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Explore Mars now in General
*i
The Establishment
Member # 6
 written Wednesday, October 26 2005 17:53 Profile #41
quote:
Originally written by Belisarius:

Doesn't all of this ignore the fact that a planet which had a 100% atmopsheric oxygen content would be continuously on fire?
Probably not. The atmosphere would be well above the upper flammable limit for the chemical reaction to proceed. Combustion may only occur between certain molar concentrations of oxygen.

As far as skin tearing, it's difficult to analyze. I suspect that when a small tear occurs, the material of the skin will quickly fail. This is true of many materials with similar elastic properties. A "perfect skin" would probably be able to resist the effect, a damaged skin, would probably have growing tears.

The skin being porous too makes the analysis extremely difficult. I suspect, however, these pores may collapse, making the skin stronger.

To complicate matters more, not only do we have "mechanical" forces due to a massive pressure gradient, we also have a massive concentration gradient. A lot of what happens here depends on the behavior of the pores. If things start seeping out due to the concentration and pressure gradient, then we have problems.

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Your flower power is no match for my glower power!!
Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00
Explore Mars now in General
*i
The Establishment
Member # 6
 written Wednesday, October 26 2005 12:48 Profile #36
quote:
*i - vacuum, as you know, is a very poor conductor of heat. I find it very unlikely that you could freeze to death in a vacuum in 30 seconds, broken skin or no -- and I'm not convinced your skin would break either.
Vacuum does not conduct heat; it does radiate, but that is minimal.

The freezing effect comes from the latent heat of vaporization of water...it takes energy to boil. Do the experiment with a beaker of water and pump out the air, the water will boil, and will quickly turn to solid ice. One of my favorite physics demonstrations.

However, I agree it really does depend on how readily your skin breaks. The outward force is a lot, and we only need microtears to form for the effect to start. I'm not an expert on the toughness of skin, but it really depends on a lot of factors. I suspect a thinner person's skin would rupture before a more robust person's.

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Your flower power is no match for my glower power!!
Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00
Explore Mars now in General
*i
The Establishment
Member # 6
 written Tuesday, October 25 2005 16:47 Profile #34
Generally it's not about space, but about resources.

The good news: the human growth rate peaked in 1968 and has since declined. This is largely due to urbanization and more "dense" living styles of interdependence that lead to children being more of a cost than a benefit. The growth rate continues to decline and is actually deccelerating. Most likely, it will stabilize at a certain point. Should trends continue, there is plenty of space on this planet.

The bad news: because of urbanization, the global demand for energy (and hence resources) is increasing, and is actually accelerating. This shows no signs of slowing and will continue to accelerate, especially as the "third world" modernizes. This puts a strain on our energy resources.

Although we have a lot of options, eventually, we will grow too big for this planet. We will need to start mining the asteroids and looking elsewhere. By that time, hopefully space travel will be fairly routine and colonization of the planets will not be some far-fetched task.

quote:
Unfortunately, even if you do feel like making more oxygen on Mars, the fact remains that your lungs would be found outside of your cadaver the moment you opened your mouth.
Although already somewhat covered, I wish to say a couple things. Hollywood exaggerates the effect of low pressure on a human being. If placed in a vacuum, your skin would start to expand and crack. The exposed blood would begin to boil, cooling you down. It would not take too long (probably thirty seconds or so), but you would probably die from freezing as the water molecules crystalize and rupture your cells.

Generally, you can survive in any pressure/temperature condition where water can still be in the liquid phase, so long as you adjust slowly. Too low a pressure or too high a temperature, and your blood will boil, literally. Too high a pressure and too low a temperature, and you will freeze.

[ Tuesday, October 25, 2005 16:54: Message edited by: *i ]

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Your flower power is no match for my glower power!!
Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00
Civilization IV in General
*i
The Establishment
Member # 6
 written Tuesday, October 25 2005 13:31 Profile #0
I believe it was released today (10/25). Anyone got it yet? Impressions?

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Your flower power is no match for my glower power!!
Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00
Explore Mars now in General
*i
The Establishment
Member # 6
 written Monday, October 24 2005 18:09 Profile #22
quote:
Originally written by Thralni, emperor of Riverrod:

quote:
Originally written by Eldibs:

Why put nuclear waste on Mars, when we could just blast it into deep space? If the universe is infinite in size, this wouldn't be a problem.
I know you guys weren't talking about this, but this particular subject just intreges me very much. Infinite in size? No. For as far as I read, the universe isn'r infinite in space. Its just growing with lightspeed.

A very long time ago, there was nothing. Only blackness. No light, no nothing. At a certain point the "big bang" occured. Durin this big bang, a huge amount of energy came free, and the universe was born, thereby instantly making all rules of nature, of which humanity now knows of about 4,6%.

But how does the universe grow? that's because of light. Light just continues on and on, thereby expanding the universe. That is, untill it collides with something and returns or goes on in another direction. Now I said this, here's one assumption: When light reflects in space and returns to, say, the Earth, were a human, say, me, receives the light and thereby seeing things, I actually just received light, radiation, of times when the universe just came into existence.

But then how did matter came into existence? That's kind of a funny story. First, one had only radiation, energy and antimatter. invisble matter. You can't see it, but it is there. This antimatter devides itself in a split second in two part of matter. Now this all happens in the nucleus of the explosion. Thanks to enormous forces in the nucleus energy and radiation are shot into all directions. The forces are of course also working on this two small parts of matter. Usually the two parts of matter will form one piece of matter again after a split second. However, due to the enormous forces working on them, they are shot into different directions before they can turn into antimatter again. This way matter came into existence. So actually, after you think a while about this, what we know as planets, stars, Earth, actually is nothing. Weird thought.
A few facts:

1) The finite/infinite universe is a long debate. Because of the speed limit for information of the universe, the speed of light, and the fact that the universe is expanding (everywhere in all directions) faster than the speed of light. The universe is "infinite", but growing more and more sparse every moment.

2) As far as we can tell, there was not even blackness, not even space and time itself.

3) The mechanism for expansion of the fabric of spacetime is not because of light. The exact mechanism is not known as to why the universe expands and unfurls. However, light (along with other matter) does contain information, that is spread throughout the universe.

4) Light is generally absorbed and re-emitted. The original photons from the big bang have likely gone through many transitions. The exception may be the microwave background.

5) In the "beginning" there was only radiation, no matter or antimatter. This radiation comes in the form of photons, loose quarks, neutrinos, and high energy leptons. Eventually, the high temperature (caused by the dense collision and interactions of the matter) decreased so that the quarks could congeal into particles we see today called protons among others.

Eventually, things got cold enough for primordial fusion to happen which produced much of the helium and some of the lithium. Other elements would have to wait for the construction of nuclear furnances we call stars.

Further cooling occurred where elections were able to bind to atoms, gravity formed the stars which formed the heavier elements up to iron, which went on to form planets and other larger stars. Many of these stars formed the heavy elements like lead and uranium through supernovae. This gets us to where we are today.

5) Although the early universe had a lot of "energy" at high density, energy is not in and of itself a tangible thing but is in the form of photon wavelength and kinetic energy of particles.

6) Antimatter is not invisible, it has all the same properties as regular matter except the quarks are flipped and the charges are opposite, among a few other obscure properties.

7) Antimatter cannot divide into two parts of matter alone. This leads to many violation of fundmental physical properties.

"According to these conservation laws, particles of a given group cannot be created or destroyed except in pairs, where one of the pair is an ordinary particle and the other is an antiparticle belonging to the same group."

Read more on the following link:

http://www.answers.com/topic/conservation-law

8) Why there is relatively little antimatter (called CP asymmetry) left is one of the big unresolved problems in physics.

9) The phenomena you are probably referring to is pair-antipair production which occurs all the time. Because of the uncertainty principle, a particle and an antiparticle pair can appear out of the vacuum. Normally this would violate the conservation of energy, however, they exist for such a short time period that the uncertainty principle allows it. Generally, the pair comes back together and reannihilate. This is a curious mechanism responsible for Hawking Radiation and the entropy of black holes; however, as far as we can tell, it is not the phenomena that led to the expansion of spacetime.

10) The statement that matter is actually nothing is a bit of an exaggeration. Particles (or antiparticles) consist of the "energy" in terms of photons and other radiation in the big bang. The nothing refers to the net energy of the universe, which appears to be zero, or very little. It seems the gravitational field and the strange dark energy acts as a "negative energy" to counteract the positive energy we observe in matter and antimatter.

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Your flower power is no match for my glower power!!
Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00
Explore Mars now in General
*i
The Establishment
Member # 6
 written Sunday, October 23 2005 15:36 Profile #10
quote:
Originally written by Eldibs:

Why put nuclear waste on Mars, when we could just blast it into deep space? If the universe is infinite in size, this wouldn't be a problem. And the waste would always be moving away from us. The only possible downside I can think of (other than the rocket exploding upon take-off) is if we find some use for that nuclear waste, we won't have it anymore.
Blasting it into space is probably not a good idea. Over 95% of the theoretical energy content in nuclear fuel still remains after about five years in a reactor core. The problem is the energy content is not of a form suitable for current reactors.

However, it is very feasible to process out the small amount of fission fragments or "waste", and put the remainder into a breeder reactor. This converts a lot of the otherwise not useful material into fissile fuel that could power regular reactors.

The amount of waste is much less, and although you still get some byproduct, a majority of these have fairly short half-lives and do not require the 10000 year disposal that current fuel does because all of those pesky actinides have been taken out and burned away. Containers built for decades to a few 100 years are well within humanity's ability to manufacture.

The reason this is not done now is primarily political and economic. Reprocessing and breeder reactors have been considered a political dirty word for a few decades now, although that is starting to change in the US. The real damper is the fact that enriching uranium ore is quite cheap these days and the reprocessing route is not economical compared to that.

So really, nuclear "waste" is a little pesky nowadays, but will most likely be a powerful energy source for future generations if other options get used up and exploited.

* * *

On Mars:

Although it is hard to justify in the near term, there are long term benefits to getting off this rock called Earth. Although a great place, it cannot support our race indefinitely, our growing needs will likely outpace the resources of Earth. So we come to an impass, either stop progress or go elsewhere. Mars just happens to be closest and convenient.

Even without outpacing our planet, our species will face inevitable destruction from the cosmos in the form of meteorites and other cosmic disasters. This neglects our own ability to destroy ourselves. The more places we can exist, the more likely we are to survive.

So it comes down to a matter of survival; our future requires we go in space. There is no other choice.

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Your flower power is no match for my glower power!!
Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00
Bug in APF in Blades of Avernum
*i
The Establishment
Member # 6
 written Saturday, October 22 2005 13:04 Profile #1
Unfortunately, no one has of yet figured out why this should happen, I'm at a loss. If anyone has any ideas, please speak up.

At any rate, you do not need to leave the mine after defeating the Perfect Spirit. Just use the mirrors to reactivate the teleporter in the mine and go through to the ending. Enjoy.

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Your flower power is no match for my glower power!
Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00
Canopy bugbear mage in Blades of Avernum
*i
The Establishment
Member # 6
 written Friday, October 21 2005 18:39 Profile #7
Put the readme as the intro text, that will show them all!

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Your flower power is no match for my glower power!
Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00
the golf coast in General
*i
The Establishment
Member # 6
 written Thursday, October 20 2005 14:47 Profile #8
quote:
Originally written by Eldibs:

quote:
Maybe the cause is a top secret Irak's weapon to create hurricans!
Oh no, Iraq is going to invade America with masses of people from Hurrica!

That reminds me, why are white people called Caucasian? I've never heard of any country called Caucasia.
Although I'm unfamiliar with the entymology of the word, caucasian is largely a "scientific" term, used loosely within the term of social sciences, not biological ones as there are little biological basis for race.

This comes down to why any word means anything, because there has to be one. Perhaps someone with more knowledge than I can give the real entymology of the word caucasian.

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Your flower power is no match for my glower power!!
Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00
BoE limitations and solutions in Blades of Exile
*i
The Establishment
Member # 6
 written Sunday, October 16 2005 06:42 Profile #6
At one time Jeff said he would seriously consider releasing the BoE Editor source code. Perhaps we should make a push to have this done by extolling the 3D BoA Editor.

I doubt he will make BoE itself totally open source...he still makes money off it and it contains a lot of the base algorithms that his games are based off of. However, with each engine refinement, the original E3/BoE engine is becoming more and more antiquated and less "useful" for reverse engineering a modern product, so he may consider it after A4 is released.

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Your flower power is no match for my glower power!
Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00
Politics and Beliefs in General
*i
The Establishment
Member # 6
 written Thursday, October 13 2005 11:34 Profile #139
I am skeptical. An x-ray before and after the experience would be beneficial in giving some evidence to the rest of us.

You are of course free to believe in whatever you want; unfortunately, you cannot expect people to believe you.

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Your flower power is no match for my glower power!!
Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00
Politics and Beliefs in General
*i
The Establishment
Member # 6
 written Wednesday, October 12 2005 16:37 Profile #123
quote:
Intelligent Design is certainly not religion. It makes no claims about the supposed designer other than those that can be reasonably inferred from observing his/her/its/their creation - ID supports the idea that life was created by completely non-deistic aliens as well as it supports the idea that life was created by God.

ID is based on the idea that by observing something, we can reach conclusions about how it came to be. By observing materials of various colours spread across a piece of canvas, we are able to conclude that someone put them there. It's the same basic concept. A theory based on analysing data strikes me - a layman though I might be - as much more scientific than religious or philosophical.
Although ID itself supposedly does not say anything about the designer, however, it does require divine intervention. The problem is the old theological question of who created the designer.

Suppose extraterrestrials did it, then who created the extraterrestrials? By the logic used by the IDists (which is flawed), it is impossible for complexity we observe to be created by something less complicated, the designer has to be more complex than us. Under the same logic that shows it is impossible for our complexity to arise on its own, it is also impossible for the designers complexity to arise on its own as well, at least in any acceptable age of the universe. Therefore, we are back to the realm of the supernatural.

ID fails on being a scientific theory. It cannot be tested nor invalidated. Any discovery can be retrofitted to fit in the scope of ID. We discover a certain protein folding pattern in nature, well clearly it could be designed to be that way. The same could be said about planetary formation, the laws of atomic physics, and anything else.

In other words, it adds little new, other than to say that we do not understand the mechanisms yet. Concluding that it had to be designed based on ignorance of the process is a dangerous exercise as it halts all frontiers of any human understanding.

ID is at best philosophy, but it is not science once the issue is dissected. To those doubting the motivations of most IDers, I suggest searching for the Wedge Document. This reveals the real social nature of ID, not the scientific one. It starts with a conclusion and seeks to justify it any way possible, this is not how science works.

quote:
As I mentioned before, I'm not a huge fan of science. Not that I don't believe in it, but I strongly dislike the cold and impersonal approach it leads to. As much as I wouldn't say science, by itself, fosters atheism, I do believe that our approach to science tends to lead many in that direction. Which I find sad (but hey, that's just me).

As I've mentioned before, Science, to me, is nothing more than the new world religion. It's a personal paradigm that's easy to succumb to. It's a world view. It's a Faith. My biggest beef with it, though, is that since it only deals with what it can touch or see, it completely ignores the spiritual world. I can't wait for the day that science reaches a level where it can go further than skin-deep.
I suppose it depends on your definition of religion. Of course science is limited, it only deals with things that we can measure and influence. It says nothing about anything supernatural, neither does it say anything about pixies, dragons, Santa Claus, or the Greek gods.

Why should it? Are these things important? Does pondering the existence of elves do anything but use up chemical bonds? That is not to say that pondering deep questions of philosophy is worthless; it has some value and can lead to new epistomological insights that may be of use.

Science is NOT a faith under any traditional definition! The scientific method has assumptions, I grant you that. These assumptions might not be able to be "tested" or "proven" in the traditional way. However, I offer a "proof in the product" by looking at the world around you and all the good science has done.

No other philosophy yet discovered has resulted in so much. I find it amusing and disturbing the amount of suspicion toward science in general society despite the fact that we all rely on it almost without question. The computer you are reading this on is a product of the scientific method, the dinner you did not have to go out and hunt and kill is the result of the same philosophy, the medicines you likely took at some point in your life are because of science. Without science we would at best be in the middle ages with short lifespans, poor education, and what today are considered inhospitable living conditions.

As far as when science runs out, well, I doubt that will be for a long time. If that day does come, we will need a new kind of method that has yet to be devised, one that can incorporate and exceed science.

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Your flower power is no match for my glower power!!
Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00
Avernum 4? in General
*i
The Establishment
Member # 6
 written Monday, August 29 2005 06:13 Profile #142
As Admiral Rickover said: "The customer may not always be right, but the customer is still the customer."

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Your flower power is no match for my glower power!!
Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00
Your Favorite Source of Energy in General
*i
The Establishment
Member # 6
 written Monday, August 29 2005 06:11 Profile #39
quote:
Originally written by Student of Trinity:

An international consortium is supposedly building a humungous fusion reactor in France over the next ten years. ITER, which stands for something like 'International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor', will not be an economical device: its highest goal is proof-of-principle.
Yes, that is correct. I work on the neutronic calculations for that device, incidentally enough. I honestly doubt DT fusion will be economical, the material damage issues from 14 MeV neutrons mandates replacement of the now highly radioactive (but fairly short half-life relative to fission) inner walls every few years. This is a daunting technical and economic hurdle for a fusion device, even if it can prove principle.

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Your flower power is no match for my glower power!!
Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00
Lighting Outdoors??? in Blades of Avernum
*i
The Establishment
Member # 6
 written Sunday, August 28 2005 06:26 Profile #1
I'm not sure if you get light outdoors.

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Your flower power is no match for my glower power!
Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00
Avernum 4? in General
*i
The Establishment
Member # 6
 written Saturday, August 27 2005 09:10 Profile #121
quote:
Originally written by Diarog Lethuta:

And Jeff is right to mock us. We only brought it upon ourselves.
Pathetic customers! What do they know? How dare they question the greatness of the most brilliant game designer of all time!!

:D :D :D

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Your flower power is no match for my glower power!!
Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00
Avernum 4? in General
*i
The Establishment
Member # 6
 written Friday, August 26 2005 18:22 Profile #100
Oh yes, Jeff mocks us all.

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Your flower power is no match for my glower power!!
Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00
Avernum 4? in General
*i
The Establishment
Member # 6
 written Friday, August 26 2005 07:55 Profile #89
quote:
Originally written by Red_Sage:

That even they, with their massive teams and even more grandoise budgets cannot do better - are to afraid to - it seems unfair to place so much harsh judgement on one man who does and tries.
I don't believe anyone here faults Jeff for his inability to acquire good graphics, sounds, etc. However, most of the criticisms have been geared toward the storyline and conceptual execution, which even a penniless author can create.

quote:

Perhaps you prefer the commercial method of recycling decades old stories and gameplay while simply giving them new facelifts and graphics, I cannot say I do. I would have expected this community to have not based all their judgement on mere graphics...
Sort of like Exile to Avernum? Oh wait, that's not a facelift?

As far as graphics criticisms, most of what I have read say that the earlier graphics in Exile are BETTER than the new shiny polished ones. It's not an issue of big budgets, etc.

quote:
[b]
Then I suppose that you must dislike most all games, which you can be sure, more often than not liscenced some commonly used and time tested engine (i.e. unreal, quake etc). Even if the graphics of A4 are indeed recycled which seems a bit of a hasty conclusion considering the early state of development the game is in - creating artwork is one of the most time consuming portions of making any game - at least it is not the gameplay that is being recycled over and over again. Doom 3?
[/b]

Because I'm testing, there are limits as to what I can say, but I agree graphics are expensive, and we generally don't fault him for that so long as they don't devolve. As far as the gameplay, well, I suggest waiting for the demo before striking praises that gameplay is not recycled.

quote:
[b]
Even if it will be real time, surely you must respect the competancy of Jeff and his ability to create new and interesting scenarios and gameplay settings with the new enviroment?
[/b]

It will be turn based, as Drakey said, can we stop debating this.

As far as Jeff creating new and interesting scenarios, I would have to disagree and many others would here too. GF1 was an excellent change, but the sequels tended to rehash what we already saw. Avernum was a remake, so there was very little new. DwtD for BoA (new and recent) was tepid at best. Jeff's best creative works have been done a long time ago (when Exile, Nethergate, and GF1 were being made), at this point it seems he is trying to squeeze as much as he can out of his old, tired ideas.

quote:
[b]
I apologize for the rant, I was simply taken aback by the nature of the majority of the responses. I will note that I currently do not consider this a continuation of the Avernum Trilogy, more some event that takes place in the (near?) future of the avernum universe. The empire, exiles, vahnatai struggle is over.
[/b]

Again, this is a premature judgment. What I can say is limited, but remember that Exile/Avernum have always been about beating stuff up, not storyline.

quote:
[b]
I for one expect much from this game but will nonetheless be very hard to disappoint out of respect of ability, I am very much aware of how difficult it is to make a game. The programming is almost trivial compared to designing an interesting world with even fair story (hence the overfocus on graphics int Triple AAA titles). Most dont even try, Jeff does.
[/b]

According to Jeff even, creating a good storyline is 1% of the effort and doing the programming is 99%. This is pretty close to what it actually is. Coming up with an idea is fairly easy compared to fleshing it out and doing all the grunt work to appropriately execute it.

quote:

About a possible new race, remember in the Isle of Bigail in the Spider Cave? There were some buildings and temples from some ancient advanced race who it was implied were neither vahnatai nor human or any known race for that matter.. A vanished people, I think
Would be cool, wouldn't it.

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Your flower power is no match for my glower power!!
Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00
Avernum 4? in General
*i
The Establishment
Member # 6
 written Thursday, August 25 2005 18:47 Profile #75
quote:
Originally written by Delicious Vlish:

Well it can't be the Vanatai. That would just be rehashing AIII. Which would be folly. People would be howling for poor Jeff's head.

So, that pretty much leaves the Slith. Remember, they too, have powerful mages and are adept at magical ability.
hm, hm, hm, hm, hm...

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Your flower power is no match for my glower power!!
Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00
Your Favorite Source of Energy in General
*i
The Establishment
Member # 6
 written Wednesday, August 24 2005 18:48 Profile #35
Fusion definitely has worked before. The major example being the stars; our sun, the source of most of our energy is nuclear fusion. In that case, there is a net energy gain. The other "device" that utilizes fusion is the hydrogen bomb, which definitely gives a net output of energy.

The sun cannot be replicated and the hydrogen bomb is not controlled. Efforts in magnetic confinement have been geared toward keeping the plasma contained long enough to get a net extraction of energy. Right now, we are pretty much at breakeven; however, we have not entered the state of a burning plasma that sustains itself on the fusion reaction much like a fire does. The physics of this is not very well known and will determine whether magnetic fusion will be viable.

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Your flower power is no match for my glower power!!
Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00
Your Favorite Source of Energy in General
*i
The Establishment
Member # 6
 written Wednesday, August 24 2005 17:44 Profile #32
quote:
Originally written by ben4808 [1950 - 2100:
]
If we could just figure out fusion, then all these nuclear waste problems would be over. However, the problem is the amount of energy it takes to heat the hydrogen to 15 million kelvins.
That's not the problem. Heating a plasma to those 10 keV temperatures is not all that difficult. The issue is keeping the plasma stable and confining it.

As far as solar panels, the problem is the high cost at the low power density. It's just cheaper to build alternative energy sources. While touching governments and altruistic individuals are trying to promote the energy source, in the long run solar PV would cause a dramatic increase in the electricity bill, at least with current technology.

[ Wednesday, August 24, 2005 17:46: Message edited by: *i ]

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Your flower power is no match for my glower power!!
Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00
Your Favorite Source of Energy in General
*i
The Establishment
Member # 6
 written Wednesday, August 24 2005 13:57 Profile #28
The question of energy is an important one. The near future will probably be continued development of Wind, Solar, Biomass, and other more creative energy sources. For baseload energy, there will probably be a mix of coal, natural gas, and nuclear fission.

Coal has quite a long life, but the CO2 emissions may prove to be intractable even with "clean coal" technology. Natural gas is more limited and will likely be quite volatile and expensive in the near future. Nuclear fission has the longest life of these three, emitting minimal greenhouse gases and the smallest amount of waste and an ample supply of decomissioned nuclear weapons fuel to supply it. Other possibilities may exist in the future, but this is the realistic near term.

As far as nuclear fission goes, there are definitely issues with that. Fortunately, most of the safety issues have been dramatically improved with passive safety systems coupled with many years of operating experience and industry safety initiatives.

Spent nuclear fuel still remains an issue; however, the volume is relatively small (a football field size that is three regular building stories high) and in a contained solid form. Although it is radioactive for some time, its toxicity is continuously decreasing. Also, the "waste" still retains over 95% of its energy content that future generations may find more economically feasible to use. The actual fission products (1-2%, the actual waste some of which may be converted to energy if we are clever enough) are much more managable than the bred actinides (2-4% usable as fuel), the rest is just depleted uranium which could theroetically be put back into the ground or bred into plutonium, a reactor fuel.

Beyond the near term, it depends on what energy sources are developed and at what cost. Wind looks promising, solar is a toss up, nuclear fusion could go either way but is a very, very long way off.

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Your flower power is no match for my glower power!!
Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00
were did TM go? in General
*i
The Establishment
Member # 6
 written Monday, August 22 2005 20:27 Profile #4
His priviledges will be restored on October 16, 2005.

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Your flower power is no match for my glower power!!
Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00

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