Subject:
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Re: Global Warming (was: Re: Why is AIDS such a big deal?)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Thu, 11 May 2000 13:08:04 GMT
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Viewed:
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615 times
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Tom Stangl, VFAQman wrote:
>
> Heck yeah fission is cleaner. We always seem to be worried about what to do with
> the spent rods - why not drop them into the sun? It's not like it's going to
> pollute the sun or anything, and the canisters wouldn't need much of a boost at
> all.
>
> I was watching something on PBS a couple weeks ago stating that covering the entire
> surface of the earth with current solar technology wouldn't meet our needs, and
> we'd need a TON of fusion reactors to even come close to replacing hydrocarbons. I
> think the main lesson was that we need to keep looking for higher efficiency
> alternatives (fusion being one of the most obvious). BTW, using alcohol based
> fuels to run cars? Nuh-uh - we'd need more biomass than we currently could produce
> to keep all of our autos running, and that wouldn't leave any biomass for, uh,
> FOOD.
Back in college, I was researching power technologies a bit for SF RPGs.
I remember that there was some theoretical maximum efficiency for solar
panels which I'm pretty sure was less than 50% (might have even less
than 25%). It's pretty clear that if solar panels would not supply our
power needs, that alcohol fuel probably wouldn't either since the
alcohol is being produced by another form of solar energy conversion,
one that has a lot more steps in it to produce power in an engine than a
solar panel charging a battery running an electric motor. Of course all
of this points out that any energy system which uses the resources of
the earth can not be sustainable forever (though it may be effectively
forever). Of course any source which is dependant on the sun runs into a
similar problem, but nearly forever is considerably larger in that
case...
As I was told about thermodynamics: "Not only can you not win the game,
you can't even break even."
Frank
> Larry Pieniazek wrote:
>
> > In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Christopher Tracey writes:
> >
> > > there are some other good reasons to give up on carbon based fuels...
> >
> > Reason number one being that burning hydrocarbons is a huge waste of precious
> > chemical feedstocks... the stocks used to make ABS, for example. Every mile you
> > drive is a brick not made, or something like that. :-)
> >
> > ...and number two being that hydrocarbons are so dirty in other ways. I say,
> > lets use (comparably) clean technologies like nuclear fission(1) for now, and
> > fusion and space based solar power ASAP, wherever we can.
> >
> > ++Lar
> >
> > 1 - debate bait. Who'll take it. Fission IS cleaner than, say, coal.
>
> --
> Tom Stangl
> ***http://www.vfaq.com/
> ***DSM Visual FAQ home
> ***http://ba.dsm.org/
> ***SF Bay Area DSMs
--
Frank Filz
-----------------------------
Work: mailto:ffilz@us.ibm.com (business only please)
Home: mailto:ffilz@mindspring.com
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