bones2097 Posted January 27, 2006 Share Posted January 27, 2006 i think that was poinited to me ^^^ merley suggesting there are better way of doing the same job more effciently.... your coment can also be.. you cant make light without using energy... thats obvious :p how com i can get 100w equiv of light outta using 20 w energy efficient light bulb????? because they don't heat up as much!!!! i ain't dumb, i admit i'm a lazy typer but i do hav a degree in E&E engineering!!!! i know what is possiable & whats not plus i probably have a better grasp of physics than anyone who hasn't studied it at degree level. next you'll be say saying the clock work radio is a myth (you wind it up!!!!!!!!!), also einstein said nuclear fission was impossiable too!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theaveng Posted January 27, 2006 Author Share Posted January 27, 2006 how com i can get 100w equiv of light outta using 20 w energy efficient light bulb????? because they don't heat up as much!!!! What you really mean is "100-watt equivalent to an incandescent bulb". The actual light output of a fluoresent bulb is only ~10 watts.... with 10 watts wasted in unwanted heat. POINT: If you want to cook your turkey, and you need 2000 watts to accomplish that goal, you can't do it with a 2000 watt oven. That would violate the laws of the universe & is impossible. Appliances can only reach a certain level of efficiency (~75%) & then there's no more room for improvement. We have already come close to that point of "Maximum Theoretical Efficiency". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bones2097 Posted January 27, 2006 Share Posted January 27, 2006 how com i can get 100w equiv of light outta using 20 w energy efficient light bulb????? because they don't heat up as much!!!! What you really mean is "100-watt equivalent to an incandescent bulb". The actual light output of a fluoresent bulb is only ~10 watts.... with 10 watts wasted in unwanted heat. POINT: If you want to cook your turkey, and you need 2000 watts to accomplish that goal, you can't do it with a 2000 watt oven. That would violate the laws of the universe & is impossible. Appliances can only reach a certain level of efficiency (~75%) & then there's no more room for improvement. We have already come close to that point of "Maximum Theoretical Efficiency". teah thats what i meant... ok the cooker one was a bit iffy but you get your elec for a fossil fuel no doubt (mostly), there fore a loos in conersion & a further loss in converting it back to heat and also a bit in oven design..... when you can use 100% of the gas from a gas oven minus a bit in oven design... anywho as i said the oven wasn't the best of examples ... in fact you picked the worst .... what about the rest??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bbbb Posted January 28, 2006 Share Posted January 28, 2006 I agree. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bones2097 Posted January 28, 2006 Share Posted January 28, 2006 :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greyCell Posted January 28, 2006 Share Posted January 28, 2006 A thousand angels dancing on the head of a pin??? (Yes I am skeptical.) Ya can't predict the future by wishing on non-existent "alternate sources". Might as well say, "Santa will swoop out of the sky & save us." Fairy tales. You can only predict the future by looking at what we have NOW. And right now, we have nothing that can replace the gluttony of "free" oil energy. By 2100, we'll have energy scarcity. troy take it from a chemical/energy engineer "me" we already have alternative enrgy sources, the biggest of which bieng natural gas. also while the oil is running out soon the natural gas is not, it will last much longer because we have been using it much less that we have been using oil, infact we can make oil "or more precisely gasoline" from natural gas. so the nice peachy picture of dark homes with no entertainment there is nothing further from the truth than it. also you forget that alot of geologists predict the discovery of oil wells under the floor of oceans which will in the future be possible to harvest that as well. Electricity is not an energy source, because it only exists via the usage of other fuels (solar, hydro, coal, ...). So the REAL question is: What will we use to MAKE the electricity highly effecient wind mills, hydrondynamic generators, nuclear fusion power plants, synthetic oil made from natural gas, solar energy when effectively harenesed. Answer: We'll use solar/hydro, but since these are scarce, so too will be electricity. solar energy is not scarce we are not effecientyly collecting it. In order to fuse something, you need to squash it very tightly. It requires more energy to squash it, then you get back if that was true the sun wouldnt work now would it? To me fusion is like a burning a gallon of gasoline & getting back a gallon & a half. It simply can't be done. are you a time traveller from pre quantum/relativity era. read this please: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fusion Yes true, but it requires more energy to MAKE the synthetic oil than you get back from burning it. It's not really a good replacement. comletely untrue, it doesnot require more energy to make oil from natural gas that we goet from burnning it, it requires more money to make oil from natural gas that you get from selling it, this is because of 2 reasons, one sythetic oil production is made in very low quantities and we all know that mass production is the way to make cheap products, also synfuels have only been around for about 50 years, as we make more effecient equipment this will change. there is no fuel i can think of that is interchangable with oil. but others can replace it. it will just change the world we live in. also not ture, although there isnt an enrgy source that is as easy to use as oil the future will look like this. instead of us using the enrgy source in the end use eg cars, we will store enrgy produced by many ways in hydrogen by producing hydrogen form water in a process know as elctrolysis and we will use hydrogen in cars in pretty much the same way we use oil. so we will have cars they will be fueed by a fluid although it would be compressed luquified hydrogen we will pretty much get it in the same way you get oil, it will be a bit harder to store it in tanks but these are technological problems to which we already have solutions to all we need is to work on them and make them practical. POINT: If you want to cook your turkey, and you need 2000 watts to accomplish that goal, you can't do it with a 2000 watt oven. That would violate the laws of the universe & is impossible. Appliances can only reach a certain level of efficiency (~75%) & then there's no more room for improvement. We have already come close to that point of "Maximum Theoretical Efficiency". what is your source on that the only limit i know of is on tranfsorming heat enrgy to mechanical enrgy "kinetic" there is no theoritical limit on converting elecrticity to heat, or chemical enrgy to heat. only practical limits and these can be broken nothing that sais that we cant make a 90% effecient electricity to heat device, it just might be to expensive to make such a device that no one would buy it!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kyran Posted February 2, 2006 Share Posted February 2, 2006 you cannot create energy you can only change it's form how about running your car on water? it's been done everyone thats done it is dead so perhaps we ought to leave that alone how about running a power station with water? think thats called a dam lol people who build dams don't die as much as people who build cars that run on water Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aragon666 Posted February 2, 2006 Share Posted February 2, 2006 Many of you are forgeting another big problem that awaits us all--- WATER!!! Oil and energy are big problems for wich,imho,we will find a solution, but for water, we can just hope so!! Whitout oil and energy we can survive but whitout water ther is no hope for us all. Drinkable water reserve are getting smaller and smaller every day, and when the wather is no more then what? What are we going to do, drink oil or maybe deuterium? Hardly... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bones2097 Posted February 2, 2006 Share Posted February 2, 2006 good point,,,, but we need to use energy to clean water if it runs out!!!! isn't deuterium heavy water????? we can star drinking the polar ice caps!!! there tons of it!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aragon666 Posted February 2, 2006 Share Posted February 2, 2006 good point,,,, but we need to use energy to clean water if it runs out!!!! isn't deuterium heavy water????? we can star drinking the polar ice caps!!! there tons of it!!! We can probably use solar energy. You are correct, deuterium is heavy water! And if they melt, what then? They already started!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bones2097 Posted February 3, 2006 Share Posted February 3, 2006 And if they melt, what then? They already started!!! bottoms up..... time to crack open ribeana / minute maid...... :p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deadmeat Posted February 4, 2006 Share Posted February 4, 2006 alternative energy sources are not popular enough today because they're (usually) more expensive than fosil fuel based energy... for the moment anyways. I'm kinda glad the oil monsters are pushing for higher oil prices, that's one way to speed alternative energy sources up :D when (solar or wind or tidal energy $/MW)/(oil energy $/MW) > 1 ... it'll be time to fill all those wasted rooftops of ours with solar panels .. for a start. nuclear energy is already cheaper (I think) but there's a risk involved, granted with the apropriate precautions it's small. I wonder, will the powers that be also try to control that technology later on when oil will be obviously too expensive? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryshtyan Posted February 13, 2006 Share Posted February 13, 2006 The way things are going now globally, and the continuing depletion of non-renewable resources I don't see that bright of a future for us all unless something drastic happens. There's been all those predictions and prophecies and while most of them have been proven untrue, there have been an eerie few that have indeed come to pass. It's predicted there will be a war starting 2006 and it would be a major one. Whether this would actually happen or not I have no idea, but it does scare me to sit back and see how different governments and some of it's people seem to go about their daily lives like money and war is a more important issue than saving what's left of our very fragile world before it's too late. The dire predictions of 2012 freak me out the most, especially how the Mayan calendar ends in December. Whether or not those predictions will actually come to pass I don't know, and I pray every prayer possible it doesn't. And then there's this bird flu potential pandemic. If this occurs, oh boy. I'm still hoping we don't experience the same kind of thing that wiped out the dinosaurs within our lifetime, nor any other for that matter, but you never know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magestorm Posted February 19, 2006 Share Posted February 19, 2006 Neccessity is the mother of invention. We already have alternative energy sources. In the sugarland area of Brazil, they are already using ethanol made from sugar to power cars, quite effectively and cheaply. In Massachusetts, there is a company that helps you adapt your diesel engine to run used cooking oil. Hell, Diesel originally designed his engine to RUN on vegetable oils, and had to modify the design to handle petroleum. RTUs power our deep space probes for years with enough electricity to power 2-3 homes for aproximately 10 years, and that is a small unit the size of 3-4 coffee cans put together. Fuel cells can be used with a hydrogen reformer to use other fuels than straight hydrogen. Any liquid or gaseous fuel that contains hydrogen can be used in a fuel cell when this reformer is added into the mix. Thermal cells convert heat into electricity, similar to how solar panels work with sunlight. Micro nuke reactors are already designed and built to generate electricity for many years without the worries of traditional fission power plants. Wind generators are currently being used in several areas. Shoot, I used to live in an area of Wisconsin where 90% of our electricity was hydro generated. This doesn't even take into consideration the wave generators being designed and built to harness the energy power of ocean waves and tides to power our society. You also have areas like Yellowstone, that generate free steam. In some areas, because there is not enough ground water, water can be pumped into these hot zones, turned to steam, and power steam turbines. There's even stuff at home that can take advantage of geothermal energy. Take a heat pump that uses water instead of air to heat and cool the unit. Then, run a pipe down in the earth, at least 1 foot below the frost line, if not further. When it is all said and done, you have a heat pump that gets a near constant tempurature to draw from, instead of the wild and crazy temps that they currently use sitting outside. My opinion on the future? You'll see that people will become more inventive. Yes, there will be some culling of the stupid members of our society. But, that's Darwinism for you. As far as us being trapped in our gravity well? Do we not remember that SpaceShip One, the craft designed by Scaled Composites, and winner of the Ansasi X Prize was powered by nothing more than recycled tires and nitrous oxide? Also, there is a project in the works to make a ship powered by a laser beam to superheat the air below it so as to reach escape velocity with no fuel at all. So will the future be all that bleakness and a bag of chips? I really don't think so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joseph Lin Posted March 7, 2006 Share Posted March 7, 2006 I didn't read through all the long posts, so pummel me gently. What we should think about is energy conservation and improving efficiency. e.g. China is one of the world's top consumers of energy, and most of those energy go to factories, plants, etc. The energy efficiency of these many factories can be more than quadrupled by simply applying existing technologies (not sci-fi ones, but ones that are a bit more costly). Also, we can now do as much as did with much fewer resources. e.g. I read from Wired (or was it digg...) that it is possible to squeeze the brightness of a 60W bulb out of just one LED using nano-tech. Think A380. p.s. it is quite impossible to run out to uranium. I did a Google and there are more than 10^20 tons of uranium on earth. Besides, we can always switch to artificial uranium or plutonium, etc. (Thanks Wiki!!) Well, time to do the laundry. g2g Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magestorm Posted March 8, 2006 Share Posted March 8, 2006 The problem with fission power is not the fuel, but the waste product. When a Fission plant uses all the plutonium or uranium in the core rods, the remainder is so hot with radiation that it would be lethal within minutes. This wate doesn't just sit around for a few days, months, or years. It stays around for millions of years. I don't know of any place on earth that has remained stable and safe for that long. So before we start building tons more plants, we need to think safe disposal of the spent fuel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TetsuoShima Posted March 8, 2006 Share Posted March 8, 2006 Well, nuclear waste is not good, but lets not exaggerate... In about 40 years, 99.9% of all radiation from so-called high level waste has dissipated. This waste however is not all complete waste, since some of the energy can be recuperated in the form of heat. Oh, and only about 3% of the waste is actual high level waste.... In Europe, there are several countries that have some serious facilities that recuperate and process high level waste. Of course, after 40 years the waste isn't completely clean, but at least it isn't as dangerous anymore and can be safely stored... There are actually some very good plans for storing it, but they can't seem to get implemented because people are all affraid of having it too close to home, in case something goes wrong... Anyway, imo nuclear power can be a real asset if used properly and if there are good facilities to process it in the vicinity... Here's a good link to some more info on nuclear electrical power: http://www.world-nuclear.org/education/ne/ne5.htm. Just to be clear: I'm not saying that it isn't harmfull or that the waste won't be around for a long time, just that the majority of the danger will pass in less than 50 years... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magestorm Posted March 8, 2006 Share Posted March 8, 2006 If that is what you got from that article, then you have misread it. Spent fuel is kept in holding facilities for 50 years, till the fuel loses much of the radiation. However, for the spent fuel to reach safe levels, you have to store it for 10^6 years, or 10 million years. This is not to say there aren't ways to keep it safe. One good idea is to reprocess it, extracting all avalible Uranium and Plutonium, then use some of the remainder as RTU cells for space probes, or send it to a storage facility into space. From there, if all else fails, one could launch it straight into the sun, where the radiation from the waste would be tiny compared to the sun's output. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TetsuoShima Posted March 8, 2006 Share Posted March 8, 2006 If that is what you got from that article, then you have misread it. Spent fuel is kept in holding facilities for 50 years, till the fuel loses much of the radiation. However, for the spent fuel to reach safe levels, you have to store it for 10^6 years, or 10 million years. This is not to say there aren't ways to keep it safe. One good idea is to reprocess it, extracting all avalible Uranium and Plutonium, then use some of the remainder as RTU cells for space probes, or send it to a storage facility into space. From there, if all else fails, one could launch it straight into the sun, where the radiation from the waste would be tiny compared to the sun's output. Um, isn't that what I said also, just phrased differently and a slightly different emphasis?? :rolleyes: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ressurrector Posted March 10, 2006 Share Posted March 10, 2006 I don't think this will be an issue as long as the world becomes less corporate in its thinking about trying to "make a buck" on every little thing. The ultimate power source is the ether or subspace. A scientist named Tom Beardon is already workin on a way to extract energy from the vacuum sea particles. Tesla wanted to provide the world with free energy but hey there is no money in that and westinghouse wouldn't fund his project dealing with that. And we all have heard about the 300 mile per gallon carburator whose inventor was quickly silenced. There is already a device called the "Z-machine" which can release 290 terrawatts of power for only a milisecond but if that was coupled to a superconductor could mean constant output. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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