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I couldn't agree more. Once you realize that energy is the fundamental unit which powers everything else in the economy, not only from every movement of ourselv
by DataDaoDe 6y ago
I couldn't agree more. Once you realize that energy is the fundamental unit which powers everything else in the economy, not only from every movement of ourselves to those of our machines as well, you realize the more we advance in our ability to produce more and more energy at cheaper and cheaper costs in increasingly reliable ways, the more we can accelerate, without exception, every other industry.
- Florin_Andrei 6y agoMake an efficient fusion reactor the size of a truck, and the solar system becomes your backyard.
- Stubb 6y agoMake an efficient fusion reactor of any size, and you can power Fischer-Tropsch plants to synthesize carbon-neutral hydrocarbon fuel for the existing fossil-fuel infrastructure.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- pault 6y agoI've never heard of this. How can a hydrocarbon fuel be carbon neutral?
- wavegeek 6y agoYou take CO2 out of the air and turn it into oil / methane / elemental carbon using vast amounts of energy and some water and catalysts. You then burn it, returning it to the atmosphere. Net CO2 impact = zero.
- _Microft 6y agoThe problem is not that we are burning hydrocarbons per se. The problem is rather that these hydrocarbons were extracted from the ground and introduced into the short term carbon cycle. The total amount of carbon rises thereby which leads to shifts like an increasing concentraction in the atmosphere and the oceans. These higher levels of carbondioxide in the atmosphere let less heat escape back into space (the atmosphere is normally somewhat transparent at the affected wavelengths but carbondioxide can absorb at that, trapping additional heat in the atmosphere, see [0]), leading to additional global warming (water vapor also traps heat and and made Earth suitable for life as we know it in first place). Higher levels of carbondioxide in the atmosphere also lead to more carbondioxide being absorbed by the oceans which in turns acidifies the water. We could extract carbondioxide from air, turn it into hydrocarbons and burn that all day/year/century long but producing it from fossil sources is what makes it so bad. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect#/media/File:CO2_H2O_absorption_atmospheric_gases_unique_pattern_energy_wavelengths_of_energy_transparent_to_others.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect#/media/File:...
- Xylakant 6y agoIn a nutshell: You taken carbon dioxide from the air, hydrogen produced with a carbon neutral power source and reverse the process of burning oil. Result: hydrocarbon and oxygen. Costs a fair amount of energy and is comparatively inefficient and costly, but it is carbon neutral since burning that produced hydrocarbon will produce as much CO2 as you used to produce it.
- rorykoehler 6y agoI really hope that phase is as short as possible and we don't use it as an excuse to prolong the use of burning crap to generate usable energy. Air pollution is gross.
- sergeykish 6y agoOr convert CO2 to carbon nanotubes
- de_watcher 6y agoScrew that. Fossil-fuel infrastructure is smelly and noisy. That's my first concern, I don't even need to "care about the planet" to hate fossil fuel.
- RealityVoid 6y agoI like this. :) I am just amazed how many people fail to see the importance of this. It would _really_ pave the way of the future for humanity if it pans out. Pretty exciting stuff.
- Retric 6y agoThere is ~zero expectation in the scientific community that fusion is going to be cheap at scale. It might eventually be cheaper than fission due to several factors. But, even that’s looking a long way off.
- m0zg 6y agoHow so? Unlimited, non-radioactive fuel and inherent safety of the system alone could tip this scale pretty severely in favor of fusion once it becomes energy-positive. And remember, once that happens, investment is going to be through the roof, which will accelerate progress. Either the "scientific community" (whatever that means) is either too pessimistic about this, or you've just made this up.
- jvm_ 6y agoIt was my understanding that fission and fusion both use the same Nuclear Power Plant sized facility. Fusion just replaces the radioactive bit, you still need steam/electricity conversion/transmission/cooling... it's not like a suitcase you can plug wires into, you still need a massive 'factory' to make electricity, just the one bit is a safer.
- m0zg 6y agoJust the little bit responsible for Chernobyl and Fukushima is not a part of the design at all. No big deal. :-)
- ClumsyPilot 6y agoI am really tired of this line - the taunami killed 18,500 people. The reactor incident killed no-one through radiation and 32 people through physical injuries. One failure of Banqiao Dam killed an estimated 240,000 people. That's more than all people who have ever died from anything to do with nuclear, reactors and bombs combined. Air pollution kills about 2,000 people every single day. Reactor incidents are like plane crashes - they get attention. Fissil fuels are like car crashes - they kill more people every day and noone gives a shit.
- criddell 6y agoCan you make enough energy that you could satisfy the demands of bitcoin miners and still have enough left over for productive uses?