Yes yes yes Our leadership has failed. How do you make nuclear energy cheaper? Get the federal gov't out of the damn way. The DOE should be shut down. They failed. Disband them. I don't know Let the states take over.

Who was the guy in Arizona? It went that he discovered cold fusion. I think it was on 60 minutes last year. They interviewed the guy and his biggest regret was letting them call his experiment cold fusion. It did have a nuclear effect and he was able to generate more energy that he put in. It wasn't fusion though. Maybe it was unicorn poop.

(01-14-2011 01:47 PM)Machiavelli Wrote:  Who was the guy in Arizona? It went that he discovered cold fusion. I think it was on 60 minutes last year. They interviewed the guy and his biggest regret was letting them call his experiment cold fusion. It did have a nuclear effect and he was able to generate more energy that he put in. It wasn't fusion though. Maybe it was unicorn poop.

I think you're thinking about a DC Comics novel. Or maybe an arc reactor. It worked wonders on Iron Man.

(01-14-2011 01:47 PM)Machiavelli Wrote:  Who was the guy in Arizona? It went that he discovered cold fusion. I think it was on 60 minutes last year. They interviewed the guy and his biggest regret was letting them call his experiment cold fusion. It did have a nuclear effect and he was able to generate more energy that he put in. It wasn't fusion though. Maybe it was unicorn poop.

If you're talking about the same guy that I remember on 60 minutes, turns out it does NOT generate more energy than he put in. That's one big problem with what we are doing right now in energy. We have all these wild ideas that would be great if they worked, but they never quite work out. We'd do far better to put money and effort into "good enough" things that do work, and quit chasing the "perfect" solution that does not work.

If you don't get more energy out as you put in, it's useless. That's why coal, petroleum, etc. are so efficient. One gallon of gas yields a ton of energy.

The premise of this thread is so disconnected from economic reality I don't even know where to begin.

I guess I'll start with the overwhelming majority of US domestic oil consumption coming from domestic sources and F*CKING CANADA!!! We get more oil from the Russians than the Middle East.

My tirade only grows from there about our insane subsidizing of ethanol and "green" energy (especially wind) and the by comparison near zero subsidization of oil and the realities of living in the oil age and switching cars to electric not being green when the G** D*** ELECTRICITY COMES FROM A COAL FIRED PLANT. FFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU.

:irate: :irate: :irate: :irate: :irate: :irate: :irate: :irate: :irate: :irate: :irate:

(01-14-2011 11:43 AM)Ninerfan1 Wrote:  Assuming we coudl get to 100% electric cars. Where would the energy come from to charge them?

Nuclear powerplants. Dozens of new ones. Ah the world I someday hope to live in. That and either a small wind turbine or solar panels on my property. I don't feel like doing the math, but I wonder how many solar panels and what kind of battery one would have to have to charge the battery at home during the day, then transfer that to a Chevy Volt type vehicle at night.

Our ethanol subsidation is out of control and that goes the same for coal. We have whole industries that have popped up to chemically convert coal. The spray pine tar on it on one end and sell it at a govt. subsidy on the other end. It's a farce. But you have some pretty important political connections in Iowa and the coal belt.

(01-14-2011 10:41 AM)Machiavelli Wrote:  I need to get people like you to understand we subsidize oil so heavily we can't let alternatives become a viable alternative.

Mach, alternatives aren't viable because they aren't viable--with or without oil subsidies. There just aren't any alternatives--other than sugar cane ethanol--that are really viable substitutes for oil.

That's the elephant in the room for the energy debate. Electric cars would be a viable alternative for maybe 1% of our oil use, max, under current conditions. What we need to make electric cars a viable alternative with a material impact are (1) significantly better battery technology, (2) substantial increases in generation capacity, and (3) substantial upgrades to our transmission and distribution grid. And the generation capacity increases have to be something other than solar or wind, at least until we make significant advances in electricity storage technology. The storage technology is really the key. Realistically, if we move at warp speed, we're probably looking at 50 years for everything to be in place to really make electric cars vaible. One thing we could do, if we had the generation capacity, is to follow Europe's lead and electrify our rail system. That would drop oil usage significantly, particularly if we also started moving a lot more long-haul freight--and passengers--by rail.

To make electric cars viable, we probably need 100 new nuke plants. This means that improvements in nuke waste disposal are mandatory. We can probably do what the French do, reprocess spent nuke fuel to create new fuel and reduce the volume of waste, and store the remaining waste on-site. That holds the fort for a considerable time, and then focus efforts on better reprocessing or disposal technology in the interim.

To make solar and wind viable on a large scale, we need storage improvements as noted above. As it stands now, solar and wind are absolutely worthless unless the sun is shining and/or the wind is blowing. You can't treat the electric grid like a water tank and store up excess when demand is low, then draw it down to meet peak demands. At peak demand, with current technology, you need to be generating every amp used right now. Solar and wind can't do that. So for every kw of solar or wind generation, you need a backup kw from another source, and natural gas is the best source to pair with wind/solar because it's the one that takes the least lead time to fire up.

All of the discussions of alternatives remind me of the old line about, "If we had some ham, we could have ham and eggs, if we had some eggs." There's just a lot that needs to be done, much of which is not obvious. It's easy to say, "Let's get off oil by (some year)." It's a much more difficult proposition actually to do it. And our chances of actually doing it are not helped by unrealistic assumptions.

I could envision a home wind turbine hooked to storage batteries. You could have x number sets of batteries. You come home at night exchange your battery. Alot of N. America can support wind turbines. Especially the Midwest.

What happens when the wind doesn't blow? Wouldn't you need a backup source? ..and seeing as how that would be, wouldn't you be inputting 2X the power to obtain 1X the energy?

(01-14-2011 02:27 PM)Machiavelli Wrote:  Our ethanol subsidation is out of control and that goes the same for coal. We have whole industries that have popped up to chemically convert coal. The spray pine tar on it on one end and sell it at a govt. subsidy on the other end. It's a farce. But you have some pretty important political connections in Iowa and the coal belt.

CORN ethanol needs subsidies to work. SUGAR CANE ethanol is four times more efficient, and doesn't need subsidies to work. Brasil can produce a gallon of sugar cane ethanol, with about 95% the performance of gasoline, for something under $1.00/gallon. But as long as we subsidize corn ethanol and penalize sugar cane ethanol, we are going to be on the wrong side of this issue. Driving around Hawaii a couple of years ago, I noted abandoned sugar plantations all over the place, and gasoline for $4/gallon. How stupid is that?

If I could come up with technologies to address the problem, my top ones would be:
1. Electricity storage--this makes electric cars, wind, and solar more viable
2. Coal gasification/liquefication--we have 300 years of coal reserves, but we need to find a way to use the coal in a more environmentally friendly way
3. Nuke waste disposal--reprocessing reduces the volume substantially, and what's left can be stored on site at the plants for a few centuries; things like returning the waste to the mines they came out of may have some viability
4. Electric transmission/distribution--if we can reduce line losses on long-haul transmission, we can essentially create "free" energy
5. Ethanol feed stocks--sugar cane is the best we have now, can we come up with something better, particularly something we can grow domestically

One thing for sure--putting better insulation on your house saves energy--but it doesn't save oil.

(01-14-2011 02:30 PM)Machiavelli Wrote:  I could envision a home wind turbine hooked to storage batteries. You could have x number sets of batteries. You come home at night exchange your battery. Alot of N. America can support wind turbines. Especially the Midwest.

*sigh* The only places that can support wind are the central planes, and in the immediate area of 5,000+ ft mountain ranges. Great! We only have ... the entire coast where 80% of the population lives to go! Wind turbines have a serious noise pollution aspect to them, to say nothing of chopping birds in half in mid flight.

Batteries are EXTREMELY expensive, VERY LOW capacity, and VERY LOW lifetime. Even the best batteries we have to offer -- the ones in your laptop -- may last 2 to 3 years under normal duties and cycles. Even when you FILL A CAR UP with these batteries like the Tesla ... you only get 200 miles before you're done ... and if you actually drive the car hard closer to 70 miles. And unless you drop a 220 volt drop somewhere, that'll be 12-16 hours to recharge. PATHETIC!!!!1 If batteries were viable, they would be used in the grids long long ago. But they don't do that in the grid ... they bring generation capacity online or offline depending on load. The best "battery" we have on the grid is already in use: giant ice freezers in hot areas. At night the freeze a refrigerator size block of ice solid ... and then use that during the day to keep a building cool instead of traditional electrical A/C. No subsidies were required to build this. No forcing was necessary. It was a superior economic choice and so it came into practice.

F*CK. Why can't liberals who want alternatives ever simply make one that is economically superior? Then you won't have to convince or subsidize or mandate anything. People will come to you.

(01-14-2011 02:39 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  SUGAR CANE ethanol

Three words: Sugar Import Cap

That's why so much here is made with sh*tty *ss high fructose corn syrup. Because the liberals didn't want us having too much unhealthy sugar, or for us to hurt the poor American sugar beet farmer... that would be tragic.

I would have a set of batteries. I looked into putting one at my house and even had a wind study done. The company installing the turbine looked at a years worth of bills and gauranteed I would put electricity on the grid 320 days of the year. If not they would pay the difference. That's in NW Ohio.

(01-14-2011 02:46 PM)Machiavelli Wrote:  I would have a set of batteries. I looked into putting one at my house and even had a wind study done. The company installing the turbine looked at a years worth of bills and gauranteed I would put electricity on the grid 320 days of the year. If not they would pay the difference. That's in NW Ohio.

You're near a major lake ergo you have lake effect wind. And I call bull**** on the 320 days a year number unless you're RIGHT UP near the lake.

(01-14-2011 02:30 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(01-14-2011 10:41 AM)Machiavelli Wrote:  I need to get people like you to understand we subsidize oil so heavily we can't let alternatives become a viable alternative.

Mach, alternatives aren't viable because they aren't viable--with or without oil subsidies. There just aren't any alternatives--other than sugar cane ethanol--that are really viable substitutes for oil.

That's the elephant in the room for the energy debate. Electric cars would be a viable alternative for maybe 1% of our oil use, max, under current conditions. What we need to make electric cars a viable alternative with a material impact are (1) significantly better battery technology, (2) substantial increases in generation capacity, and (3) substantial upgrades to our transmission and distribution grid. And the generation capacity increases have to be something other than solar or wind, at least until we make significant advances in electricity storage technology. The storage technology is really the key. Realistically, if we move at warp speed, we're probably looking at 50 years for everything to be in place to really make electric cars vaible. One thing we could do, if we had the generation capacity, is to follow Europe's lead and electrify our rail system. That would drop oil usage significantly, particularly if we also started moving a lot more long-haul freight--and passengers--by rail.

To make electric cars viable, we probably need 100 new nuke plants. This means that improvements in nuke waste disposal are mandatory. We can probably do what the French do, reprocess spent nuke fuel to create new fuel and reduce the volume of waste, and store the remaining waste on-site. That holds the fort for a considerable time, and then focus efforts on better reprocessing or disposal technology in the interim.

To make solar and wind viable on a large scale, we need storage improvements as noted above. As it stands now, solar and wind are absolutely worthless unless the sun is shining and/or the wind is blowing. You can't treat the electric grid like a water tank and store up excess when demand is low, then draw it down to meet peak demands. At peak demand, with current technology, you need to be generating every amp used right now. Solar and wind can't do that. So for every kw of solar or wind generation, you need a backup kw from another source, and natural gas is the best source to pair with wind/solar because it's the one that takes the least lead time to fire up.

All of the discussions of alternatives remind me of the old line about, "If we had some ham, we could have ham and eggs, if we had some eggs." There's just a lot that needs to be done, much of which is not obvious. It's easy to say, "Let's get off oil by (some year)." It's a much more difficult proposition actually to do it. And our chances of actually doing it are not helped by unrealistic assumptions.

Yes...well put.

There is plenty of evidence that industrial hemp could be used like sugar cane as a biomass generator. Both are prolific,easy to grow and create large quantities of biomass per acre. Sadly...Both are heavily regulated for production in the mainland US. One because of protectionist legislation for the sugar industry and the other because of misguided paranoia. Both should be stopped and allowed to be propagated for the benefit of consumers.

It's funny that hemp was banned and eradicated decades ago but was allowed to be grown during WWII for its many uses in the war machine from cordage, parachutes,uniforms and fuel. After the war...back to the ban.

I see Lake Erie from my house.

(01-14-2011 03:01 PM)Machiavelli Wrote:  I see Lake Erie from my house.

No wonder you're so f'ed up in the head.

I don't think you would say that if you saw my house. Have you ever heard of Put in Bay? Lake Erie is beautiful on the Western end by the Lake Erie islands. Cedar Point?