Question 1: Energy
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Master
Member # 5977
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written Wednesday, April 26 2006 05:21
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As has been said numerous times: nuclear energy. Most of the arguments for outweigh the ones against, for all i can tell. Most arguments against are purely ideologic: "Just look at Tsjernobyl, and you'll see nuclear energy is bad!" kind of stuff. Also, It would be good if companies would try to invest in apparatus that will require less energy, or that will be energy efficient. The electric car that has been mentioned is very unefficient, as it sucks power. However, this can be improved of course. As athing that might work better for cars 9and which is already used): cars using a mixture of grain-type of plants. This is called "bio-fuel." Its not extremely polluting, and we will have enormous amounts of it. It will also encourage the growth of the percentage of industry consisting of farms to grow, which is an important economic reason, in my eyes, to start using bio-fuels. -------------------- Play and rate my scenarios: Where the rivers meet View my upcoming scenario: The Nephil Search: Escape. Give us your drek! Posts: 3029 | Registered: Saturday, June 18 2005 07:00 |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6403
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written Wednesday, April 26 2006 06:20
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quote:You left out one problem. How long would it take to recharge a car battery? Filling a gas tank takes about a minute depending on how big the tank is. Recharging batteries takes a long time. -------------------- ??? ?????? ???? ????? Posts: 883 | Registered: Wednesday, October 19 2005 07:00 |
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? Man, ? Amazing
Member # 5755
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written Wednesday, April 26 2006 06:49
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I think the major issue is that our current increasing rate of energy consumption can not be sustained. It won't be possible to find a better way to get our fix and some behavioral changes will have to be made. While completely silly in most aspects, the book Ecotopia offers some ideas on sustainable energy use. Living near a west coast seaport, and frequently being on the water, I see quite a bit of merchandise being pushed in or out of port. It seems fairly energy inefficient to produce a product 7,000 miles away from where it is to be consumed. Another example, one of my personal favorites, is that Australia exported logs to Japan, which turned them into paper products, which were exported to Australia. All oceanic transportation costs (financial and environmental) were superfluous to the necessity of getting toilet paper to the masses of Australia. One US-centric method of reducing fuel use over the near-term would be to mandate beltways and near-city interstates be >75% HOV on a per-lane basis. -------------------- quote: Posts: 4114 | Registered: Monday, April 25 2005 07:00 |
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? Man, ? Amazing
Member # 5755
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written Wednesday, April 26 2006 06:53
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quote:Yes, but most folks don't wait to recharge until the unit goes completely dead. There would be plug-ins at parking lots at work, at home, hotels, etc. Hell, it could become a cottage industry. Supply recharging stations so that coal or oil fired electric generating stations can re-supply your car with potential energy. -------------------- quote: Posts: 4114 | Registered: Monday, April 25 2005 07:00 |
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Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
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written Wednesday, April 26 2006 07:03
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quote:I left it out because it's not actually a problem, except on really long road trips. Cars could be recharged overnight after a day's worth of driving and be ready to go the next morning. If the battery can hold a day's worth of driving, taking eight hours to recharge is not a problem. The only issue is that one would not be able to do two "tanks" of an electric battery in a day (which, again, would only be a problem on long road trips), and I read somewhere that there are prototypes of batteries now that can charge in an hour or so, overcoming even that obstacle. It doesn't really matter, anyway. Electric cars aren't viable for most people right now, so all we can say at the moment is "They could be very cool someday, and we should keep putting money into research." -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
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Infiltrator
Member # 5410
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written Wednesday, April 26 2006 07:12
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One of the problems with current energy use is portability. Fossil fuels are energy dense and portable. This fuels much of our economy (for instance, it was on the news recently that the average food item travels 5000 miles from field to your mouth). This is only going to intensify as India and China industrialize and compete for energy resources (think they don't look at Western standards of living and want to gear up for that?). So, other sources of energy (hydrogen - energy costly to make, nuclear - creates electricity which isn't efficiently transportable/storable...) are really unable to replace this as a source. Biofuels simply cannot replace petrofeuls in that it competes with food resources and there isn't enough landbase to do both in the amounts required. The reality is that a structural shift in energy use is coming. -------------------- "Dikiyoba ... is demon ... drives people mad and ... do all sorts of strange things." "You Spiderwebbians are mad, mad, mad as March hares." Posts: 687 | Registered: Wednesday, January 19 2005 08:00 |
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? Man, ? Amazing
Member # 5755
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written Wednesday, April 26 2006 07:23
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quote:World leaders have always been keenly interested in feeding their subjects. Occasionally they have been forceful in order to get their way. It is disturbing that so many emerging nations could use extreme methods of persuasion. It is likewise disturbing that any nation can use extreme methods of persuasion, but it would be wrong to hijack poor stareye's thread. -------------------- quote: Posts: 4114 | Registered: Monday, April 25 2005 07:00 |
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Dollop of Whipped Cream
Member # 391
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written Wednesday, April 26 2006 07:26
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quote:I agree almost entirely with your previous post, except for this. I see a problem with taking eight hours to recharge. Even if the battery could hold a day's worth of driving, the main reason why the gas stations aren't flooded with people is the fact that you could go at any time during the day. I remember the day of the black out in NY where you could only get oil from certain gas stations; it was nearly impossible to get gas. If it would take every car 8 hours to re-charge the batteries, then it would be impossible for every car to get charged overnight, which is when more people would be able to get their batteries charged. Unless you are talking about the car owners owning battery chargers as well, but wouldn't that cost a great deal of money? On top of the $40,000 you are paying for the car. It sounds awesome in theory, but knowing humans it’s highly unlikely to ever happen. -------------------- "Tyranicus is about the only one that still posts in the Nethergate Forum." —Randomizer Spiderweb Chat Room Shadow Vale - My site, home of the Spiderweb Chat Database, BoA Scenario Database, & the A1 Quest List, among other things. Posts: 562 | Registered: Friday, December 14 2001 08:00 |
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Guardian
Member # 6670
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written Wednesday, April 26 2006 07:38
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I'm going to be a good little Albertan and endorse the oil sands. I do realize that petroleum isn't the most eco-friendly choice, but until an alternative is fully developed, we might as well consider using the greatest oil deposit in North America. The problem is just getting at it. Oops. Now we're probably going to be invaded, right? -------------------- IF I EVER BECOME AN EVIL OVERLORD: If my supreme command center comes under attack, I will immediately flee to safety in my prepared escape pod and direct the defenses from there. I will not wait until the troops break into my inner sanctum to attempt this. Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00 |
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Infiltrator
Member # 5410
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written Wednesday, April 26 2006 07:43
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quote:My intention is not to hijack the thread. One of the difficulties as I see it is developing economies view the current 1st world economy and want the same standard of living as we have. However, current energy resources will not allow that to occur. Thus, comes the point that a structural shift in how we use energy will occur. We need to answer that question in order to answer how the developing world will fuel their energy needs. Current energy use practices are unsustainable. The 1st world will likely have to modify how it uses energy to provide a model to developing nations to aspire to, to get them to adopt a similar model. My comment is that existing enegy use is based on transportation and transportation requires fossil fuels. Alternative energy sources (solar, nuclear, biofuels)all have serious issues that will restrict their future use - such as scarcity of precious metals for solar panels, depletion of uranium reserves, competition for food resources so we need to do more than look at how to provide energy. [ Wednesday, April 26, 2006 07:44: Message edited by: Strontium ] -------------------- "Dikiyoba ... is demon ... drives people mad and ... do all sorts of strange things." "You Spiderwebbians are mad, mad, mad as March hares." Posts: 687 | Registered: Wednesday, January 19 2005 08:00 |
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Infiltrator
Member # 5410
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written Wednesday, April 26 2006 07:49
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quote:A couple of problems with tar sands oil is that it is a huge consumer of water.. Flows from rivers such as Athabaska and Saskatchewan are glacier fed and are experiencing declines in flow (30 to 50%) that will restrict the expansion of this industry. In addition, the synthetic oil still has a high level of impurities that limit how it can be used in the industry - you can only replace a percentage of your natural oil with this synthetic oil (without much greater processing - at high levels of energy use). Electric cars aren't the answer either because we still need to replace heavy machinery (eg. ag farm equipment, mining equipment) and airplanes. In addition, batteries suffer serious deficiencies in cold weather, need to be replaced and lack energy density (its something like a gallon of gas has the equivalent available energy as a ton of lead-acid batteries) [ Wednesday, April 26, 2006 08:01: Message edited by: Strontium ] -------------------- "Dikiyoba ... is demon ... drives people mad and ... do all sorts of strange things." "You Spiderwebbians are mad, mad, mad as March hares." Posts: 687 | Registered: Wednesday, January 19 2005 08:00 |
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Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
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written Wednesday, April 26 2006 08:53
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First, I'd like to correct a common misconseption: "Hydrogen Fuel" isn't a fuel. It's a battery. There are no "hydrogen mines" and any method of hydrogen production will use more energy than you'd get back from burning the hydrogen. So you can't call hydrogen a fuel source. What it does provide is a cheap and efficient method of storing and transporting energy. The main use of hydrogen will be to make other energy sources more practical. For example, using solar power plant to make hydrogen while the sun is shining and then burning that hydrogen on a cloudy day. As for energy sources themselves, I've heard a lot of good things about fusion power. It's clean and requires no special resources. The main reason it isn't available yet is that nobody bothered to invest as much money into it as goes into oil and other "popular" energy sources. Since, if I understand correctly, the bigger a fusion reactor is, the more energy-efficient the reaction, a very large initial investment is needed to build these plants. However, once built, they'll be cheap to operate, so the investment would pay off in the long term. -------------------- Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword, For it too has the power to kill. However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword, Can also have the power to heal. Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00 |
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By Committee
Member # 4233
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written Wednesday, April 26 2006 09:56
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It was my understanding that ridiculously fuel-efficient hybrid technology is available now. An article in the New York Times a few months ago discussed the fact that many hybrid owners have had their cars modified so that they can be plugged in when they're at home. Doing this reduced the amount of time that the internal combustion engine had to be used in order to recharge it, which brought city driving mileage sharply down: about 80-95 mpg. The article didn't discuss what sort of a hit the home electric bill took, though. Nevertheless, I think plug-ins will be a part of our automotive future. Problems still remain, however, for long-distance/highway mileage solutions. Also, I'm particularly interested to find out what in the world we'll do about air travel when the petrofuels run out - from what I understand, there aren't really any good substitutes for jet fuel. Posts: 2242 | Registered: Saturday, April 10 2004 07:00 |
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Infiltrator
Member # 5410
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written Wednesday, April 26 2006 10:07
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With respect to electric cars/plug ins leading to higher fuel efficiency: where does the electricity come from? Solar? Nuclear? Hydro? Solar - not a dense energy source (i.e. you couldn't generate enough solar energy to replace fossil fuels if you blanketed the earth with cells) and precious metals to make panels are in scarcity already. Nuclear - uranium resources aim to be depleted in 20 to 50 years - not much better than fossil fuels. Hydro - mostly developed, future expansion limited. "New" sources of energy isn't the answer. -------------------- "Dikiyoba ... is demon ... drives people mad and ... do all sorts of strange things." "You Spiderwebbians are mad, mad, mad as March hares." Posts: 687 | Registered: Wednesday, January 19 2005 08:00 |
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Agent
Member # 4506
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written Wednesday, April 26 2006 11:06
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I would say solar, wind, water, or maybe even ethanol. Helium 3 would be great, but that's not for some time. Until Helium 3 is viable, nuclear should be out of the question. Germany generates 30x more electricity out of it's solar power than we do with out Nuclear power, and we apparently get similar amounts of sun. That's just not right. - Archmagus Micael -------------------- "You dare Trifle with Avernum?" ~ Erika the Archmage -------------------- My Scenarios: Undead Valley : A small Undead problem, what could possibly go wrong? -------------------- Richard Black - PROOF of his existance (the Infernal one's website). -------------------- MY FORUM! Randomosity at it's highest! :) Posts: 1370 | Registered: Thursday, June 10 2004 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Wednesday, April 26 2006 11:26
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Running out of uranium is not really a problem. Running out of the cheapest and easiest uranium, maybe, but there's more if more time and money is spent on getting it. Comparatively, even expensive uranium is cheap for its output, so that's no terrible barrier. Breeder reactors are also much more efficient, so instead of wasting most of the uranium we could stretch the easy uranium we have to 500 years or longer. Fusion sounds great, but nobody has made it work yet. I don't know enough to say how close the trials like ITER have come to delivering the superior power source of the future that fusion proponents seem to expect. —Alorael, who would like to point out that in addition to the cost benefits of nuclear power they also don't pollute on a massive scale like most current methods of power generation do. That's attractive as well. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6700
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written Wednesday, April 26 2006 11:42
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The world will be a much better place when someone finally discovers cold fusion. On a more serious note, I'm going to have to agree with Kel about the fact that there is no one way that we can solve our energy problems. What little I know about alternative energy leads me to believe that geothermal, ethanol, and hydrogen-cel power sources may be the major answers. The problem is, of course, efficiency, especially in light of current energy trends. Face it: solar and wind power are only efficient when they are given a lot of space, and then only in areas where the climate constantly suits them. Currently, electric-only cars are impractical (though I thought that they got a bit more than 100 miles per charge. oh well.), especially for people who are required to be constantly driving, or those that need to regularly drive long distances. Pretty much, what we need is more research, or rather, further progress in research. Which takes funding and skill and luck. Edit: Yay for nuclear power! Clean, efficient, and not nearly as deadly as people think! Edit2: Gasp. 150 posts. -------------------- The Silent Assassin once experimented with natural methane as a power source. But I'm not going there. [ Wednesday, April 26, 2006 11:45: Message edited by: Lenar Labs ] -------------------- -Lenar Labs What's Your Destiny? Ushmushmeifa: Lenar's power is almighty and ineffable. All hail lord Noric, god of... well, something important, I'm sure. Posts: 735 | Registered: Monday, January 16 2006 08:00 |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 59
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written Wednesday, April 26 2006 11:59
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quote:How did you calculate this? We have several orders of magnitude more surface area than needed. Posts: 950 | Registered: Thursday, October 4 2001 07:00 |
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The Establishment
Member # 6
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written Wednesday, April 26 2006 12:19
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quote:I'm afraid this one is a myth. The correct term is that our "reserve" of uranium will be depleted. This may seem pedantic, but it is a vital distinction. A reserve is defined as something that is an established resource is both been measured directly and is definitely profitable to mine. Deposits of a resource that are quite certain but not directly measured are not part of the reserve. The economic definition is one that depends on whether a business would choose to exploit it TODAY. The thing with uranium is that there was a huge amount of exploration in the 1950s, a century's supply was found, and people stopped looking for the most part until the Carter administration where more were proven. Geologists are quite sure there is plenty more, it is just that there has not been a need to find it. Geologists suspect there are tens of thousands of years worth, if we exclude seawater. Including that, there is likely billions of years. The economics aspect means that only the highest grade ores are used. As these deplete, we will need to go to lower grade ores. These may still be profitable, but are not included because there are better ones available right now. Even if we go to lower grade ores, uranium is such a dense fuel that to reasonably affect the overall fuel cost, the actual cost of mining the ore would have to increase by about 50-100 times. Most of the energy/cost is in the enrichment and conversion processes. So be careful when you read these things. The definition of reserve to geologist and a business person means something drastically different to the lay person. We will never run out of oil, it will just become uneconomic to use it as a fuel anymore. -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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Infiltrator
Member # 5410
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written Wednesday, April 26 2006 12:35
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Not my original source for 20 to 50 years so I'm not too sure of the veracity but... There are known Uranium deposits of 6 billion pounds globally, with annual consumption of 180 million pounds. At an increase in use of 3% per year this lasts to 2028. Assume that uranium deposits can be doubled up in the coming decade. this lasts till 2042. http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/petch/2005/0703.html note that this doesn't even assume that we replace oil with nuclear, which would require a much higher growth use rate (although there is a significant delay as construction is a multi year enterprise) and would require huge amounts of capital. [ Wednesday, April 26, 2006 12:38: Message edited by: Strontium ] -------------------- "Dikiyoba ... is demon ... drives people mad and ... do all sorts of strange things." "You Spiderwebbians are mad, mad, mad as March hares." Posts: 687 | Registered: Wednesday, January 19 2005 08:00 |
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The Establishment
Member # 6
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written Wednesday, April 26 2006 12:46
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Strontium -- Did you read my post? He quotes the reserves, not the total resources. I agree, as we define reserve today, yes, we will be out. However, if we look at future potential reserves (reread my post for an exact definition), we have a massive supply. I'm running short of time, so I did a quick Google search. Not the best source, biased I'd say, but it references scientific articles that you may persue for greater credibility: Uranium Resources -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 4445
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written Wednesday, April 26 2006 13:07
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It's not a direct solution, but superior urban planning could go a long way in helping to bring energy consumption down to sustainable leveals. A good deal of the United States' decadent energy consumption can be attributed to poor urban planning. Because the dominant pattern for American residential zoning is single-use and low-density, securing almost every basic necessity requires a car trip: groceries, school, other child-care, and home-improvement supplies are all a 5-10 minute drive (i.e. a 30-60 minute walk) from my house. With higher-density, mixed-use living, it would be easy to locate essential services within a 5-10 minute walk from residences. Such an arrangement has the added bonus of placing service workers, for whom affording a car is often a real hardship, within walking distance of jobs. A high-density arrangement also makes mass transit much more practicable, because true stations, rather than massive park-and-ride complexes, are a possibility. A mining company is building a massive "walkable community" in Utah (unfortunately, I don't think they're providing for low-income housing); hopefully it'll turn out profitable for the developers so that we'll see more of those in America. Posts: 293 | Registered: Saturday, May 29 2004 07:00 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Wednesday, April 26 2006 15:51
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quote:I would think that on top of the $40,000 you are paying for the car, a battery charger wouldn't be all that much extra. :P On another note, what about other industries that rely on petrochemicals? The plastics industry uses huge amounts of oil; bioplastics aren't currently very good, and they run into the same problems in terms of resources required to make them as biofuels. -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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Raven v. Writing Desk
Member # 261
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written Wednesday, April 26 2006 15:59
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My god, I feel like I'm playing SimCity 2000 all over again. -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |
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Infiltrator
Member # 3441
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written Wednesday, April 26 2006 16:09
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Alright, Thuryl. I made it a link. [ Wednesday, April 26, 2006 16:29: Message edited by: Wild Kinky Slugs ] -------------------- "As our circle of knowledge expands, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding it." --Albert Einstein -------------------- Posts: 536 | Registered: Sunday, September 7 2003 07:00 |
