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More energy will get it back to that nice usuable form. Um yeah, but until we have fusion which isn’t anytime soon, you’re proposing that we keep transforming

by cctt23 9y ago

More energy will get it back to that nice usuable form. Um yeah, but until we have fusion which isn’t anytime soon, you’re proposing that we keep transforming energy, with losses at each step. In reality, where we have to live, and our energy isn’t coming from hypothetical sources, reconstituting plastic and reversing metal oxidation makes no sense at all.

gpm 9y ago
Certainly, right now we really are consuming that free energy, as OP suggested. It's not coming back. But OP's point holds, all we are consuming is free energy (in the form of oil deposits, ore deposits, etc). And helium (in the form of gas, which escapes the atmosphere). Nothing else.
- cctt23 9y ago
  It’s a semantic distinction free of anything like a point, and I wouldn’t assume that OP was being so glib.
  - jerf 9y ago
    No, it's a point of view. A lot of people in this conversation seem to be stuck on human-level understandings of objects, as if "paper" is something that has an objective existence, and if we "consume" the paper, now there's one piece of paper less that the universe will ever see. It's the Aristotelian view of the universe as consisting of the four elements, only with a lot more elements in it. Instead, watch the atoms you learned about in chemistry class, which have the advantage of being real. They're generally conserved. (Not 100%, but places where we're changing atoms are very fringe in our economy.) Converting paper into a mushy mess is just introducing entropy into the paper. With energy invested we can turn those atoms back into paper. With our current tech level that may be a very long, winding, expensive journey, but it could be easier. Plus as we develop tech, we will start tending to prefer organizations of atoms that are easier to create in the first place, which is why you hear about things like the "diamond age". With enough energy, we can rearrange atoms in almost any way we'd like. We don't dump things in landfills because we have no use for the atoms, we dump them there because it's too energetically expensive to undo the entropy introduced into them by our usage that has put them in their current high-entropy, low-use configuration. If we solved that problem, landfills wouldn't exist. That's a big "if", absolutely, no denying it. But if you, say, really passionately wanted to solve the landfill problem and not just nibble around the edges, this is the angle you should be taking.
danmaz74 9y ago
Even without fusion, at some point in the future: - increasing automation in the recovery and processing steps - increasing rarity of at least some valuable materials - decreasing cost of renewable intermittent energy Will make mining our landfills economically viable. Unless our society implodes earlier, which I hope it won't.
- cctt23 9y ago
  I hope that you’re right, but in a way I hope that you’re wrong too. If we could establish a robust space industry, with orbital manufacturing, then we can get those materials from asteroids. If we’re going for what is presently science fiction, let’s go for exciting science fiction. I’d rather see our drones mine asteroids than landfills.
ballenf 9y ago
We do have fusion. It's very conveniently located a safe* distance away and blasts us with continuous energy. We just need to get better at collecting and storing it. Instead of engaging in behavior that results in that energy cooking our planet. * we have a few hundred million years or so to find a new one before it becomes markedly less safe.
- aalleavitch 9y ago
  Heh, I'm a total layman so this could be trivially impossible, but could we not somehow put a fusion reactor into orbit around earth such that its own gravity would contain itself just like a star? Or would that just not be feasible?
  - m00g00 9y ago
    Sure, we could trivially make our own star. All we'd need to do is move at least 100 Jupiters worth of mass into close proximity, and voila! Insta-star. That last part is not so trivial though... The difficulty us mere mortals have with sustained fusion is keeping the reaction from blowing itself apart (as in dissipation, not bomb). Gravity keeps things in check for free, but since gravity is so weak compared to atomic forces, you need an awful lot of it. Our current containment solutions using electromagnetic forces require a lot of energy to maintain and so far, more than produced from the resulting fusion reaction.
    - aalleavitch 9y ago
      What if we were to combine both methods? Try to put an electromagnetic containment solution into space? Could we possibly find a medium between electromagnetic forces and gravitational forces that would allow us to make it hold together without having to actually have something as massive as a star?
      - m_mueller 9y ago
        just be aware that a mini-nova from your orbital reactor very easily becomes a planet killer when the magnetic field fails.
kragen 9y ago
Reconstituting plastic is what your body does every time you pack on a pound of fat as you comment on Hacker News — the only difference between a molecule of saturated fat and three molecules of kerosene is a little COOH group on the end and a glycerin to tie them together. Reversing metal oxidation is where we get the metal in the first place, with the notable exceptions of copper and some precious metals. And it has been for several thousand years. We dig up rocks made of metal oxides and reverse the oxidation. I'm just saying it's often easier to dig up the more concentrated oxides in landfills instead, and that economic advantage will grow as accessible natural deposits are mined out. Silicon, aluminum, iron, and concrete excepted, naturally. And, yeah, this uses energy. That's why I mentioned accessible energy as one of the two things we do actually consume.
- cctt23 9y ago
  If your solution requires technology which isn’t even close to being practical, then you’re just going on about sci-fi. That’s very interesting, and with a few exceptions sci-fi usually gets it wrong.
  - kragen 9y ago
    I am not sure what you are talking about, but technology to produce metals from their oxides has been practical since at least Çatal Höyük, 8500 years ago, and cracking and distilling random mixtures of hydrocarbons to make plastic has been practical since 1939. Catalytic cracking has been the main way we make plastics since then, although it was in use to produce fuel and lubricants since a few years earlier. My best guess is that you didn't read the comment you are replying to, so I am hoping that repeating it in more detail, as I have above, will result in you reading it.

by cctt23 9y ago

gpm 9y ago

Certainly, right now we really are consuming that free energy, as OP suggested. It's not coming back. But OP's point holds, all we are consuming is free energy (in the form of oil deposits, ore deposits, etc). And helium (in the form of gas, which escapes the atmosphere). Nothing else.

cctt23 9y ago
It’s a semantic distinction free of anything like a point, and I wouldn’t assume that OP was being so glib.
- jerf 9y ago
  No, it's a point of view. A lot of people in this conversation seem to be stuck on human-level understandings of objects, as if "paper" is something that has an objective existence, and if we "consume" the paper, now there's one piece of paper less that the universe will ever see. It's the Aristotelian view of the universe as consisting of the four elements, only with a lot more elements in it. Instead, watch the atoms you learned about in chemistry class, which have the advantage of being real. They're generally conserved. (Not 100%, but places where we're changing atoms are very fringe in our economy.) Converting paper into a mushy mess is just introducing entropy into the paper. With energy invested we can turn those atoms back into paper. With our current tech level that may be a very long, winding, expensive journey, but it could be easier. Plus as we develop tech, we will start tending to prefer organizations of atoms that are easier to create in the first place, which is why you hear about things like the "diamond age". With enough energy, we can rearrange atoms in almost any way we'd like. We don't dump things in landfills because we have no use for the atoms, we dump them there because it's too energetically expensive to undo the entropy introduced into them by our usage that has put them in their current high-entropy, low-use configuration. If we solved that problem, landfills wouldn't exist. That's a big "if", absolutely, no denying it. But if you, say, really passionately wanted to solve the landfill problem and not just nibble around the edges, this is the angle you should be taking.

danmaz74 9y ago

Even without fusion, at some point in the future: - increasing automation in the recovery and processing steps - increasing rarity of at least some valuable materials - decreasing cost of renewable intermittent energy Will make mining our landfills economically viable. Unless our society implodes earlier, which I hope it won't.

cctt23 9y ago
I hope that you’re right, but in a way I hope that you’re wrong too. If we could establish a robust space industry, with orbital manufacturing, then we can get those materials from asteroids. If we’re going for what is presently science fiction, let’s go for exciting science fiction. I’d rather see our drones mine asteroids than landfills.

ballenf 9y ago

We do have fusion. It's very conveniently located a safe* distance away and blasts us with continuous energy. We just need to get better at collecting and storing it. Instead of engaging in behavior that results in that energy cooking our planet. * we have a few hundred million years or so to find a new one before it becomes markedly less safe.

aalleavitch 9y ago
Heh, I'm a total layman so this could be trivially impossible, but could we not somehow put a fusion reactor into orbit around earth such that its own gravity would contain itself just like a star? Or would that just not be feasible?
- m00g00 9y ago
  Sure, we could trivially make our own star. All we'd need to do is move at least 100 Jupiters worth of mass into close proximity, and voila! Insta-star. That last part is not so trivial though... The difficulty us mere mortals have with sustained fusion is keeping the reaction from blowing itself apart (as in dissipation, not bomb). Gravity keeps things in check for free, but since gravity is so weak compared to atomic forces, you need an awful lot of it. Our current containment solutions using electromagnetic forces require a lot of energy to maintain and so far, more than produced from the resulting fusion reaction.
  - aalleavitch 9y ago
    What if we were to combine both methods? Try to put an electromagnetic containment solution into space? Could we possibly find a medium between electromagnetic forces and gravitational forces that would allow us to make it hold together without having to actually have something as massive as a star?
    - m_mueller 9y ago
      just be aware that a mini-nova from your orbital reactor very easily becomes a planet killer when the magnetic field fails.

kragen 9y ago

Reconstituting plastic is what your body does every time you pack on a pound of fat as you comment on Hacker News — the only difference between a molecule of saturated fat and three molecules of kerosene is a little COOH group on the end and a glycerin to tie them together. Reversing metal oxidation is where we get the metal in the first place, with the notable exceptions of copper and some precious metals. And it has been for several thousand years. We dig up rocks made of metal oxides and reverse the oxidation. I'm just saying it's often easier to dig up the more concentrated oxides in landfills instead, and that economic advantage will grow as accessible natural deposits are mined out. Silicon, aluminum, iron, and concrete excepted, naturally. And, yeah, this uses energy. That's why I mentioned accessible energy as one of the two things we do actually consume.

cctt23 9y ago
If your solution requires technology which isn’t even close to being practical, then you’re just going on about sci-fi. That’s very interesting, and with a few exceptions sci-fi usually gets it wrong.
- kragen 9y ago
  I am not sure what you are talking about, but technology to produce metals from their oxides has been practical since at least Çatal Höyük, 8500 years ago, and cracking and distilling random mixtures of hydrocarbons to make plastic has been practical since 1939. Catalytic cracking has been the main way we make plastics since then, although it was in use to produce fuel and lubricants since a few years earlier. My best guess is that you didn't read the comment you are replying to, so I am hoping that repeating it in more detail, as I have above, will result in you reading it.