Scientific Science
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@dcon said in Scientific Science:
We can only be grabby once we can grab.
False. The titles for much of the Moon and Mars are already being sold.
they're not valid, but they are titles.
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@Steve_The_Cynic said in Scientific Science:
@remi said in Scientific Science:
So if we're an extremely unlikely early civilisation in the universe, then... so what?
Hey, that would mean that we get to be those grabby aliens! Is that cool or what?
You have to survive, to do that. And this is the last century for humans - we are exactly on track to fail the atomic-weapons Filter. Sederunt principes.
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@cvi said in Scientific Science:
From what I remember, I liked the concept as a sort of thought experiment. It poses an interesting problem.
Don't get me wrong, I also think it's amusing to think about all that, and the idea of "grabby aliens" as some sort of limiting factor on the emergence of life forms is indeed something that can occupy an evening with friends.
What I'm really objecting to (well, more like noting and criticising) is the logical leap used to go from "us appearing now is a low probability event" to "there must be another factor that raises the probability of that event." It's not in any way an automatic conclusion from the Copernician principle, since there is nothing special or unusual about low probability events happening, especially when all possible outcomes are low probability (one of them must happen and it therefore will be low probability, but it still won't have happened for any other reason than chance).
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@remi said in Scientific Science:
What I'm really objecting to (well, more like noting and criticising) is the logical leap used to go from "us appearing now is a low probability event" to "there must be another factor that raises the probability of that event."
Some people never understand the advantage in switching doors.
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@remi said in Scientific Science:
What I'm really objecting to (well, more like noting and criticising) is the logical leap used to go from "us appearing now is a low probability event" to "there must be another factor that raises the probability of that event." It's not in any way an automatic conclusion from the Copernician principle, since there is nothing special or unusual about low probability events happening, especially when all possible outcomes are low probability (one of them must happen and it therefore will be low probability, but it still won't have happened for any other reason than chance).
Our being here to ask the question means that the event must have occurred, but does not tell us what the probability of the event is beyond "not outright zero". We have a fairly good idea that there aren't aliens buzzing around the solar system (sitting on people's shoulders excepted) but we don't know why that is; if they were deliberately avoiding the place that would produce a similar observable effect. We know we couldn't reliably find ourselves at even a very modest interstellar distance, so we can say that we don't know how many civilisations exist in the galaxy (beyond "minimum 1... probably"). It's all too big a pile of unknowns for now, some of which are in the cant-even-guess-the-order-of-magnitude category of uncertainty.
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@cvi said in Scientific Science:
IMO it's the kind of thing you discuss with the right sort of people after a
beer
or five, and then have a really good discussion for the rest of the night.
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@dkf said in Scientific Science:
Our being here to ask the question means that the event must have occurred, but does not tell us what the probability of the event is beyond "not outright zero".
The real problem IMO is that the universe does not work with probabilities (leaving aside quantum mechanics stuff). An (macroscopic) event happens or does not happen. The "probability" of the event is just our own way of modelling the laws of nature that govern it, but ultimately it's just a model.
So we can indeed say that "humans have appeared" meaning the event occurred. We can also say "within this or that model, the probability of that event is tiny (or not, depending on your model)." But that doesn't tell you anything about your model, because a probability is not statistics. If we had enough data points (=alien civilisations, or conversely planets observed and known to be without alien civilisations), then we could start doing statistics and validate (or not) our model by comparing the statistics to the probabilities. Until then, the fact that a model gives a probability of 0.00...1 or 0.999... for a single isolated event that we know has occurred doesn't tell us anything, at all, on the validity of that model.
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How bullshitty can science be to make it into the news?
Look, some guys created a new catalyst to convert CO2 into methanol at low temperature and ambient pressure. Wow!Why do I say
wow!?Carbon dioxide is a problematic greenhouse gas, but if reacted with hydrogen, it can be converted to methanol
Yes: you need hydrogen.
And where does it come from?
And the energy used for the creation of hydrogen comes for free?
Oh yes, of course, it does!News article in Nature (likely paywalled):
Copper-studded catalyst turns pollutant into potent fuel
Nature - Nanoparticles bristling with copper atoms convert carbon dioxide into an alcohol that can be used in fuel cells.
Original article (likely paywalled):
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2667109323000039
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@Gustav said in Scientific Science:
Anyway, I know what I'll be doing the rest of the
Shorting quantum stock?
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@BernieTheBernie said in Scientific Science:
Yes: you need hydrogen.
And where does it come from?
And the energy used for the creation of hydrogen comes for free?
Oh yes, of course, it does!If it was just about the hydrogen…
Methanol is a more practical fuel then hydrogen. So after going through all the trouble making hydrogen for use as fuel if you could, with little additional energy, react it with carbon dioxide from the air to methanol, it would have some practical benefits.
Of course the carbon dioxide would end up being released into the atmosphere at the end of the cycle, so it isn't a method for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but it would be a, sometimes, useful method of producing non-fossil fuel.
Alas it is not just about the hydrogen, because in addition to all the energy you need to put into the electrolysis of water (which has rather poor efficiency) and the energy you need to purify the water (you need to get rid of most salts from it, otherwise the electrolysis decomposes those first) you'd also need a lot of energy to concentrate the carbon dioxide from the air.
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@Bulb said in Scientific Science:
Alas it is not just about the hydrogen, because in addition to all the energy you need to put into the electrolysis of water (which has rather poor efficiency) and the energy you need to purify the water (you need to get rid of most salts from it, otherwise the electrolysis decomposes those first) you'd also need a lot of energy to concentrate the carbon dioxide from the air.
There are some big industrial producers of CO2 who would be happy to sell you their waste gases.
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@dkf Then it wouldn't be getting rid of any CO₂, because the CO₂ will end up in the atmosphere when the methanol is burnt anyway.
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@Bulb said in Scientific Science:
Then it wouldn't be getting rid of any CO₂
If you want to get rid of CO2 you have to bury it, preferably in either a suitable old natural gas reservoir or in some sort of solid form.
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@dkf said in Scientific Science:
@Bulb said in Scientific Science:
Then it wouldn't be getting rid of any CO₂
If you want to get rid of CO2 you have to bury it, preferably in either a suitable old natural gas reservoir or in some sort of solid form.
I see where this is headed - but this time, we need to shoot the dinosaurs into space.
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@Bulb said in Scientific Science:
@dkf Then it wouldn't be getting rid of any CO₂, because the CO₂ will end up in the atmosphere when the methanol is burnt anyway.
What if the CO₂ originates from burning methanol? Of course that assumes fixed-location factories, which excludes a lot of locations where artificial liquid fuels would be useful.
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@PleegWat said in Scientific Science:
@Bulb said in Scientific Science:
@dkf Then it wouldn't be getting rid of any CO₂, because the CO₂ will end up in the atmosphere when the methanol is burnt anyway.
What if the CO₂ originates from burning methanol? Of course that assumes fixed-location factories, which excludes a lot of locations where artificial liquid fuels would be useful.
Fixed-location factories can just be connected to the power grid and avoid this colossal waste of energy.
Also to capture the CO₂ even a fixed factory has to separate it from the rest of the air the ethanol was burning with.
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@PleegWat said in Scientific Science:
What if the CO₂ originates from burning methanol? Of course that assumes fixed-location factories, which excludes a lot of locations where artificial liquid fuels would be useful.
I was assuming CO2 as a byproduct of an industrial process, one of the ones where substitution really isn't easy at all. Cement making is a good example.
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@Bulb said in Scientific Science:
@dkf Then it wouldn't be getting rid of any CO₂, because the CO₂ will end up in the atmosphere when the methanol is burnt anyway.
Recycling the CO₂ this way would roughly double the energy you get out of that carbon combustion.. Not perfect but a whole lot better than nothing.
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A fishy chapter. Some fish researchers published papers with "severe issues". And a journal insists on not retracting it...
https://www.science.org/content/article/journal-declines-retract-fish-research-paper-despite-fraud-finding
(might be paywalled)
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@BernieTheBernie said in Scientific Science:
(might be paywalled)
Isn't paywalled. At the moment anyway.
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@BernieTheBernie said in Scientific Science:
A fishy chapter. Some fish researchers published papers with "severe issues". And a journal insists on not retracting it...
https://www.science.org/content/article/journal-declines-retract-fish-research-paper-despite-fraud-finding
(might be paywalled)So what's wrong with that? If science has value, it could be wrong, but isn't the central tenet of the thread that it does not?
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@Gribnit said in Scientific Science:
So what's wrong with that?
A journal refusing to retract a paper despite it being essentially a fabrication?
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@Gribnit said in Scientific Science:
@BernieTheBernie said in Scientific Science:
A fishy chapter. Some fish researchers published papers with "severe issues". And a journal insists on not retracting it...
https://www.science.org/content/article/journal-declines-retract-fish-research-paper-despite-fraud-finding
(might be paywalled)So what's wrong with that? If science has value, it could be wrong, but isn't the central tenet of the thread that it does not?
The tenet is more that the Science has no value to anyone other than the authors who managed to publish a paper over on the rest of us. And maybe the journal if they took a large enough bribe.
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@dkf said in Scientific Science:
@Gribnit said in Scientific Science:
So what's wrong with that?
A journal refusing to retract a paper despite it being essentially a fabrication?
Yeah. It's certainly proper capitalism, each money having equal voice. Under what value system is it wrong?
Is it about the fish, maybe? I don't get it - this is what was asked for, for decades. Why aren't you happy?
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Scientists Played Music to Cheese as It Aged. Hip-Hop Produced the Funkiest Flavor
Researchers played nonstop loops of Led Zeppelin, A Tribe Called Quest and Mozart to cheese wheels to find out how sound waves impacted flavor
Begun, this Ig Nobel competition has.
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@boomzilla I read about something like that years ago. What they did was suppress a key gene required for beak development, to see what would happen. What they got was a dinosaur face. They also aborted all eggs at some point well before hatching for moral reasons.
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@PleegWat said in Scientific Science:
What they got was a dinosaur face. They also aborted all eggs at some point well before hatching
for moral reasons.out of abject dino-terror.Admit it.
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@boomzilla said in Scientific Science:
Researchers played nonstop loops of Led Zeppelin, A Tribe Called Quest and Mozart to cheese wheels to find out how sound waves impacted flavor
Begun, this Ig Nobel competition has.
This doesn't sound like it even scratches the surface. Whither
Atomic Dog?Apparently the techno cheese escaped or was poison, its results are conspicuously absent.
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@Gribnit said in Scientific Science:
@PleegWat said in Scientific Science:
What they got was a dinosaur face. They also aborted all eggs at some point well before hatching
for moral reasons.out of abject dino-terror.Admit it.
Naaahhh.... I bet you when these scientists were kids they had memorised half the known species of the entire Mesozoic era.
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@boomzilla said in Scientific Science:
Researchers played nonstop loops of Led Zeppelin, A Tribe Called Quest and Mozart to cheese wheels to find out how sound waves impacted flavor
Begun, this Ig Nobel competition has.
But can you turn turds into cheese by playing Mariah Carey and Rick Astley to them?
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@dkf said in Scientific Science:
@Bulb said in Scientific Science:
Then it wouldn't be getting rid of any CO₂
If you want to get rid of CO2 you have to bury it, preferably in either a suitable old natural gas reservoir or in some sort of solid form.
In solid form like, say, trees? And if you bury them for long enough, you get oil. So if the decision to limit atmospheric carbon turns out to have been wrong (as I think it is), it'll be easy to revert.
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@dkf said in Scientific Science:
@acrow said in Scientific Science:
In solid form like, say, trees?
Or charcoal.
Bitumen.
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@acrow said in Scientific Science:
@dkf said in Scientific Science:
@Bulb said in Scientific Science:
Then it wouldn't be getting rid of any CO₂
If you want to get rid of CO2 you have to bury it, preferably in either a suitable old natural gas reservoir or in some sort of solid form.
In solid form like, say, trees? And if you bury them for long enough, you get oil. So if the decision to limit atmospheric carbon turns out to have been wrong (as I think it is), it'll be easy to revert.
The problem with trees is that it takes about a century for a forest to become an effective carbon-sink. And no cutting it down for lumber either.
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@Rhywden said in Scientific Science:
@acrow said in Scientific Science:
@dkf said in Scientific Science:
@Bulb said in Scientific Science:
Then it wouldn't be getting rid of any CO₂
If you want to get rid of CO2 you have to bury it, preferably in either a suitable old natural gas reservoir or in some sort of solid form.
In solid form like, say, trees? And if you bury them for long enough, you get oil. So if the decision to limit atmospheric carbon turns out to have been wrong (as I think it is), it'll be easy to revert.
The problem with trees is that it takes about a century for a forest to become an effective carbon-sink. And no cutting it down for lumber either.
Does it? Because I have my doubts, mostly due to the differences between the official math and the observed reality:
When a forest is being raised for lumber, it's trimmed every few years to give the lumber itself more space to grow. That is, wood is carted out of the forest. And wood being carted out means that carbon was tied in it, and we know that trees don't pull that carbon out of the ground either.Also, after a forest has grown to its full length, it'll stop being a carbon sink at all. So however inefficient a sink it may seem to be, a lumber forest is the only way to effectively tie up atmospheric carbon in the long run. The only way to make it even more effective would be to collect the dead leaves every autumn and bury them deep enough in the ground for oil formation to be likely.
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@acrow said in Scientific Science:
When a forest is being raised for lumber, it's trimmed every few years to give the lumber itself more space to grow. That is, wood is carted out of the forest. And wood being carted out means that carbon was tied in it, and we know that trees don't pull that carbon out of the ground either.
You're forgetting that a) cutting wood for lumber means that you have a lot of unused wood because the remaining pieces are too small, sawdust / splinters, crooked or similar. What do you do with that unused wood? Currently we're burning it. Next, if said wood is then used in construction or for furniture, how long will that last? Usually 20 to 50 years before it's replaced. And currently you then burn the wood you just replaced. Or leave it out to rot (which amounts to the same thing just more slowly).
You're making the assumption that the lumber you carted out of the forest will remained fixed forever. Experience shows that this is very much not the case.
Also, after a forest has grown to its full length, it'll stop being a carbon sink at all.
The rain forests would like a word with you.
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@Rhywden I once read the only long-term consistent carbon deposit is a swamp.
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@PleegWat said in Scientific Science:
@Rhywden I once read the only long-term consistent carbon deposit is a swamp.
Yeah, swamps are awesome for that.
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@Rhywden said in Scientific Science:
@acrow said in Scientific Science:
When a forest is being raised for lumber, it's trimmed every few years to give the lumber itself more space to grow. That is, wood is carted out of the forest. And wood being carted out means that carbon was tied in it, and we know that trees don't pull that carbon out of the ground either.
You're forgetting that a) cutting wood for lumber means that you have a lot of unused wood because the remaining pieces are too small, sawdust / splinters, crooked or similar. What do you do with that unused wood? Currently we're burning it.
That is, returning it to the same atmosphere it came from in the first place. And then it takes part in growing the next tree. You have to remember; burning wood adds nothing to the atmosphere that wasn't in there when the tree started to grow. People writing math often forget this, and look at all the wood-burning like it were somehow adding carbon to our planet. Which it obviously can't, since this planet is a closed system, with the scant exceptions of meteorite impacts and spacecraft.
Next, if said wood is then used in construction or for furniture, how long will that last? Usually 20 to 50 years before it's replaced. And currently you then burn the wood you just replaced. Or leave it out to rot (which amounts to the same thing just more slowly).
You're making the assumption that the lumber you carted out of the forest will remained fixed forever. Experience shows that this is very much not the case.
More so than just leaving it in the forest in the first place. And to make that permanent, we only need to bury wood trash instead of burning it.
Also, after a forest has grown to its full length, it'll stop being a carbon sink at all.
The rain forests would like a word with you.
Why's that? Last I checked, the rain forests consume pretty much all oxygen they produce. Which means that their capacity to tie up carbon also approaches zero. Sure, they grow up to a certain size rather quickly. But the forest stops growing upwards after the trees reach their full height. And then it can't really store any more.
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@acrow said in Scientific Science:
@Rhywden said in Scientific Science:
@acrow said in Scientific Science:
When a forest is being raised for lumber, it's trimmed every few years to give the lumber itself more space to grow. That is, wood is carted out of the forest. And wood being carted out means that carbon was tied in it, and we know that trees don't pull that carbon out of the ground either.
You're forgetting that a) cutting wood for lumber means that you have a lot of unused wood because the remaining pieces are too small, sawdust / splinters, crooked or similar. What do you do with that unused wood? Currently we're burning it.
That is, returning it to the same atmosphere it came from in the first place.
We currently need a net-negative. Thus the rest of your assumptions are on equally shaky grounds.
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@Rhywden said in Scientific Science:
@acrow said in Scientific Science:
@Rhywden said in Scientific Science:
@acrow said in Scientific Science:
When a forest is being raised for lumber, it's trimmed every few years to give the lumber itself more space to grow. That is, wood is carted out of the forest. And wood being carted out means that carbon was tied in it, and we know that trees don't pull that carbon out of the ground either.
You're forgetting that a) cutting wood for lumber means that you have a lot of unused wood because the remaining pieces are too small, sawdust / splinters, crooked or similar. What do you do with that unused wood? Currently we're burning it.
That is, returning it to the same atmosphere it came from in the first place.
We currently need a net-negative. Thus the rest of your assumptions are on equally shaky grounds.
Which assumptions would those be? Rainforests being nearly a closed loop is well researched fact. And the rest is just common sense.
In fact, from this planet being a closed loop, we can also infer that there's no oil that wasn't a tree or dinosaur once. Yet we're all still here. That means, you can't destroy the planet by burning oil. And the more you burn, the more carbon you get into the atmosphere, the faster trees will grow, and leave debris deposits that'll turn into oil again. So why worry in the first place?
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@acrow The tricky bit with forests is which forests. Burning wood sourced from new production forests is carbon neutral by definition. But if 'old' forest is being clear-cut and not replanted then it is not.
Additionally, assuming production forests, you need to be careful not to double-count your carbon. Only wood which ends up in construction or furniture remains as bound carbon. Wood which is left to rot or burned as wood pellets goes back into the atmosphere. But potentially the entire tree was counted as a carbon offset back when it was planted 5 or 10 years earlier.
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@acrow said in Scientific Science:
@Rhywden said in Scientific Science:
@acrow said in Scientific Science:
@Rhywden said in Scientific Science:
@acrow said in Scientific Science:
When a forest is being raised for lumber, it's trimmed every few years to give the lumber itself more space to grow. That is, wood is carted out of the forest. And wood being carted out means that carbon was tied in it, and we know that trees don't pull that carbon out of the ground either.
You're forgetting that a) cutting wood for lumber means that you have a lot of unused wood because the remaining pieces are too small, sawdust / splinters, crooked or similar. What do you do with that unused wood? Currently we're burning it.
That is, returning it to the same atmosphere it came from in the first place.
We currently need a net-negative. Thus the rest of your assumptions are on equally shaky grounds.
Which assumptions would those be? Rainforests being nearly a closed loop is well researched fact. And the rest is just common sense.
In fact, from this planet being a closed loop, we can also infer that there's no oil that wasn't a tree or dinosaur once. Yet we're all still here. That means, you can't destroy the planet by burning oil. And the more you burn, the more carbon you get into the atmosphere, the faster trees will grow, and leave debris deposits that'll turn into oil again. So why worry in the first place?
Now bugger off.
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@boomzilla said in Scientific Science:
@Rhywden said in Scientific Science:
We currently need a net-negative.
Speak for yourself.
You can keep your opinions to the
In fact, don't bother responding. If you can't even keep to the science in a thread about science I'll save you the trouble.
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@PleegWat said in Scientific Science:
Only wood which ends up in construction or furniture remains as bound carbon.
Again, that is an erroneous assumption. It won't stay there forever. It's usually freed up again after 10 to 50 years.
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@Rhywden said in Scientific Science:
@boomzilla said in Scientific Science:
@Rhywden said in Scientific Science:
We currently need a net-negative.
Speak for yourself.
You can keep your opinions to the
It hurts, doesn't it?
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@acrow said in Scientific Science:
Rainforests being nearly a closed loop is well researched fact
Rainforests hold quite a lot of carbon in tree trunks, but comparatively little in their root systems (as rainforest soils are usually poor and thin). A lot of people forget about roots in other environments.
OTOH, carbon circulation in the deep ocean sediments is probably far more important, as it doesn't get returned rapidly to the air from there (as most of that environment is oxygen-poor).
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@Rhywden said in Scientific Science:
@PleegWat said in Scientific Science:
Only wood which ends up in construction or furniture remains as bound carbon.
Again, that is an erroneous assumption. It won't stay there forever. It's usually freed up again after 10 to 50 years.
That's why I thought about deep buried charcoal. We've totally got the tech to do that, it's nice and stable, and it isn't going to go anywhere if the mine we put it at the bottom of collapses; it'll just quietly convert into might-as-well-be-coal.
