4 ms·

1. Electricity is not an energy source, you need to burn something else to create it. 2. Wind, Solar, Nuclear and Hydro can not be built with electricity at sc

by bullen 5y ago

1. Electricity is not an energy source, you need to burn something else to create it. 2. Wind, Solar, Nuclear and Hydro can not be built with electricity at scale, you need coal, oil and gas to melt steel and burn lime stone for concrete. 3. You cannot make food with electricity at scale; tractors, trucks and fertilizers need hydrocarbons. 4. The tree is the best solar panel and battery in one, it created all coal, oil and gas on the planet. Only snag is that it takes a couple of hundred thousand years for the trees to become coal, oil and gas! 5. Going into space is a completely meaningless exercise until we can establish that we can colonize another planet self-sustainably. We are very far away from making that happen because it would need trees and an atmosphere which take more time to terraform than we have hydrocarbons left on Earth to still reach Mars f.ex at scale (enough people to bootstrap the new planet) when it's fully terraformed. These combined make it pretty clear that the only realistic option is to consume less energy. Stop driving. Stop flying. Live in a smaller space. Work from home. Consume less of everything and try to produce something meaningful with what you allready have! Find a purpose in quality, instead of quantity. Please use arguments instead of only the down button? Just because you don't like the truth doesn't make it less true.

afpx 5y ago
Not sure an argument needs to be made? I googled 3 of your 5 statements and they didn't appear true. Plus, you don't seem to take future breakthroughs into account. Technology progresses exponentially.
- bullen 5y ago
  Tech. optimism is predatory on the generations that follow if they turn out to not happen. And I don't know how many cameras on the back of your iPhone before you realize it still only takes 2D photos? I think you need to understand the "at scale" I added everywhere. All the solutions you googled are by companies that can make it work in a prototype... but when they try to replace dead trees they all fail...
throwaway98797 5y ago
if 100% of hydrocarbons are used to make things vs. power things then they would last a lot longer than otherwise.
- bullen 5y ago
  Try going into space with a lithium battery powered rocket.
jabthedang 5y ago
kkfx 5y ago
Few small notes: - personally I think agriculture is one of the few (semi)industrial sectors who can really run on solar: we do not need tractors, we use them just because we have invented them as a replacement for animals used for similar "traction" works, nowadays we can lay out rails (like we have for certain irrigation bot on scale) [1] with enough self-orienting solar panels on top to power slow motors and slow pumps to slowly traverse a field for irrigation, fertilization etc. It's already a bit doable a step at a time; - we can't use only natural fertilizers (manure, ammonia from urine etc) just because we are too many, but a less giant population can. For instance Canada, Russia probably can live well enough with only natural fertilizers; - nuclear, fission since it's the sole operational on scale we have, go well enough with industry since modern industry have almost constant loads and NPP easily produce constant energy, surely they are not really renewable BUT so far they are the lest polluting and more effective mid/long term solution usable on scale, with enough heat and electricity we can't replace mineral coal for steel production, we can't fly airplanes [2] but we can reduce much their demand so buy 50-10 year of time to develop something else; - about consuming less: I've built a new house, with good insulation, VMC, p.v. etc so now I consume much less and live better than before, BUT to build it I've used many resources and the same apply to us all. It's easy to say "we can consume less" when to reach that goal we need to consume much more... It's not much different for food: if I buy a bit of land and build a kind of plant for poultry, trouts, a bit of crops, freezers, oxygenation systems for the water, auto-cleaning and recycling systems for poultry rooms to make fertilizers etc I'll not be self-sufficient in food but can probably produce enough to survive in a no such bad manner. Unfortunately that demand a gazillion or resources just to nourish a small family for a not that big timeslice (plant do not last more than few decades and nothing makes possible rebuild them with local resources). That's to say: we are a society, we are interconnected, we can't progress alone, we can't survive without a certain critical mass of humans working together spread around the planet. That's the hyper-big issue. [1] https://www.ers.usda.gov/media/9165/june17_datafeature_schaible_photo.jpg https://www.ers.usda.gov/media/9165/june17_datafeature_schai... or simpler https://media.istockphoto.com/photos/wheel-line-irrigation-system-picture-id152149646 https://media.istockphoto.com/photos/wheel-line-irrigation-s... [2] yes, few nuclear airplanes have been experimented with limited success in the '70s but they were left in the oblivion since they are just too dangerous and barely capable of fly themselves without any load.
panick21_ 5y ago
> you need coal, oil and gas to melt steel and burn lime stone for concrete Flat out factually wrong. > 3. You cannot make food with electricity at scale; tractors, trucks and fertilizers need hydrocarbons. Flat out factually wrong. > 4. The tree is the best solar panel and battery in one Show the math on this. > Going into space is a completely meaningless exercise Matter of opinion.

by bullen 5y ago

afpx 5y ago

Not sure an argument needs to be made? I googled 3 of your 5 statements and they didn't appear true. Plus, you don't seem to take future breakthroughs into account. Technology progresses exponentially.

bullen 5y ago
Tech. optimism is predatory on the generations that follow if they turn out to not happen. And I don't know how many cameras on the back of your iPhone before you realize it still only takes 2D photos? I think you need to understand the "at scale" I added everywhere. All the solutions you googled are by companies that can make it work in a prototype... but when they try to replace dead trees they all fail...

throwaway98797 5y ago

if 100% of hydrocarbons are used to make things vs. power things then they would last a lot longer than otherwise.

bullen 5y ago
Try going into space with a lithium battery powered rocket.

jabthedang 5y ago

kkfx 5y ago

Few small notes: - personally I think agriculture is one of the few (semi)industrial sectors who can really run on solar: we do not need tractors, we use them just because we have invented them as a replacement for animals used for similar "traction" works, nowadays we can lay out rails (like we have for certain irrigation bot on scale) [1] with enough self-orienting solar panels on top to power slow motors and slow pumps to slowly traverse a field for irrigation, fertilization etc. It's already a bit doable a step at a time; - we can't use only natural fertilizers (manure, ammonia from urine etc) just because we are too many, but a less giant population can. For instance Canada, Russia probably can live well enough with only natural fertilizers; - nuclear, fission since it's the sole operational on scale we have, go well enough with industry since modern industry have almost constant loads and NPP easily produce constant energy, surely they are not really renewable BUT so far they are the lest polluting and more effective mid/long term solution usable on scale, with enough heat and electricity we can't replace mineral coal for steel production, we can't fly airplanes [2] but we can reduce much their demand so buy 50-10 year of time to develop something else; - about consuming less: I've built a new house, with good insulation, VMC, p.v. etc so now I consume much less and live better than before, BUT to build it I've used many resources and the same apply to us all. It's easy to say "we can consume less" when to reach that goal we need to consume much more... It's not much different for food: if I buy a bit of land and build a kind of plant for poultry, trouts, a bit of crops, freezers, oxygenation systems for the water, auto-cleaning and recycling systems for poultry rooms to make fertilizers etc I'll not be self-sufficient in food but can probably produce enough to survive in a no such bad manner. Unfortunately that demand a gazillion or resources just to nourish a small family for a not that big timeslice (plant do not last more than few decades and nothing makes possible rebuild them with local resources). That's to say: we are a society, we are interconnected, we can't progress alone, we can't survive without a certain critical mass of humans working together spread around the planet. That's the hyper-big issue. [1] https://www.ers.usda.gov/media/9165/june17_datafeature_schaible_photo.jpg https://www.ers.usda.gov/media/9165/june17_datafeature_schai... or simpler https://media.istockphoto.com/photos/wheel-line-irrigation-system-picture-id152149646 https://media.istockphoto.com/photos/wheel-line-irrigation-s... [2] yes, few nuclear airplanes have been experimented with limited success in the '70s but they were left in the oblivion since they are just too dangerous and barely capable of fly themselves without any load.

panick21_ 5y ago

> you need coal, oil and gas to melt steel and burn lime stone for concrete Flat out factually wrong. > 3. You cannot make food with electricity at scale; tractors, trucks and fertilizers need hydrocarbons. Flat out factually wrong. > 4. The tree is the best solar panel and battery in one Show the math on this. > Going into space is a completely meaningless exercise Matter of opinion.