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  #51  
Old 19th March 2019, 09:19 AM
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Goran Goran is offline
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Originally Posted by snapdragon View Post
Thanks moltuae.
What do you all think of this?
A TESLA powered AUDI!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFr5Sm8KE5E
Yeah! Bring on the electric Audis!
Shame he kept the manual transmission, I guess he left it stuck in a particular gear. That's 70kg of extra weight.

I think Cold Fusion does work, but I worry 'they' will never release it to ordinary people because it would make us too independent and not reliant on central energy companies.

Hot fusion, ie TOKAMAK, would of course be a clean form of nuclear energy if they ever make it work.

I like solar too, depending on solar cell efficiency, if you cover an area smaller than the UK in solar panels it would supply the current energy needs of the whole world. Not bad.

Last edited by Goran; 19th March 2019 at 09:22 AM.
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  #52  
Old 19th March 2019, 11:10 AM
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moltuae moltuae is offline
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Originally Posted by tintin View Post
....and not much time to think

Thanks for the reminder to watch the video Mark - I haven't yet, but I will when I get time later this week.

Interestingly, a very quick (and therefore potentially not reliable ) google search brings up this website - https://www.wiseinternational.org/nu...s#main-content - which paints Shellenberger as a pro-nuclear activist (though it does seem to be written by an anti-nuclear group, which is why understanding sources is so important these days...). At least I can now judge between two sides of the story now
One thing you get from watching the video is that this guy is a bit of a tree-hugger so I think it's probably quite unlikely that he's a pro-nuclear activist, at least not without good reason or rationale.

Personally, I'm pro-anything-that-works. I like the idea of renewables such as solar, I just don't think they're very practical or scaleable. And, something I hadn't previously given much thought to, until watching that TED talk, is the sheer scale of manufacturing required to bring renewable energy to the world. When you take that into consideration and think about the amount of energy and materials required to go 100% renewable (not to mention all the maintenance and the waste generated by continually upgrading and replacing the technology), it does start to seem somewhat counter-productive and futile.

To capture enough solar energy in an instant to meet the world's growing energy needs, will take vast amounts of land and materials, especially if we're to meet the new demand and challenges that electric vehicles bring, which could potentially double the world's electrical energy requirements within a few decades. Using energy reserves makes far more sense, but not in the form of fossil fuels of course. One major energy reserve we have available to us is geothermal. Geothermal has the potential to provide practically endless amounts of energy very cleanly, if we can only develop better and more practical ways to tap into it.

Nuclear energy, assuming we make it 100% safe, is the ultimate in tapping into endless energy reserves. This is the energy that forms matter; the energy of star-stuff. Huge amounts of energy converted into matter by the stars (thanks to E=MC^2), ready to be released and harnessed. It's not a burning or chemical process but a direct conversion of matter into energy. There is no denser store of energy than an atom and no cleaner way to obtain energy than to reverse what happened in the stars by turning some of the matter they created back into pure energy. The biggest challenge for nuclear of course is making it 100% safe, but I think with generation IV reactors we're almost there. And through greater use and investment, I think it's likely that someday we'll crack Cold Fusion.



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Originally Posted by tintin View Post
And - to reinforce your point about technology moving on quickly - this article https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2.../12/1900556116 gives some of the latest developments about water electrolysis to generate hydrogen for fuel cell use
I like the idea of hydrogen as a fuel. On paper it's a perfect fuel; burn it and it combines with oxygen to make water. But in practice, storing and transporting hydrogen (safely) is a problem. It's one if the most highly combustible elements in existence. It also has a very low density so it needs to be greatly compressed, under very high pressures, to provide any kind of practical energy density.

And the bigger picture for me is that using hydrogen, as with any fuel, is just the harnessing of a chemical reaction. It's nothing more than the primitive burning of stuff. If the human race is to ever move up the Kardashev scale, and survive beyond this planet, we need to leave behind this 'burning stuff' and learn to harness energy properly. And that can only be achieved with nuclear.

The more I think about it, the more nuclear seems to be the obvious answer. I'm not pro-nuclear but I am very much pro-science and I would conclude that the science points to nuclear.
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Last edited by moltuae; 19th March 2019 at 12:19 PM.
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  #53  
Old 19th March 2019, 11:32 AM
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Dezzy Dezzy is offline
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Originally Posted by Goran View Post
Yeah! Bring on the electric Audis!
Shame he kept the manual transmission, I guess he left it stuck in a particular gear. That's 70kg of extra weight.

I think Cold Fusion does work, but I worry 'they' will never release it to ordinary people because it would make us too independent and not reliant on central energy companies.

Hot fusion, ie TOKAMAK, would of course be a clean form of nuclear energy if they ever make it work.

I like solar too, depending on solar cell efficiency, if you cover an area smaller than the UK in solar panels it would supply the current energy needs of the whole world. Not bad.
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Originally Posted by tc4332 View Post
I thought they built these things to ensure the world kept turning.





I'm into installing these Ray, converting old dumb barges into quite complex cable layers and conversions to carry the towers and blades for the turbines.
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  #54  
Old 19th March 2019, 03:31 PM
tintin tintin is offline
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Originally Posted by moltuae View Post
One thing you get from watching the video is that this guy is a bit of a tree-hugger so I think it's probably quite unlikely that he's a pro-nuclear activist, at least not without good reason or rationale.
Hmmm....I've watched this video now, and I do think he's a patsy for the nuclear lobby. For me, so many of his arguments in this video fall into now typical classic misinformation territory - such as making a minor point and then extrapolating it to a major conclusion, often emotionally - e.g. "ripping turtles and their babies out of the ground to make way for solar farms", or his data on rising German electricity costs as evidence of how renewables cost more, not less (which is out of date, wilfully ignoring/not pointing out the subsidy effect on this data)

I have no idea if he genuinely believes the stuff he quotes, or if he is just naively regurgitating it, but it's not convincing at all. So I'm out. Others may disagree.

I generally - perhaps cynically? - tend to look for a greater burden of proof of an argument where I know there is a powerful (and rich!) lobbying group trying to make their point, particularly where they are trying to protect their vested interests/the status quo - whether that's the C**k (sorry Koch... ) Brothers in the Oil & Gas sector, Pharma companies, etc, etc, and this guy falls into that category for me.
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