4 ms·

"The deuterium in a single cubic meter of seawater contains the as much energy as nearly 1,400 barrels of crude oil - enough to supply the civilizaton's energy

"The deuterium in a single cubic meter of seawater contains the as much energy as nearly 1,400 barrels of crude oil - enough to supply the civilizaton's energy needs for hundreds of millions of years - until long after the Sun itself has flamed out." What does that sentence mean? It seems like a claim that the energy of 1,400 barrels of crude oil is enough to sustain civilization for a long time, but that seems implausible to me. Also, off by an order of magnitude on the timeline for the sun burning out. Whenever I read stuff like this now I start to get paranoid that this is written by GPT-3.

i-am-curious 6y ago
That's 1 cubic meter. We have a lot more seawater?
feanaro 6y ago
I think GPT-3 would've probably written it more accurately.
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alquemist 6y ago
There is a lot of water out there. * Total ocean volume: 1.3e18 cubic meters, 1.8e21 oil barrels equivalent [1] * Current oil consumption: 35,442,913,090 barrels per year [2] * Oil share of total energy consumption: 34% [3] * Number of years of reserves at current consumption levels: 17,577,561,935 years. Assumptions: * Consumption levels are flat, definitely false. * Energy cost of retrieval: 0, definitely false. * Retrieval rate: 100%, definitely false, as the concentration dilutes over time. [1] https://ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/global/etopo1_ocean_volumes.html https://ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/global/etopo1_ocean_volumes.html [2] https://www.worldometers.info/oil https://www.worldometers.info/oil [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption
ch_123 6y ago
The US alone consumes tens of millions of barrels a day according to the US govt[1] so this claim of "1,400 barrels of crude oil - enough to supply the civilizaton's energy needs for hundreds of millions of years" is very far off the mark. [1] https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=709&t=6 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=709&t=6

i-am-curious 6y ago

That's 1 cubic meter. We have a lot more seawater?

feanaro 6y ago

I think GPT-3 would've probably written it more accurately.

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alquemist 6y ago

There is a lot of water out there. * Total ocean volume: 1.3e18 cubic meters, 1.8e21 oil barrels equivalent [1] * Current oil consumption: 35,442,913,090 barrels per year [2] * Oil share of total energy consumption: 34% [3] * Number of years of reserves at current consumption levels: 17,577,561,935 years. Assumptions: * Consumption levels are flat, definitely false. * Energy cost of retrieval: 0, definitely false. * Retrieval rate: 100%, definitely false, as the concentration dilutes over time. [1] https://ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/global/etopo1_ocean_volumes.html https://ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/global/etopo1_ocean_volumes.html [2] https://www.worldometers.info/oil https://www.worldometers.info/oil [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption

ch_123 6y ago

The US alone consumes tens of millions of barrels a day according to the US govt[1] so this claim of "1,400 barrels of crude oil - enough to supply the civilizaton's energy needs for hundreds of millions of years" is very far off the mark. [1] https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=709&t=6 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=709&t=6