is stereotype, but far from enough.We are starting to see a leveling off though. Certain countries like Japan are now having a DEpopulation problem. Japanese sex drives seem to be emulating those of pandas right now.The number one way to staunch population growth is with an industrialized economy. Really, current trends in population growth will reverse themselves, but we probably will crest 9 billion before we start to see a decline.The numbers you guys are throwing around for future population should not even worry you for energy consumption. We can supply energy as needed for a very long time.
The big problem with those numbers is food. Feeding that many people will cause more environ,entail,impact than energy use for sure.
Particularly if we look at the fact that th majority of humans rely on the sea for food supply. We are already overfishing. That is going to,be very grim with extra couple of billion people to feed.
Yes. As I said, it really isn't a mystery. With some changes, they could fix it up, but... don't hold your breath, I guess.
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Okay... you REALLY think the US is going to be pleased with getting their energy from El Salvador?
When he said, "New Mexico and El Salvador can supply the Americas" I believe OQ was suggesting that solar panels in El Salvador could potentially supply South America with power. New Mexico, having ridiculously high insolation levels, could easily supply the US and the rest of North America.
Okay... you REALLY think the US is going to be pleased with getting their energy from El Salvador?When he said, "New Mexico and El Salvador can supply the Americas" I believe OQ was suggesting that solar panels in El Salvador could potentially supply South America with power. New Mexico, having ridiculously high insolation levels, could easily supply the US and the rest of North America.
We DO have our own areas of wide open desert land. And some areas of the SouthWest which will become wide open desert land, when they finish off draining that underground aquifer which is supplying the the bulk of their water and is being drained far faster than it can be replenished.
Okay... you REALLY think the US is going to be pleased with getting their energy from El Salvador?
They could get it from New Mexico instead (which is one of the US states); it wouldn't take more than a small fraction of the land the US government already owns.
I KNOW Europe isn't going to go for getting all theirs from Tunisia.
Shrug -- then anyone who wants to make their own solar farm can do so. Sweden may find they need to use larger panel farms than Tunisia. Sweden uses roughly 140 TWh, 140,000 GWh, per year -- so they'd need approximately 140,000 hectares (1400 km^2) of land to build the farm. Not much of a lost out of 450,000 km^2.
Basically, if you want to be energy independent, you can be. Given the economies of scale, I doubt you could compete with the price of energy from a zettawatt solar farm someplace sunny, but that's your decision. But the central point is that there's enough land lying around that multiple zettawatt solar farms are entirely practical.
Quark, you also need to be careful of over exaggeration of your statements.<snip stuff about how the Amazon is still mostly ok and China doesn't pollute as much as it did once>Agreed.
However it is stuff like this that has me worried:
Why your e-device is cheaper!
Yet you (and me, and anyone else who reads that linked article) will do nothing about it despite being highly educated and now no longer ignorant of the injustice and our involvement in it.
.The problem is you really can't do anything about it, not on an individual level. You could give up buying electronics and anything else linked to abuse.
But you can't buy the more expensive cruelty free e-device, because there isn't one.We can try to influence the companies to do better or to offer alternatives, but that's a long slow process, especially when it's so far removed from the consumer.
This has always been a classic case in poor countries with resources.. it's very seldom that the natives actually benefit from the bounty they sit on. It is generally appropriated at firesale prices inflicting poverty and misery in the process and taken out of the country to benefit others.
It did not start becoming a problem because of Apple. It is an endemic result of capitalist economic colonisation. We need to pass a worldwide standard for minimum worker safety, and worker wages, and living conditions. But I extremely doubt that I or anyone else on this forum will live to see those changes.
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Quark, just a reminder that military coups are a real thing. One was just attempted in Turkey. Fiji has had a few, they happen fairly regularly in other small nations too.
Putting the military in charge of nuclear power plants inside a military base would be unwise. Multiple targets in one place.
Fukushima also tells us that Nuclear Reactors are not the way to go. The global effect of one earthquake is still being measured because of its impact on that nuclear reactor.
Solar is cheaper, fully renewable, uses technology already in existence, can utilise current networked systems for dispersal and can be built in numerous areas of under utilised land to supply entire countries with their power needs. What's more, if an earthquake or other natural disaster strikes a solar power station, the worst that happens is some panels damage and the power go down for a bit. Not the same as decades of uninhabitable land through radiation leakage.
It's not the only source though. Many European countries and even the more northerly parts of the Americas won't be able to reliably use Solar to make their power, because the light is dispersed over a greater area in those latitudes. While they can get it distributed from further south, they should also incorporate power sources such as Geothermal (still active volcano sites in the northern parts of the USA I believe), wind power and surprisingly kinetic energy converters from human movements in very high population densities.
I think NYC already has a natural,gas system working from the depths of their dump. The methane and other flammable organics produced from the decaying refuse is piped to the mainland and used in some areas I believe. This is CO2 emission stuff, but that concept of recycling is pretty cool.
Imagine coming up with a system that could harvest the heat we emit from our bodies on a daily basis. In a large city, the sheer number of people living in such close proximity actually causes air temperatures to be higher than surrounding regions. A bit like temite mounds and be hives in fact. I can see thermal fans getting built in high locations in cities where thermal currents flow regularly and generate electricity.
Also, and this one is really wild, big cities generate a large amount of flowing waste water. A simple treatment system to remove the majority of solid waste could be used and then that water can be pumped through modified hydroelectric plants too.
All of those are ideas that have already been suggested and in some cases already being trialled.
Also the term "rare earth minerals" isn't actually a reference to their scarcity.It's more about the state they are in before being properly cooked. After all, you never find "well done earth minerals" in the ground.
Funny one, but no cigar ! In fact, they were called "rare earths" because unrefined they look like dirt at the time of their discovery (that is, between the end of the eighteenth century and the start of the nineteenth) they were indeed quite scarce (as nobody had any use for them and so didn't bother to look).
It's a group of 17 elements with common properties, some being as common as copper.
Okay... you REALLY think the US is going to be pleased with getting their energy from El Salvador? I KNOW Europe isn't going to go for getting all theirs from Tunisia. But maybe a compromise could be reached? Tunisia could agree to become a colony for the EU, so the EU can legally fortify its energy supply, move in a s+#@load of military, and make every important decision for the Tunisian people...
Well, that was precisely the purpose of the Desertec project (backed among others by the Mediterranean union, that is EU + most of the Maghreb countries) : turning a big chunk of the Sahara into a solar farm, for energy exportations purposes. Went nowhere as far as I can tell, but that was the idea.
Also, Maroc has already working solar farms devoted to export (toward Spain).
So, I guess it isn't as far-fetched as it sounds.
So, I guess it isn't as far-fetched as it sounds.
I didn't consider it to be far-fetched. It's not like countries aren't dependent upon other countries for their energy already; the US was a net energy importer for a long time before the shale boom, and the fact that most of the oil was under the nominal control of foreign (and often hostile) governments wasn't enough of a spur to get the States to develop a robust and useful nuclear or solar capacity. Japan has been importing all of their oil for a very long time indeed.
I find it interesting that the EU "isn't going to for getting all" their energy from Tunisia, because otherwise.... they'd get most of it from Russia?
Quote me correctly if you quote me, Orfamay.
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Just as undeveloped areas were able to get cell phones long before a land line network would ever have been built out, now they are getting solar power long before an electric grid could be built out. Within a couple decades the whole world will have reliable access to electricity and the internet... both of which will lead to profound changes.
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Quark, just a reminder that military coups are a real thing. One was just attempted in Turkey. Fiji has had a few, they happen fairly regularly in other small nations too.
And the United States has sponsored it's fair share of coups to get rid of inconvenient democracies in favor of pliable dictators.
Okay... you REALLY think the US is going to be pleased with getting their energy from El Salvador?
Why not? El Salvador is governed by a US sponsored dictatorship. He's guaranteed to give us good prices.
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The only serious real solution that will reduce CO2 emissions in time is nuclear power - the U235 kind.
Just use modern designs and place the reactors in the middle of military bases. Have a base within a base and make the military responsible for guarding and operating the facilities.
The military has a good record with that I think. How many nuclear ships have had catastrophic problems?
Not possible.
First the US Navy, the plant operator that has managed to be highly successful and safe at operating nuclear power plants, achieved its safety record by having a 2year long training program with an over 75% attrition rate. One of the reasons the USN ceased operating nuclear cruisers was they had difficulty recruiting enough people to fill all the plant personnel positions they needed. Massively expanding the number of power plants would mean lowering those training standards and that would definitely lower safety.
Second the nuclear waste problem has still not been solved. Building more NPP's until some method of disposal would be unwise.
On another subject solar and wind are nowhere near saturation. Where ever you live just look around. Consider all the large flat roofs. There is no reason that solar could not be installed on those roofs. On sunny days it would at least offset the cooling and lighting costs of those commercial buildings, which is a surprisingly large part of our total energy consumption. Small vertical axis wind turbines can also be placed on commercial and industrial roofs almost everywhere.
It's also important to note that the nuclear plants operated by the navy are small units powering ships, not big units powering up entire regions of the nation. Scale plays a big factor.
It's also important to note that the nuclear plants operated by the navy are small units powering ships, not big units powering up entire regions of the nation. Scale plays a big factor.
It also helps when you've got a military budget and no need to turn a profit.
Not sure how relevant either of those are. I don't know as much as I'd like about nuclear plants in particular, but almost every other industrial process is both cheaper and more manpower efficient if you have one big widget instead of four small ones. Similarly, it's a lot easier to do safety engineering when you've got a stable platform surrounded on all sides by as much land as you can afford to buy than it is when you have to fit into a very small footprint in a very hostile environment (and might at any point go into combat).
And the military's record with nukes lately is less than sterling.
The Air Force once dropped two bombs in the South. As it turned out, one of them even somehow armed itself, and only by the slimmiest of margins, it did not detonate when it hit ground.
And lets not get into the recent scandal regarding requalification of nuclear launch officers, shall we?
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I was only reading the other day how the U.S. Lost a nuke in Florida. It wasn't even meant to be on the plane I believe. Then it just dropped free of the wing. I might be mixing two separate incidents there. However. The one I am thinking of fell into the waters off Florida. Navy couldn't find it som they gave it up for lost,
A fisherman found it about ten years later and claimed 10% salvage rights. He got paid out an undisclosed amount of money. Given those bombs are pretty hefty in price, I suspect he doesn't fish for a living any more.
Yeah, I think nuclear power in general is just an extinction level event waiting to,happen. Giving that to a military force is ....well.....reckless.
Military aren't known for paying very high salaries. The guys capable of running a nuclear power plant tend to be very intelligent and highly skilled. I suspect they'd get far more money putting those skills to use elsewhere. It's always been the problem for militarises in fact.
In Aus, we struggle to,keep our pilots for more than a few years because they get offered big money to fly commercial.
It's also important to note that the nuclear plants operated by the navy are small units powering ships, not big units powering up entire regions of the nation. Scale plays a big factor.It also helps when you've got a military budget and no need to turn a profit.Not sure how relevant either of those are. I don't know as much as I'd like about nuclear plants in particular, but almost every other industrial process is both cheaper and more manpower efficient if you have one big widget instead of four small ones. Similarly, it's a lot easier to do safety engineering when you've got a stable platform surrounded on all sides by as much land as you can afford to buy than it is when you have to fit into a very small footprint in a very hostile environment (and might at any point go into combat).
Scale matters. a radio-isotope thermal generator is perfectly suited for powering a spacecraft whose total needs are about 100 watts. Scaling them up to kilowatt or megawatt level is not feasible.
The numbers you guys are throwing around for future population should not even worry you for energy consumption. We can supply energy as needed for a very long time.
The big problem with those numbers is food. Feeding that many people will cause more environ,entail,impact than energy use for sure.
Particularly if we look at the fact that th majority of humans rely on the sea for food supply. We are already overfishing. That is going to,be very grim with extra couple of billion people to feed.
People grossly underestimate the exponential problems caused by human population growth.
I would not be remotely surprised if water shortage causes a war or three!