the technology could solve the world’s energy problems for the next thirty million years
oh, ok
A Star in a Bottle
61–70 of 162 posts
Re: A Star in a Bottle
#62It'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…
There are some who propose that Iraq was invaded in response to Saddam's switch to use Euros rather than Dollars as reserve currency [1].
From a plutocratic viewpoint, that might well be a considered as vile an act as say, using bio-weapons on the Kurdish separatists.
[1] http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/03/22/the-usa-attacked-iraq...
Re: A Star in a Bottle
#63> No natural phenomenon on Earth will be hotter. I am not sure about this one comment in the article submitted by OP. As far as I understand the temperature at the center of the earth should be as high as that of the Sun. The core is known to be the heaviest and hottest part of our planet.
The temperature of the Earth's core is about the same as the temperature of the Sun's surface: a mere few thousand Kelvin. Not much hotter than the tungsten filament in an incandescent light bulb. The Sun's core is some 30000 times hotter, and the plasma in a Tokamak type fusion reactor about ten times hotter still.
Re: A Star in a Bottle
#64> No natural phenomenon on Earth will be hotter. I am not sure about this one comment in the article submitted by OP. As far as I understand the temperature at the center of the earth should be as high as that of the Sun. The core is known to be the heaviest and hottest part of our planet.
> > No natural phenomenon on Earth will be hotter.
> I am not sure about this one comment in the article submitted by OP. As far as I understand the temperature at the center of the earth should be as high as that of the Sun.
I think the most recent estimates have the core temperature of the Earth at about the surface temperature of the Sun, plus or minus a few hundred kelvin. (In the neighborhood of 6000K)
The core temperature of the sun, and the temperatures expected in the reactor described, are several orders of magnitude hotter, on the order of 10^7 K.
Re: A Star in a Bottle
#65Hate to be that guy, but how can a star in a bottle cost only ~105% of WhatsApp. One of them is incorrectly valued.
That made me legitimately chuckle! Though think about how popular of a communications platform that WhatsApp is, particularly in parts of Asia and Africa. It's transformed the communications industry in those areas! That still may not account for the relatively small difference between the two, but it helps put into perspective exactly why WhatsApp was so valuable.
I think WhatsApp is great, but is something that _didn't need to exist_. And by that I mean, the carriers structured their SMS fees in a way that did not mirror technical reality. "Data" was billed a more realistic rate as opposed to hyper-inflated SMS rates and allowed SMS type-traffic to flow over the data channel.
Had carriers priced themselves properly, WhatsApp would have never had a foothold.
Re: A Star in a Bottle
#66Check this out, Japan is going their own way instead of this experiment According to researchers at a demonstration reactor in Japan, a fusion generator should be feasible in the 2030s and no later than the 2050s. Japan is pursuing its own research program with several operational facilities that are exploring several fusion paths. http://iopscience.iop.org/0029-5515/45/2/004 Also, they are already planning the succe…
You can get the date fusion power will become feasible by adding 30 years to the current year. Been holding steady at 30 for quite some time.
Well I get that logic but this time they are putting some serious money where their mouths are.
Even the USA/Russians could not come to an agreement to build such a project.
Re: A Star in a Bottle
#67It'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…
There are some who propose that Iraq was invaded in response to Saddam's switch to use Euros rather than Dollars as reserve currency [1]. From a plutocratic viewpoint, that might well be a considered as vile an act as say, using bio-weapons on the Kurdish separatists. [1] http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/03/22/the-usa-attacked-iraq...
Call me naive, but I think it was Junior surrounding himself with folks who wanted him to finish the job that Pops started. I think they (like most who start wars) dramatically underestimating the costs and complexity. I'm less inclined to believe that it has to do with gassing their own people (why start caring now?) or going to the Euro.
But I do agree with the above points that we spend an awful lot of time fighting symptoms, when we don't worry nearly enough about ridding ourselves of oil dependency. Energy independence is a long out problem with a lot of vested interests lined up against it - this is precisely the type of investment that does warrant government funding.
Re: A Star in a Bottle
#68As 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."…
Reality isn't like movies or tv, fusion reactors can't turn into bombs. For one, there simply isn't enough fuel in the device at any given time. For another, maintaining the conditions that allow fusion reactions to happen doesn't happen easily. If the equipment goes offline or haywire the worst case scenario is that the reactor stops.
Fusion reactors are like balancing a pencil on its tip. If anything goes wrong it simply falls over. Fission reactors are different in two ways. One, it's possible for them to have a positive feedback in fission reaction rate due to lolss of coolant (this is called a "positive void coefficient"), but this can be changed in the design of the reactor and all modern reactors have a negative void coefficient. Two, fission byproducts are both extremely radiologically hazardous and continually producing heat from decay over long periods of time. This means that reactor fuel and used decomissioned fuel still needs to be actively cooled for a very long time, and if not then it can melt down which is very difficult to contain. These two problems are the genesis of the disasters at Chernobyl and Fukushima, respectively.
In contrast, the products of fusion reactor operations don't get hot and as mentioned the reaction will just stop running if anything goes pear shaped. These factors alone are major reasons why fusion power is so desirable. It wouldn't use of fossil fuels nor produce CO2 and would be unimaginably safer than fission power.
Re: A Star in a Bottle
#69As 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."…
I see what you're getting at, but I would argue that all attempts of "generating" energy are actually "transporting" energy from one storage to another. Take oil, for example; it is just a method of storing energy. In the same way, the hydrogen atom is the stored energy. Any of the methods you mentioned - sunlight, wind, streams, temperature gradients, etc. - are all examples of that same stored energy. The game is i…
I would argue that there is a large difference between transporting and transforming. It is easy to transport/store hydrogen in a pressurized cistern.
It is also fairly easy to transform hydrogen just by burning it. Of course burning fossil fuels and releasing tons of CO2 is how we got into whole global warming business anyways, so we want a more efficient transformation technology.
But wait, it get's more complicated. Compare transportation and storage of hydrogen versus electricity. Vast difference, requires radically different technologies, so let's not call all energy 'same'.
Re: A Star in a Bottle
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are some who propose that Iraq was invaded in response to Saddam's switch to use Euros rather than Dollars as reserve currency [1]. From a plutocratic viewpoint, that might well be a considered as vile an act as say, using bio-weapons on the Kurdish separatists. [1] http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/03/22/the-usa-attacked-iraq...
Call me naive, but I think it was Junior surrounding himself with folks who wanted him to finish the job that Pops started. I think they (like most who start wars) dramatically underestimating the costs and complexity. I'm less inclined to believe that it has to do with gassing their own people (why start caring now?) or going to the Euro. But I do agree with the above points that we spend an awful lot of time fighti…
According to those who interviewed the principal decision makers, your "naive" belief is roughly correct. For example, from Mark Danner's recent article (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/mar/06/darknes...) --
"According to those attending National Security Council meetings in the days after September 11,
The primary impetus for invading Iraq…was to make an example
of [Saddam] Hussein, to create a demonstration model to guide
the behavior of anyone with the temerity to acquire destructive
weapons or, in any way, flout the authority of the United States."