Future energy sources?

spiney

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I was listening to the wireless (!) this morning, a discussion about nuclear fission being the "answer" to Gobal Warming ("look, no carbon dioxide, howzat?!").

One thing's sure, the world's oil supply will run out. After which, how will we power our "technological civilisation"?

Is fission the "stopgap answer"? Or, does anyone think controlled fusion will ever be achieved (they've given up, at present, but maybe the research will restart once people begin panicking!).

What about thousands of acres of windfarms (and what happens when the wind stops blowing)?

What happened to geothermal (that once looked promising, maybe 30 years ago!)?

Or is the answer a "high tech fix", beaming down power from solar energy collector satellites to "microwave farms" (huge antenna arrays)?

Or, do we just return to being cavemen (and cavewomen)?

What do you think?
 

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All I know is that they keep finding Oil so who know for how long?

Canada has started to open its coal mines again - we have hundreds of year's supply of coal under the UK.

As technology progress the means of extracting it may become possible hopeful it doesn't put men at risk.

On personal note (remember that) I was down a coal mine once, in one of the largest seams (21"), and I wouldn't do it again.

I take my hat off to the miners who (remember personal) were shafted by Thatcher. They did a great job. Everything Scargill said and more came true.

There's a price to pay for every energy source - sure the boffins will come up with something.
 

spiney

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yep, lots of coal left, will be basis of plastics industry once oil runs out. But, when the arctic ice has melted and the sea level is rising, will we still want to burn the stuff ??!
 

T_G

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The problem is, one of the things that is sort of keeping the Global warming effect fairly low is the global haze created by the burning of fossile fuel. The minute we stop burning oil the global warming effect will accellerate even more. They found this out when after the 9/11 no airplanes flew, and the results were quite surprising in terms of the reduction of pollution from the aircrafts and the rise in temperature on those days...
 

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...anyway, we can build more power stations to power some more freezers, make some more ice, and export it back to the once-cold places at a highly inflated price. :D

The only problem then will be getting the penguins to pay :rolleyes:
 

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T_G said:
The problem is, one of the things that is sort of keeping the Global warming effect fairly low is the global haze created by the burning of fossile fuel. The minute we stop burning oil the global warming effect will accellerate even more. They found this out when after the 9/11 no airplanes flew, and the results were quite surprising in terms of the reduction of pollution from the aircrafts and the rise in temperature on those days...

I thought that in the first week after the attacks the temperatures went down .

Must check further
 

spiney

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yep , I also saw tv prog where haze 9/11 claims were made, very worying!

no, you can't just make nulcear power to create ice, there's a slight problem of the 2nd law of thermodynamics!

Dammit, I'm just going to bury my head in the sand (providing it isn't too hot!)
 

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spiney said:
yep , I also saw tv prog where haze 9/11 claims were made, very worying!

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/001938.html

Last post - paragraph

So its down to the reduced haze of vapourtrails that causes increased day temperatures and lower night temperatures ?

So with a cloudy atmosphere the lessening of daily temperature is the key factor. Seems to make sense, almost everything performs better knowing theres a risk of real change surrounding it. Hibernating has worked well for animals for eons, threatening the cat with no food if he keeps scratching the chair legs, keeping the wife on a short budget etc......
 

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I saw a solution in Futerama the other day: Because of global warming they wanted to kill all the robots that were causing pollution. So the robots all got together and pointed their exhaust towards the sun, and together they farted as strong as they could, moving the earth a little bit further away from the sun....because of that the temperature dropped a bit. Elegant solution...
 

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Close to home TG ?
 

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Channel Hopper said:
Close to home TG ?

Ehh? You lost me there, CHH (which happens often) :)
 

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Hibernation does seem attractive! Have you noticed how difficult it is to get out of bed on Sunday mornings? Anyway, I'm working on it.
 

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I had a thought (although may be misplaced)
one of the problems of using natural resources is it is not renewable or infinite ie coal,oil gas.
There are thoughts already of using crop oils to power combustion engines this is renewable and may have some merits.
my thought was this-
Alchol is also renewable and will also power combustion engines.
The natural process of yeast feeding on sugars and releasing alchol as a waste product is an opertunaty not to be missed.
Imagine large scale fermentation plants with hibrid yeast (with very very high alchol resistance and fast mitabolisms) producing dilute alchol.
Then the normal process of distilling is done away with (as boiling off alchol would require more energy than the result).Instead another chemical exchange (catalist) could be used to seperate the alchol.
There you go cheap renewable sustainable fule.
And our cars would have more power and speed!!!!!
 

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Another benefit is you will never have a problem with closed off licenses...just go for the emergency gallon in your car
 

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T_G said:
Another benefit is you will never have a problem with closed off licenses...just go for the emergency gallon in your car

And whats wrong with doing it now ?:D
 

T_G

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The taste mate...
 

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Thanks for mentioning the Miners Gameboy Lad ;)

My mate had a simple waste oil burner (waste oil is free, garages can't give it away (they have to pay to get it taken away), the idea was so simple your amazed when you see it!

all you need is an old cylinder (propane bottle will do, old compressor tank best!) bit of a chop here and there weld a spring (old car spring) in the bottom have brake pipe dripping the oil onto the heated spring (got going with a fire lighter!) and as long as the oil drips onto the spring, it produces heat (a lot!) sounds unbelievable, but I've seen it work!, only downfall is it chucked a load of oily soot out of the flue!!!
Though we've seen a new design that combats this.... if he can get it working better he's going to heat the house with it (it'll be plumbed in to the rads from an external building)
 

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Only problem with burning waste oil is that it is really chucking out a lot of crap into the atmosphere. It is not just the soot, but also other really nasty chemicals.
I am not a "green", but this is for sure not the right way to get rid of waste oil.
 

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The Russian way is to soak housebricks overnight in old oil, and put them in the fireplace instead of coal.

(Again, cheap but not recomended)
 

T_G

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And then they reuse the brick or does it turn into dust from the heat?
 
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