Setting Fire To Sleeping Strawmen (now with extra Toniiiiiiiiiight, you're right, you're right, you're right)
-
I thought there were other ingredients (e.g., tellurium) in shorter supply
Yep, there are. Guess who has the vast majority of those deposits? And they aren't called rare earth elements because they have a cold red center.
-
Cool.
So we line everyone up, kill two for every three. Problem solved.
Well, make sure we have gender diversity.
-
The path to large scale, for solar PV, is called "mass production".
You still have issues of where to put them, how to deal with production when you don't need it and lack of production when you need it.
no solar PV advocate ever, in the whole history of ever, has ever claimed that solar PV could ever supply 100% of everybody's energy needs.
Agreed. What would you consider large scale?
-
If we can work out a way to reduce our replacement rate until the world human population settles to somewhere between a third and a half of what it is right now, our descendants will probably have much better lives than if we can't.
Not sure if trolling.
-
Solar drains aquifers.
So we have to either mandate them in distribution, and force ourselves to stop building densely, or we need a different power source.
-
No, people actually believe that.
If all the people that did think that, volunteered, we'd be halfway there.
-
No, people actually believe that.
Oh, I know.If all the people that did think that, volunteered, we'd be halfway there.
And there's the rub. They always want someone else to get the shaft - not always themselves.
-
where to put them
Rooftops on buildings where projected PV energy output over expected service life amounts to a reasonable return on investment. Currently, without subsidy, in most electricity markets, that's already more than half of all rooftops.
how to deal with production when you don't need it
Sell to grid would remain a viable option, even with no change to existing grid infrastructure, given a 20x expansion of existing solar PV in most grids. Of course, as solar PV installations ramp up, there will be changes to grid infrastructure making management of that resource more profitable to grid operators.
Storage in batteries already costs less than providing grid infrastructure in many, many locations worldwide. As electric cars become more popular, so will use of their batteries for electricity supply/demand balancing, profiting their owners.
If panels get cheap enough, simply ignoring excess capacity (as is presently done for conventional thermal plant) will become a normal and viable option.
lack of production when you need it.
Buy from grid, draw down batteries, backup generators, go without. Totally situation dependent.
What would you consider large scale?
Two-figure percentages of world electricity supply.
-
I have a hard time taking any Chinese engineering seriously after that fine piece of hardware.
You dismiss the engineering abilities of 1/5th of the world's population based on a single bad experience?
-
Cite please.
Are you serious?- World energy usage per capita: 1900 kg oil equiv.
Population 7100 million. - US energy usage per capita: 6800 kg oil equiv.
Population 310 million. - UK energy usage per capita: 3000 kg oil equiv.
Population 64 million.
(Source: World Bank via Google)
If all populations were frozen at the current level and humanity averages out at the UK's (under half the US's) per capita, the overall energy budget will clearly be much, much higher.
The only way humanity's energy budget can stop growing is if we decide to deny something like 90% of the planet's humans any of the things we take for granted, like sanitation, food and safe water (perpetuating widespread death and suffering), or kill off most of the humans.
Thus anyone claiming we can reduce or even freeze humanity's current energy budget in the foreseeable future is an evil, murderous bastard.
Or simply an idiot.
- World energy usage per capita: 1900 kg oil equiv.
-
-
If all the people that did think that, volunteered, we'd be halfway there.
I got sterilized before reproducing because I do think that.
-
You dismiss the engineering abilities of 1/5th of the world's population based on a single bad experience?
Not entirely. I hear stories from our sales/support staff that has done some work over there. They have made some impressive gains in engineering understanding over the past decade but still have a LONG ways to go before they're anywhere near the level of Japan, Korea, or the U.S.
-
Thus anyone claiming we can reduce or even freeze humanity's current energy budget in the foreseeable future is an evil, murderous bastard.
Anyone claiming that humanity's energy budget must forever grow without limit is fundamentally detached from reality.
-
So I just read up on this, and it still doesn't support your earlier assertion. Your assertion was that stacking up radioactive material will always increase the radioactive decay rate.
I never said always, I just meant in general. And it is true in general. I pointed to a documented instance and you provided another with your diagram.No, it doesn't make the core less radioactive. It simply blocks some of the free neutrons that are kicked out when a uranium nucleus splits.
What did you think those free neutrons were going to do? Some of them were going to induce another fission event - AKA increase radioactivity.Think about what happened at Nagasaki. They dropped two sub-critical hunks of Uranium and smashed them together (actually they fired a plug into a ring) and the reaction rate increased to the point of explosion. This isn't a night-and-day transition, the rate of reaction increases until it reaches the point of sustaining itself.
-
anyone claiming we can reduce or even freeze humanity's current energy budget in the foreseeable future is an evil, murderous bastard. Or simply an idiot.
Or has actually done the required design work.
-
I got sterilized before reproducing because I do think that.
Glad you have the courage of your convictions.Unfortunately, it won't make much difference until Asia and Africa is brought out of poverty and has well-educated, empowered women.
The birth rate cannot reduce until four things happen:
- You can trust in almost all children surviving, which is impossible until everybody has good healthcare and access to good food, water etc.
- Women have control over their bodies
- Education and mechanisation allow people to grow sufficient food, water etc without requiring large amounts of manual labour.
- Religious and cultural norms demanding reproduction beyond simple replacement are removed.
The last is probably the hardest.
-
And for solar PV, that number just keeps on getting bigger.
Well, that statement, if true, is great, in isolation.
I don't want to sound like I'm attacking you here, but without a bit of context, it's like saying "The Chinese economy is growing at 10% a year!" Well, that's true, but nobody who said that pointed out that if you graph that with the US growth rate, you'd see that the absolute size of the Chinese economy would take 100 years to beat the US'. So how does that number compare to fossil fuels in dollars per unit? Further, can you assume that graph will remain steady? (The Chinese economy couldn't, and that's before you take into account the numbers were probably padded.)
-
Or has actually <a href="http://www.rmi.org/RFGraph-US_electricity_demand">done</a> the required <a href="http://www.rmi.org/RFGraph-Electricity_scenarios">design work.</a>
I hate to break it to you, but the US isn't the world and electricity isn't the only energy source directly consumed by end users (as opposed to energy generation companies).To address your other post - foreseeable future. Not forever.
Assuming we don't have a couple of megadeath incidents, and humans remain human, the world population is unlikely to stabilise below where we are now due to cultural and wealth factors.
Once it starts to stabilise, it must go via a much higher population for at least one Grandfather [1] as people don't die the moment they have kids.[1] Length of time while you and your oldest ancestor are both alive.
-
I find it pretty unlikely you've been paying attention.
That's because, as usual, you're you, and in this case also acting like Blakeyrat, in your inability to understand what other people are saying.
You assert that Chinese electronics are getting better, even though most other stuff isn't. And it's not one anecdote about one line of tools, but I'm not going to waste any more time on you.
-
Not sure if trolling.
I bet he believes that, and thinks it would be a good thing.
Then the question becomes why does he dislike humanity so much.
-
-
-
Anyone claiming that humanity's energy budget must forever grow without limit is fundamentally detached from reality.
Wow, look at that strawman burn!
-
Unfortunately, it won't make much difference
It makes about as much difference to the solution as my existence does to the problem, which is good enough for me.
well-educated, empowered women
All for that.
-
This works for individual homes in sparsely populated locations.
In fact my dad just did it. With a 85% subsidy from state and federal goverment, he pays like 5k. That is returned in 2 years.
Of course, this is assuming it never breaks down. His warranty is 5 years, with 10 years on some parts.
The problem comes from densely populated areas, which is ironically densely populated with liberals
But seriously, these dense areas need solar panel farms. The problem with farms is that they need tremendous cooling, which requires a serious amount of water.
The central plains was an ideal place, until the residents said, "Um, we won't have water when you're done." And how dare they collect water on their property. It appears the greater good politicians get mad at that idea.
So without a recourse to defend themselves from a complete loss of water, they have to invoke the legal system and sue.
And there you have.
Green energy is unsustainable out the gate. And they're the ones pointing at oil and coal being unsustainable.
Real green sustainable energy is looked over, because people still think nuclear technology is stuck in Chernobyl days (or Japan where land mass is a problem). And hydrogen fuel cells? Well, the politicelerbreties like Gore and such, aren't invested in productive energy, but in punishing oil and coal. So they don't want to make sustainable alternatives, because then they couldn't punish oil/coal energy companies who would switch at the drop of a hat.
Who doesn't want low maintenance sustainable energy?
-
I never said always, I just meant in general. And it is true in general. I pointed to a documented instance and you provided another with your diagram.
First off, my diagram just shows how nuclear fission works. It holds just as true in a nuclear reactor as it does anywhere. It doesn't specifically support your claim.
There's been one recorded instance of it happening. And it happened as a result of something more than just stacking a bunch of radioactive material together. This does not amount to "in general". In order to get what you describe to happen, you would need fissile material. Of course, without something to moderate the reaction, that would probably burn itself out rather quickly.
To counter your point, I could stack tons of U-238, Pu-240, Pu-242, and radium together, and not see any change in radioactivity. Why? Because they are non-fissile, so it wouldn't satisfy the first criteria required in the one example you are able to provide. There are plenty on radioactive, non-fissile isotopes out there that would not support your claim. And do you know what most of the sludge out at Hanford is? It's the non-fissile leftovers from making nuclear cores during WWII. You could pour it all in one big pool and not have to worry about a run-away reaction, because there wouldn't be one. You'd have other thing to worry about, sure, but a runaway nuclear fission reaction wouldn't be a concern.
tl;dr: I'll admit it could happen if the conditions were just right, but the conditions aren't going to be just right with nuclear waste.
Now, a small correction on my earlier post. I said that fission doesn't create any radiation. At the time, I forgot the Uranium based fusion does kick out gamma rays. However, this isn't necessarily an increase in radiation since the gamma ray kicked out essentially replaces the alpha particle that would have been generated when the atom decayed later anyway. Then again, a fission reaction can occur faster than your standard decay process.
-
the world population is unlikely to stabilise below where we are now due to cultural and wealth factors.
And world economic inequality, which has a direct bearing on aggregate energy demand, is unlikely to get significantly less than it is; regions with high population density will always have very low resource allocation per capita relative to regions where rich folks live.Places with high rates of population growth are just going to get more and more grindingly and miserably poor. This has nothing to do with me being a murderous bastard or otherwise, it's just how ecology and capitalism work. It sucks, but there's very little I can do about it.
So world energy demand is likely to track energy demand in the most industrialized nations, with a certain degree of lag. And that energy demand is already flattening and declining, as the realization that energy efficiency makes far more money than it costs percolates though the C-suites.
So yes, I do expect aggregate world energy demand to flatten and decline in the foreseeable future.
-
You assert that Chinese electronics are getting better
...which is an observation trivially verifiable by anybody who actually looks at where every piece of electronics in their house is now manufactured compared to twenty years ago. Twenty years ago, the quality of Chinese electronics was low enough that local manufacturers could compete with it. Today, it isn't. You can "la la la I can't hear you" all you like; doesn't change reality.
-
The only successful production of equality results in everything being absolute shit.
-
It's not Chinese electronics, if the design, marketing, and directives are coming from somewhere else.
The best they've been able to do is imitate, and even then they fail miserably a great portion of the time.
The problem is their lack of creativity, which is imposed on them the moment they are told that the collective is more important than the individual.
-
why does he dislike humanity so much
Because there are things I did and places I went and things I saw when I was a kid that my own kids no longer have access to, tens of thousands of careless fucktards having fucked them up.
-
Stuff manufactured by Chinese but engineered by others is okay.
Stuff engineered by Chinese is utter crap regardless of who manufactures it.
-
-
With varying pitch and height.
What happens when half of your roofspace is obscured by other buildings?
-
Places with high rates of population growth are just going to get more and more grindingly and miserably poor.
That's a bit misleading. Should read more like, "Places that are grindingly and miserably poor are just going to continue to have high rates of population growth."
And world economic inequality, which has a direct bearing on aggregate energy demand, is unlikely to get significantly less than it is; regions with high population density will always have very low resource allocation per capita relative to regions where rich folks live.
China is in the process of beating the hell out of the shape of the world energy budget. A lot of the future depends on if anyone in Africa can get their act together. I don't see a lot of promising signs there.
-
Can we just build a Dyson sphere already?
San Diego Gas & Electric rates are nation's highest
According to the Jacksonville Electric Authority, San Diegans pay the highest electricity rates in the U.S. There are examples that point to the fact that UCAN doesn’t do the best job at lobbying the California Public Utilities Commission to give residents a break; in fact, their relationship could...
-
It's not Chinese electronics, if the design, marketing, and directives are coming from somewhere else.
It's Chinese electronics if it came out of a Chinese factory.
-
That's a bit misleading. Should read more like, "Places that are grindingly and miserably poor are just going to continue to have high rates of population growth."
The causality goes both ways; it's a vicious circle.
-
Trust me, my wife is Chinese, and we worked together on her thesis.
The point of the paper?
"What the hell happened to Chinese ingenuity?"
They had extensive naval trade routes, a multi-missle firing system, and other technological advantages.
The result?
The Dragon-Lady's foreign policy eliminated any ability for the Chinese to interact with the global economy, resulting in a devastating delay in industrialization.
The other big hit was Confucianism, which put a philosophical focus on the collective. This hurt individual ingenuity.
-
The causality goes both ways; it's a vicious circle.
Disagree. People are a valuable economic resource that make civilization and prosperity possible. It's not the extra people that cause poverty, but the dysfunctional (as far as increasing prosperity for people not at the top) institutions.
-
You can "la la la I can't hear you" all you like; doesn't change reality.
No, but I can avoid listening to you.
I'm pretty sure I didn't originally disagree with you, but the quality still lags in many areas, which was why I brought up tools. But don't take my word for it, do a quick search, and you'll find a lot of places where people talk about tools, appliances, and so on, going downhill in quality after production moved to China.
Who should I believe, you or my lying eyes? Hint: not you.
-
So the NASA rockets were nationally mutts right?
And McDonalds sells Chinese food?
And a Dell isn't Dell, it's a NASCAR-advertising amalgam?
We'll have to agree to disagree on this one.
And quite a few other things too.
-
Think about what happened at Nagasaki. They dropped two sub-critical hunks of Uranium and smashed them together (actually they fired a plug into a ring)
I think you have the bombs confused. The bomb dropped on Nagasaki was Fat Man. Fat Man was an implosion-type plutonium bomb. The plutonium core was brought near-critical by surrounding it with a U-238 reflector/tamper. The core was finally brought critical by the simultaneous detonation of conventional explosives which surrounded the core.
What you described sound like Little Man, which was a gun-type bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The core of Little Boy was composed of two pieces, as you described. However, the larger piece was actually fired at the plug, not the other way around.
-
Because there are things I did and places I went and things I saw when I was a kid that my own kids no longer have access to, tens of thousands of careless fucktards having fucked them up.
Hmm. I'd ask you why you haven't committed to the Voluntary Extinction Project, and why you're still kicking around, but I don't want you to think I'm doing it just because you and I don't see eye to eye on much.
-
Because there are things I did and places I went and things I saw when I was a kid that my own kids no longer have access to, tens of thousands of careless fucktards having fucked them up.
Like 8-track.
Oh gawd my kids will never experience 8-track.
-
My kids never experienced smog alert days where you could practically chew the air. I'm still amazed at how clean the air is these days around LA.
-
China is in the process of beating the hell out of the shape of the world energy budget.
China is a place where population growth has been forced low by fiat, and its leadership has just committed to making its CO2 emissions peak in under 20 years. It's already generating more power from wind than from nukes, and it's already leading the world in solar PV manufacture.
By the time world demand does peak and start to flatten, most of the world's energy dollars are going to be flowing to Chinese renewable energy manufacturers.
-
-
Because they steal their designs from the manufacturers that decide to produce in China to save money on work costs.
China doesn't respect our patents.
I wish companies would learn better than to produce from there, but all to say a buck today, huh?
