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A Star in a Bottle

newyorker.com

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Re: A Star in a Bottle

#121

Post by polarix »

jackgavigan wrote: post #110
bicknergseng wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"a Yugo rear-ending a garbage truck in Brooklyn doesn't instantly consume all of New York City in a gasoline fireball." My new favorite metaphor.

I'd just like to point out that the Yugo metaphor is invalid because the article specifically states that the experiment involves "beams of uncharged particles — the energy in them so great it could vaporize a car in seconds". So there.

Similarly, the YUGO (825kg curb weight) contains about 7.4e19 joules of energy, when converted purely.

Which comes out to 17.7 billion tons of tnt, or 1.1 million times the force unleashed on Hiroshima.

If we're being pedantic.

Re: A Star in a Bottle

#122

Post by jackgavigan »

polarix wrote: post #121
jackgavigan wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd just like to point out that the Yugo metaphor is invalid because the article specifically states that the experiment involves "beams of uncharged particles — the energy in them so great it could vaporize a car in seconds". So there.

Similarly, the YUGO (825kg curb weight) contains about 7.4e19 joules of energy, when converted purely. Which comes out to 17.7 billion tons of tnt, or 1.1 million times the force unleashed on Hiroshima. If we're being pedantic.

How much energy is there in a Ferrari?

Re: A Star in a Bottle

#123

Post by BlackDeath3 »

eli wrote: post #48
ryanklee wrote: post #15

> will stand a hundred feet tall, and it will weigh twenty-three thousand tons—more than twice the weight of the Eiffel Tower. This is a strange sentence. (1) Notice Height of object-A; (2) Notice Weight of object-A; (3) Compare Weight of object-A to Weight of object-B where object-B is known more for its property of Height than of its Weight. The sense here (I think) is that the Eiffel tower is significantly taller…

I think you're overanalyzing it. 23,000 tons is hard to visualize. Eiffel Tower is easy to visualize.

I think it was an interesting analysis (sounds like something I would have done). The Eiffel Tower example is strange not because it is a concretion, but because it is an example that one would expect be used in the description of something tall, not something heavy.

Re: A Star in a Bottle

#124

Post by vilhelm_s »

mindbet wrote: post #116

I read this article, and I couldn't help thinking — Couldn't they spend these billions on something like deep geothermal energy and get a much better (and more likely) return?

One good resource for this kind of question is David MacKay's book "Sustainably Energy - Without the Hot Air" (free online: http://www.withouthotair.com/). He goes through each type of sustainable energy source and estimates how much power it can provide.

At least in the UK, the total potential for geothermal energy is quite small, much less than other sources such as wind and solar. But its a nice short-term supplement, we can construct them today.

Having working fusion would be an amazing thing. The raw materials (lithium and deuterium) are plentiful enough that they will basically never run out, it would provide energy forever.

Re: A Star in a Bottle

#125

Post by polarix »

jackgavigan wrote: post #9

As a child, I read Friday by Robert A Heinlein, which portrayed a future in which energy needs are addressed by energy storage devices called "Shipstones", which are described as a way to pack more kilowatt-hours into a smaller space and a smaller mass than any other engineer had ever dreamed of. To call it an "improved storage battery" (as some early accounts did) is like calling an H-bomb an "improved firecracker."…

The principle is sound but the analogy is flawed:

In this case the bucket's main contribution would be to collect the water, not carry it. If soup were indeed raining from the sky, a bowl or small cup would suffice.

Re: A Star in a Bottle

#126

Post by billspreston »

Zikes wrote: post #58
slacka wrote: post #51

It's crazy that the US blew over 4 Trillion and countless lives for oil in Iraq. Yet, we spend practically nothing on technology that could offer clean, safe, energy independence. I'm happy to see any money going into fusion research, but it does seem that Focus Fusion has a much better chance of delivering in the near term. If you're unfamiliar with the technology, check out the Google tech talk below. http://www.yo…

We didn't go to Iraq for oil, we went there so that more of our own money could be funneled from government coffers into politicians' bank accounts by way of defense contracts.

The scary thing is (whether true or not) that just by comment you are now on a list, tucked away for the government to use against you in the future.

Re: A Star in a Bottle

#127

Post by bicknergseng »

jackgavigan wrote: post #122
polarix wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similarly, the YUGO (825kg curb weight) contains about 7.4e19 joules of energy, when converted purely. Which comes out to 17.7 billion tons of tnt, or 1.1 million times the force unleashed on Hiroshima. If we're being pedantic.

How much energy is there in a Ferrari?

1735 kilograms (Ferrari California curb weight) * (the speed of light^2) = 1.55934024 × 1020 joules

Re: A Star in a Bottle

#128

Post by Zikes »

billspreston wrote: post #126
Zikes wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We didn't go to Iraq for oil, we went there so that more of our own money could be funneled from government coffers into politicians' bank accounts by way of defense contracts.

The scary thing is (whether true or not) that just by comment you are now on a list, tucked away for the government to use against you in the future.

If that comment were enough to be used against me, then they would not need that comment.

Re: A Star in a Bottle

#129

Post by drjesusphd »

slacka wrote: post #51

It's crazy that the US blew over 4 Trillion and countless lives for oil in Iraq. Yet, we spend practically nothing on technology that could offer clean, safe, energy independence. I'm happy to see any money going into fusion research, but it does seem that Focus Fusion has a much better chance of delivering in the near term. If you're unfamiliar with the technology, check out the Google tech talk below. http://www.yo…

> I'm happy to see any money going into fusion research, but it does seem that Focus Fusion has a much better chance of delivering in the near term

What do you base that on? I've found very little in the open literature.

Re: A Star in a Bottle

#130

Post by drjesusphd »

scotty79 wrote: post #105

Is it harder to build smaller tokamak? And if so, why?

No, it's not. A huge tokamak is far more likely to reach break even. Smaller designs would be an important part of a healthy research program, but unfortunately, the US has been gutting the smaller projects.
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