3 ms·

Comparing with the area which can't be really used for production as such is also misleading. Try comparing with the actual solar plant installations and it wou

by acqq 9y ago

Comparing with the area which can't be really used for production as such is also misleading. Try comparing with the actual solar plant installations and it wouldn't look so simple. All the gold ever mined fits in an olympic pool, but it's also not saying anything about how achievable that picture is. Ignoring the order of magnitude is even more misleading.

titzer 9y ago
You're welcome to be pedantic about the surface area and miss the fact that there are 8 orders of magnitude difference between "a million years of stored energy" and a single day's worth.
- acqq 9y ago
  It really took 13.8 billion years for the Earth to come to the point we're now. 3 billion years life on Earth uses the energy of Sun, only a small part remained stored in the Earth's crust. Two billion years of cyanobacteria work (using the energy of the Sun!) was needed only to produce enough oxygen in the atmosphere to enable more complex life. The next billion of years the complex life bound the carbon from the CO2 (chemically not small achievement at all) and the complex environment interaction stored it in the earth crust. The humanity used a significant part of that stored energy in just 100 years. But it is really the product of billions of years of living organisms simply living. Their goal was never to be efficient. We efficiently used up already hundred millions of years of that work (and work of the environment which allowed for the carbon to remain in the crust). That is really a "once in billions of years" event for us. We burned a lot of it carelessly fast, a lot of it simply "because it's cheap." We're still "drunk" and deny. How much of energy is actually produced at the moment in solar plants? How much area do they need? How much is achievable? That's why I'm comparing your (wrong) estimate with the attitude like "I see the golden ring on my finger, I can get it easy, just go in the shop and buy it, now it's 'just' an Olympic pool of gold with which I can 'solve' the problem, see, it's easy." No.
  - titzer 9y ago
    > How much of energy is actually produced at the moment in solar plants? How much area do they need? How much is achievable? That's why I'm comparing your (wrong) estimate with the attitude like "I see the golden ring on my finger, I can get it easy, just go in the shop and buy it, now it's 'just' an Olympic pool of gold with which I can 'solve' the problem, see, it's easy." No. I think you completely misinterpreted my statement and now you're just being needless angry. Read it again. The original poster seemed to imply that it would take millions of years worth of solar energy to "put back" all the CO2 into hydrocarbons. That's not even close, which is why I pointed out in my latest comment that there is at least 8 orders of magnitude difference there. > It really took 13.8 billion years for the Earth to come to the point we're now. 3 billion years life on Earth uses the energy of Sun, only a small part remained stored in the Earth's crust. Two billion years of cyanobacteria work (using the energy of the Sun!) was needed only to produce enough oxygen in the atmosphere to enable more complex life. The next billion of years the complex life bound the carbon from the CO2 (chemically not small achievement at all) and the complex environment interaction stored it in the earth crust. Wow, you got a very long, complicated chain of reasoning, but just let me stop you right there. You've got a totally wrong model. Nature didn't "store up enough energy" gradually in some grand plan. Nature recycles everything; coal deposits are actually from plants and are total accidents. Evidence: according to https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/questions/2503/how-much-fossil-fuel-came-from-the-carboniferous https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/questions/2503/how-mu... A large amount of the fossil deposits were due to a couple of relatively short periods of geologic history, the most important one that was the carboniferous period where so many plants grew they actually depleted the CO2 from the atmosphere (and as a side effect produced nearly 40% atmospheric oxygen concentration). That wasn't the outcome of a long, slow, one-directional process that kept adding oil and coal to the crust. It happened because there was a gap in the biosphere; nothing in that period existed that could digest plant cellulose. When microbes did eventually evolve to do so, then they were able to recycle the dead plant material on the surface (not buried under hundreds of meters of sedimentation) and lead to a homeostasis closer to what we see today. Nature recycles everything. (and yes, in an ironic way, we are finally recyling all those dead plants)
    - 9y ago

by acqq 9y ago

titzer 9y ago

You're welcome to be pedantic about the surface area and miss the fact that there are 8 orders of magnitude difference between "a million years of stored energy" and a single day's worth.

acqq 9y ago
It really took 13.8 billion years for the Earth to come to the point we're now. 3 billion years life on Earth uses the energy of Sun, only a small part remained stored in the Earth's crust. Two billion years of cyanobacteria work (using the energy of the Sun!) was needed only to produce enough oxygen in the atmosphere to enable more complex life. The next billion of years the complex life bound the carbon from the CO2 (chemically not small achievement at all) and the complex environment interaction stored it in the earth crust. The humanity used a significant part of that stored energy in just 100 years. But it is really the product of billions of years of living organisms simply living. Their goal was never to be efficient. We efficiently used up already hundred millions of years of that work (and work of the environment which allowed for the carbon to remain in the crust). That is really a "once in billions of years" event for us. We burned a lot of it carelessly fast, a lot of it simply "because it's cheap." We're still "drunk" and deny. How much of energy is actually produced at the moment in solar plants? How much area do they need? How much is achievable? That's why I'm comparing your (wrong) estimate with the attitude like "I see the golden ring on my finger, I can get it easy, just go in the shop and buy it, now it's 'just' an Olympic pool of gold with which I can 'solve' the problem, see, it's easy." No.
- titzer 9y ago
  > How much of energy is actually produced at the moment in solar plants? How much area do they need? How much is achievable? That's why I'm comparing your (wrong) estimate with the attitude like "I see the golden ring on my finger, I can get it easy, just go in the shop and buy it, now it's 'just' an Olympic pool of gold with which I can 'solve' the problem, see, it's easy." No. I think you completely misinterpreted my statement and now you're just being needless angry. Read it again. The original poster seemed to imply that it would take millions of years worth of solar energy to "put back" all the CO2 into hydrocarbons. That's not even close, which is why I pointed out in my latest comment that there is at least 8 orders of magnitude difference there. > It really took 13.8 billion years for the Earth to come to the point we're now. 3 billion years life on Earth uses the energy of Sun, only a small part remained stored in the Earth's crust. Two billion years of cyanobacteria work (using the energy of the Sun!) was needed only to produce enough oxygen in the atmosphere to enable more complex life. The next billion of years the complex life bound the carbon from the CO2 (chemically not small achievement at all) and the complex environment interaction stored it in the earth crust. Wow, you got a very long, complicated chain of reasoning, but just let me stop you right there. You've got a totally wrong model. Nature didn't "store up enough energy" gradually in some grand plan. Nature recycles everything; coal deposits are actually from plants and are total accidents. Evidence: according to https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/questions/2503/how-much-fossil-fuel-came-from-the-carboniferous https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/questions/2503/how-mu... A large amount of the fossil deposits were due to a couple of relatively short periods of geologic history, the most important one that was the carboniferous period where so many plants grew they actually depleted the CO2 from the atmosphere (and as a side effect produced nearly 40% atmospheric oxygen concentration). That wasn't the outcome of a long, slow, one-directional process that kept adding oil and coal to the crust. It happened because there was a gap in the biosphere; nothing in that period existed that could digest plant cellulose. When microbes did eventually evolve to do so, then they were able to recycle the dead plant material on the surface (not buried under hundreds of meters of sedimentation) and lead to a homeostasis closer to what we see today. Nature recycles everything. (and yes, in an ironic way, we are finally recyling all those dead plants)
  - 9y ago