Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Andreas on February 14, 2005, 04:39:58 pm
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I'm just asking this out of curiosity. What do you think would be a viable option to replace petroleum in the nearby future? Since oil production will most likely start to decline over the next decades, what in your opinion would be viable alternatives to replace it?
IMO I find it unlikely any fuel-cell tech or somesuch will become a viable option for energy production in some time (partly because of short-sightedness by governments to fund research into them, partly because of the technical difficulties relating to practical appliances).
So, I would believe that coal could once again become important part in energy production, since it is widely used even today, it is cost-effective (???), and there should be enough of it to last quite some time. Not to mention all the pollution it causes.
Just a thought, I'm not any expert by far (be free to flame :D), but what are your thoughts? I'm not saying world's oil reserves are just gonna run dry all of a sudden, but what other forms of energy production could be putted into greater use to accompany petroleum?
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The technical difficulties of fuel cells would vanish if Governments subsidised the appropriate research. Hell the UK could avoid it's upcoming energy crisis if we funded national use of solar roof tiles.
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You have to also (with respect to coal) consider the environmental impact of that excess carbon.
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Britain uses more coal and Gas generators than Oil ones, however, since all three of them are sort of interlinked, I see coal running out at about the same time.
As for Solar Panels, yes, there are roof-tiles that double as Solar Panels. If the government spent the money on a re-roofing program, passed some laws about new roofs or even offered bonuses to people using SP Roof tiles, Britain could probably power itself without any need for generators, and pay for itself within 20 years.
Alas 20 years is 5 elections away. That's the main weakness of Democracy as we practice it.
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"Nucular" power is the future, it'll never fun out and the waste could simply be jettisoned into deep space.
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Well, it may be ok for large-scale generators etc, but until fusion is improved, they are a massive risk both through accident and deliberate attack. Also, Nuclear power is not much good for Cars etc unless you are using Electric Cars, which currently use more energy to charge for a 50 mile drive than a petrol car would use.
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Solar powered roof tiles are grand for powering your house but they're ****all good on a truck or airliner. Oil isnt really used that much for producing electricity anyways, its more for fuel, lubricants, plastics, etc etc, theres no real viable alternative to it.
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Not to mention the mess mining makes. Ever been to the Rhondda? Thought not :D I wouldn't recommend it - it's in a horrible state. They've got the highest percentage of people on incapacity benefit in the UK. The other big mining areas of Britain are almost as bad.
It's also very expensive to extract. The south Wales valleys have billions of tonnes of coal left in the seams, but the cost of getting to it is enormous.
The thing is, there won't ever be a shift away from oil-based energy strategy, because the oil companies have the government (and those of other countries) over a barrel.
My personal thoughts are about fuel cells and nuclear fusion. Those two combined would be all that's needed for the world's energy needs. Hell, the Americans could even keep a hold on things, as the material needed for fusion (either deuterium, tritium or some form of Helium) can be found in vast quantities on the moon. :D
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There are solar powered cars already IIRC.
http://www.speedace.info/solar_cars.htm
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Cars is grand but what sort of square meterage of panels are you going to need to haul 20 ton of gravel. Or food, or the cars to the showroom?
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The technology is still in its infancy, let it grow and you will see...
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Originally posted by pyro-manic
Not to mention the mess mining makes. Ever been to the Rhondda? Thought not :D I wouldn't recommend it - it's in a horrible state. They've got the highest percentage of people on incapacity benefit in the UK. The other big mining areas of Britain are almost as bad.
It's also very expensive to extract. The south Wales valleys have billions of tonnes of coal left in the seams, but the cost of getting to it is enormous.
Yes, I'm aware of the effects that coal mining/using has to the enviroment, resulting pollution, and health problems. I was just talking about the possibility that the use of coal could increase, obviously it is not by far the best option at all when compared to fusion and such ;)
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It'd want to grow an awful lot bigger than it is now, and an awful lot quicker than it has done up til now.
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Hydrogen fuel cells,
Needs two things:
A. Cheaper price for cars.
B. Refueling infrastructure.
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If there was any decent amount of investment, then that'd happen very quickly (I'd say 20 years at most if fingers were pulled out), but it's being blocked by the oil companies. They don't want to see their profit margins reduced....
Ai No Koriida: Absolutely. :) I think it probably will make a "comeback" to some extent, though the focus seems to be on gas now (hence all the shenanigens around the Caspian and Black Seas at the moment - there are vast gas reserves there.
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anyone ever read ben elton's 'gridlock'? he mentions hydrogen combustion for car fuel there.
i reckon ethanol would be good. rock down to the petrol station, fill up the car and decant a few extra litres for yourself...
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Heheh, and go blind/die instantly? ;)
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well, you could add stuff to it, right? i mean no one said you had to drink it straight.
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I'm just messing with ya. ;)
Ethanol is certainly an option, though you'd have to have guards at the filling stations, to fend off the winos... :D
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the us government had plasma screens back in the 60's! the fuelcells they got now are vastly superior to anything we think exists. they have plutonium batteries which power output is still classified. the only reason to classify technologies is when its vastly superior to what everyone else has. the unclassified technologies are impressive enough as it is. a wide array of us military ground vehicles are multifuel capable, including the m1a1 tank (i think). deisel and gas-turbine engines have always been multifuel compatable.
not a military tech but there is a solar powered glider with a retractable prop. it can take off and land powered, batteries recharge in flight should the motor be needed to reaquire altitude. once in the air the motor shuts down and the prop retracts and the pilot os free to ride thermals to gain altitude. i heard the thing flew from alaska to argentina without landing and it didnt use a drop of fuel. then of course there's nasa's helios, but it doesnt neearly compete witht the solar glider.
seriously if we ran out of fuel today, we would have the technology to convert to alternate fuel sources. but because our energy infrastructure is set up to use gasolene and it would cost a fortune to upgrade every gas station, refinery, engine, and powerplant.but for now the cost is still high and the fuel still flows so why change things.
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Er, pardon me, but isn't a 'refueling station' for hydrogen fuel cells essentially a water tap and a big electrode? It always occurred to me that a refueling station should require little more then sizable jug of water and an electical outlet.
Though, fuel cells aren't a solution. You still need electricty to produce the hydrogen to run the fuel cells. Allows for better pollution control then autos burning gas, but still, somewhere down the line someone is using an actual energy source.
Solar is nice, but AFAIK nowhere near efficient enough to supply all power needs. Useful for homes and maybe cars, and a good worthwhile investment, but not enough by itself. I don't know how useful it would be in Britain - you guys don't exactly have a reputation as a bright sunshiny place.
Wave power is a pretty good investment, Imho. Wind is nice some places, near useless in others. Nuclear has that whole radioactive waste problem - shooting it into the sun sounds real nice until you start thinking about the number of launch vehicles that have gone BOOM while launching. Those are unpleasant enough without spreading radioactive waste throughout the stratosphere, thank you very much. Coal is a stopgap but will encounter the same problems as oil sooner or later, probably sooner.
There is no one solution. Have to invest in as much as possible, really, and use what works where you are.
None of this addresses the big problem. No oil = no latex = no condoms = no nookie for me.
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we could always go back to using whale oil
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Synthetics. Get used to them :)
Anyway, the current best option is to use nuclear fission, other than the whole waste disposal issue. Once they figure out how to harness bubble fusion, however, that should solve our problems.
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I only adress the industrial production of electricity for now:
Fact 1.: Currently manufacturing a turbine for a wind generator eats more energy than it will ever produce in its lifetime.
Fact 2.: Ground erosion and sound pollution are serious issues with wind generators.
Fact 3.: Solar cells don't have a very long life expectancy. (~15-20 years max, then their output dramatically drops) They can't produce any power most of the time.
Fact 4.: Solar cells take highly toxic (Germanium, Arsenic) materials to produce. The fact you need a big reserve in energy production to balance its short powerproduction capacity coupled with its low liftime compared to a conventional power station renders it a highly toxic source of power.
Fact 5.: In the energy industry you can't store what you produce - it should be immediately used. Therefore when their is little use you have to immediately shut down a couple of power stations, and when the need arises immediatelly bring them online.
(The reason for the shutdown is that the use of power generates the magnetic counter force in generators - when its gone the generator can suddenly overspin and damage/destroy itself.)
Both solar and wind power and incapable of this instantenous service, moreover what should we do with the power they make when no one uses it?
(Please, don't talk of batteris - no battery can handle the power levels we speak of, and simply the chemical reactions don't happen fast enough - not to mention you can only reagain about 40% of the input later on).
Addendum: I don't pull this stuff out of my....(whatever you like). I've heard them on a conference of our countries energy experts, read about it elsewhere in the literature of the issue ect.
So far the following options exist that won't be worse environmetally than the ones we use are and are already viable:
oil, gas, coil - duh the stuff we use.
THE Great problem: oil is the base for a myriad of chemical processes. Burning them is the worst thing we could do with it - it's the source of all the plastic you see.
Gas is still availible for a couple of hundred years at least.
Coil is the most polluting, though the new powerstations with sulfur filters greatly reduce the earlier environmental effects. (No more acid rain).
The main problem with the fossil fuels is the CO2 emmissions.
There is an alternative though that is highly overlooked IMHO:
Bio-fuel: Grow stuff, and later on burn it. Wood, alcohol ect.
Pros - whatever carbon you're gonne burn was already reagined from the air by the plants you've grown.
Cons - this won't lower the CO2 level, wood doesn't yield as much energy as any other fossil fuel.
Another renewable powersource: geo-thermal energy.
Its problems: it can't be transferred. It's not really suited to generate electricity, heating a city is more likely. The great problem is what to do with the water we gained from the earth - it's very salty most of the time. It can't be released into the sweet water, and we usually can't pump it back underground since the water resvior rock crumble and clog when the water is removed.
The "NUCLUAR" way:
Pros:
No pollution.
Their is plenty of fuel (especially if you include the uranium in the seawater or more than what we can do with in the next couple of thousand years if you include the Thorium we have).
Cons
It requires a constant and vigilant control and monitoring.
Proliferation danger - It also enables the owner to start an atom program and produce nuclear weapons - terrorists present a problem that the current regulations don't yet know how to handle.
Great con: nuclear power stations can't really be brought offline in a hinch - they can't compansate for the changing need of the network. A shutdown is problematic and a restart takes several days.
Possible solutions to nuclear waste:
Low and Medium activity waste disposal is already solved, it is only the high activity waste that's problematic since it has to be processed for decades before it can be permanently dumped in the apropiate facitlity.
All around the globe deep depositories are under construction. If built, they will allow for a permanent disposal of used fuel for the next 1000 years.
Waste processing combined with transmutation (changing long half life isotopes into short ones) greatly reduces the risk of containment . *
The closed fuel cycle could greatly increase the ammount of power we can gain per kg of fissible fuel and it would also dramatically lower the ammount of waste that has to be dealt with.
*I studied this issue, PM me if you wanna learn more.
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an alternative to oil eh.... why not....
PAM
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Here in Brazil sugarcane ethanol is widely used to power cars and small trucks (well, pick-up trucks), and I don't think it would be too terribly hard to get it to power larger vehicles - we'd need larger crop areas and a program to accelerate the application of new agricultural tech on the fields, but it should be possible. Especially considering the ridiculous amounts of unused land we have around here. And most of the electrical power is produced through hydroelectrical stations - they have their own problems, but if properly managed their usable lifes can be extended tremendously.
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We need micro-nuclear plants under the hoods of our cars!
...you would be branded as a member of the Axis of Evil though :p
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Or Microwave based power stations supplied from orbit.... ahem...
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Originally posted by Styxx
Here in Brazil sugarcane ethanol is widely used to power cars and small trucks (well, pick-up trucks), and I don't think it would be too terribly hard to get it to power larger vehicles - we'd need larger crop areas and a program to accelerate the application of new agricultural tech on the fields, but it should be possible. Especially considering the ridiculous amounts of unused land we have around here. And most of the electrical power is produced through hydroelectrical stations - they have their own problems, but if properly managed their usable lifes can be extended tremendously.
Hydro stations are probably the best since eventually all powerstations use turbines and generators, but those are the only parts that need to be maintained/replaced in a hydro plant...
....however - and it is a strong however - I'm always pissed off when an austrien green peacer (with a strong case of STUPIDUS MAXIMUS ergo no whatsoevever technical / proper consideration to cloud his mind) goes off that we should shut down Paks our only nuclear powerplant and go to hydro power.
(Fact : Paks provides roughly 50% of the whole nations powersupply)
It doesn't appear to cause any discord in them that we have no whatsoever hills and falling rivers in Hungary to power the said stations!
....that's my only reason against hydro power - you need rivers with a big enough fall to be able to build one of them.
They also have to be properly designed not to have a huge ecological impact on the river they are built upon.
@Tiara - Once I got my degree I plan to work on implementing that.
(maybe not your car yet, but I want to build feasible micro fission reactors to substitute a lot of stuff used by the industry)
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IIRC there have been plans/ideas/designs for coastal hydropower (wave power), but I think there were also concerns about the effect upon the tides that large scale use of the generators would /could have.
Of course, given that Hungary is landlocked it makes no difference whatsoever, but it's an interesting idea for other countries; I wonder how feasible it would be to, for example, supply the electricity on the Shetlands with wave power (or maybe windpower).
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The ultiamate thing to do would be to findsome where sunny that nobody lives (ie a desert), then fill it with solar panals. With a decent international effort, every country could share in the power, regardless of how big/sunny it is.
Ofcourse, that would take international cooperation, and who's going to force countries to do that? :lol:
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If you really want solar panels, put the damn things in orbit. No diffusion or scattering, no risk of overcast days, and they can be placed in orbit in a way that they always face the sun directly.
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Originally posted by Styxx
If you really want solar panels, put the damn things in orbit. No diffusion or scattering, no risk of overcast days, and they can be placed in orbit in a way that they always face the sun directly.
Yeah, but thats so expensive its stupid. The benefits would be limited.
Somebody has been using to much microwave power in SC2000. :lol:
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Actually, iirc the form of radiation that Solar Cells convert into energy these days isn't actually blocked that well by clouds, they don't just convert the visible spectrum anymore.
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Originally posted by beatspete
Yeah, but thats so expensive its stupid. The benefits would be limited.
Somebody has been using to much microwave power in SC2000. :lol:
So is spending insane amounts on solar panels that'll only be used half the time. Right now using solar panels isn't feasible in any way for very large scale power generation. By the time it becomes possible, we may already have orbital elevators, which would make putting them in orbit much more worthwhile than sticking them on the ground.
Solar panels suck anyway. :p
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Well, the main concern with putting huge Solar Panels in orbit is the fact we'd have to go up there and tidy up a bit first ;)
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*übersarcastic: Looks like everybody is brained
I already told you that solar panels life exectancy is roughly 2 decades most - and they need tons of toxic material to produce.
If you put them into the Sahara, in 20 years you'll end up with a toxic waster site far bigger with more toxic waste than any nuclear poweplant with similar output.
Don't ever dream of beaming down energy from space! Those death ray solutions are very dangerous (you can't gurantee all the what ifs if you loose controll of it).
Right now, the notion of orbital elevators don't seem well enough known - you put a constant spike into the ionosphere its effects aren't well enough known.
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there is an abundant alternative fuel out there, people, thats right, people. i say we make people combustion reactors. we incenerate people in vast quantities to boil water which creates steam to spin turbines which in turn generate electricity. im a genious!
*runs off to the patent office*
:D
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*puts on flameproof suit
(Bimbo voice): I hope you know Nuke, you're gone answer all the hatemail about that post's nazi references.
*switches suit for anti-rad suit with added lead plates
Hufff...huff ('these things are damn heavy')...anyway I've sold my soul to the atomic spark, and will adamantly stand with my radiant godess.
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im no nazi, i believe in equal opritunity hate
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Thing is, whats the life of a Hydrogen fuel cell? What's the life expectancy of a Bubble Fusion reactor. We don't know. Why? Because they don't exist, at the very least, not officially, so it's all very well saying Solar Panels are useless but unless we pick something and plough research into it we are screwed in about 30 years.
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whatever my exwife eats is a great alternative...her mouth never stops running.