or just wrongly used

 

Wind power is criticised for not producing the goods, but it's because the wind turbines are so badly placed, if they had them out at sea they could actually get some strong winds

 

but yeah Nuclear fusion is the way forward, France are already using it to great effect.

Yep, the one thing the French have over everyone else...

Fuse ion

 

Hey, let's not forget, the French have great wine and cheese!:chef: (and really good biscuits/cookies, and a lot of other really great things!)

Scientists are after the truth. Some get hung up on one way of thinking at times, it has been true in the past.. But, it's a matter of bringing many disciplines together to find what's really going on, and I get the impression they have an understanding that some people really don't want to see.

Let's see.. Check Out the March 2005 issue of Scientific American - a pretty good look at the whole picture...

Fusion - it's already with us, and in truth, pretty much powers everything anyhow. The sun's energy and even our planet's composition, all the result of fusion. Even Uranium fuel for reactors - from fusion in an earlier star that condensed into planet Earth. However, to put fusion in a bottle - that's a trick. It's so much easier just to be smarter about how we use energy, and gather all we need from solar panels, wind, geothermal, biomass, and the like...

today is the day....

 

CARING FOR THE EARTH IS FUN

save the air conditioner, save the world

Wow didn't expect for you to be a supporter of that, I totally agree it's the way to go, at least until we find a way to make a renewable resource produce power efficiently (the ones we have right now are highly inefficient).

 

The thing with nuclear is that it isn't a completely "green" solution as there still can be alot of damage caused to the earth and CO2 produced when Uranium is mined and transported.

 

There are alot of improving technologies with renewable energy, it just they are fairly expensive now. And why would people ever want to shift from something they believe has a huge supply left and is cheap? Thats one of the big sociopolitical barriers renewable energy faces.

 

All forms of gaining energy have their downfalls, and everything including burning coal and using oil have their inefficiencies as alot of energy is lost in the form of heat.

The answer is right before us..

 

Right on, Briggins!;) I'll take my nuclear at 9 million miles away, filtered by the magnetic shield of earth and the atmosphere. Nuclear - Uranium - there's a lot of refining and mining involved, and the mess that makes. Plus, the machinery to make the pellets, the spent fuel, and the brittle, radioactive vessels.. It's just so much easier to make solar panels, wind turbines, and the like.

We have tremendous gains to be made in efficiency, and with excellent results - warmer homes, smoother running engines in vehicles, and better industrial processes - that's the 90% of the equation. Personally, I think the world is nuts - well, the US especially - because we rush ahead without seeing the easy solutions to the problems. Enjoy a cool home in summer. Run some air-conditioning. Enjoy a warm home in winter. Enjoy the hot pizza and cold beer! (or, warm beer for the European tastes!:)). It's all in the insulation, ventilation, and circulation in the building. And the rest of the answer is in renewables, in my cheeky opinion!:laugh3: I'm leaning towards solar, wind, and biomass-fueled generator systems in winter - one big advantage of locally produced power is much less line loss, and you can always use the waste heat in the process (heat your home, business, greenhouse, hot tub, sauna, etc..). GE Jenbach in Austria has a good example plant for a community that's working quite well - way ahead of the curve compared to anything I know if in North America (the land mass of mass consumption).. When we ever learn.. It takes time to revamp the old structures, and that's where the easy "low-hanging" fruit are.

Plus, the fuel for your home can be as local as your back yard. Pellet fueled biomass power systems are as simple as tree limb wastes from pruning street trees, lawn clippings, scrap lumber and building wastes, non-recyclable paper wastes, dry banana peels, etc. And we really only need the extra fuel in the depths of winter, when light is limited and heating/lighting demands high. For those in dry, equatorial regions, the sun is there much of the time, and it's usually a cooling issue. That's insulation & pure solar territory, and Saudi Arabia, Chile, & Equatorial Africa are ideal for solar to the max! Even Argentina, where it's dry wheat and ranching land, would be well suited for solar. In the Sub-arctic (most of Canada, N tier US, and Europe) we'll have to be flexible. Catch wind in the oceans and lakes, gather sun when the hay is being cut, and everything else in winter.

So far, a start. Lots to go. Happy Earth Day!!;)

Hmmm.. the tropics are somewhat a challenge, in another sense. If it rains a lot, and not much wind, what to do.. That's best solved perhaps with hydro-power, efficient turbines for lower wind speeds, and given sufficient biomass, gengas plants. As always, efficiency is just so easy by comparison, whether tropics or temperate, arctic or sub-arctic, it's the #1 fix to the problem.

Dry tropics are another challenge - sun in the dry season, rain in the wet - so solar in the dry, and biomass in the wet?? What do you do in Jakarta??

Yeah, you hit the nail there Chuck. The conclusion I've come to is basically there are lots of alternatives out there that are worth exploring. But the easiest thing we can do, like you said, is start with building our buildings to be energy friendly. Good ventilation, circulation, etc. It doesn't get much easier or cheaper then passive solar energy. Just building your windows facing the right direction can save alot.

And the other fundamental thing that has to be looked at is exactly how much energy we are using, even on a small individual level. I think thats the point of Earth Day, Earth Hour, etc...is reflecting on what YOU can do on a small level.

Things aren't going to change overnight or anything, but we can work toward change.

 

Now you seem to be a big fan of biomass. I guess one thing that troubles me is when something such as a full field of corn is grown specifically for biofuel, since alot of non-renewable resources go into the production.

But I would be interested to know exactly how much energy can be used by like you said tree branches, lawn clippings, etc.

Oh yes, the wonderous ways we solve problems here! Corn is best used for food, I agree. And perhaps some by-products of corn (such as corn oil) could be used for some bio-fuels. But it's one of the most energy-intensive, fertilizer-intensive crops, and the rest of the world needs food! (& most Americans could use a little less food, in my 'umble opinion:laugh3:) I like biomass because it can be from any local resource - anything that grows can be used for fuel. As far as auto fuel, even there the future holds promise in the enzyme & catalyst science(s). But there again, we can double fuel efficiency with better engine designs (going from 25% to 50% in an internal combustion engine isn't all that hard with the Miller effect), and better aerodynamics should double that as well. Having the stores nearer the homes would reduce miles driven. But it all makes too much sense. Americans tend to resist common-sense things, in favor of techno-fixes, thinking we can simply scoop up, drill, or suck up some "new" deposit of something, and cook it enough to make a nice cheap fuel. Sure, we can do that - but is it smart?! You guys up in Canada know quite well about this - Canadian natural gas is consumed to cook oil shale now, and we're piping solvents up to the sites to thin the super-thick oil coming off the process.. And oil sands, too. Companies are itching to get at the layers of hydro-methane sitting on the ocean bottom, and lower grades of coal.. It's the usual insanity - given the intensity of consumption, one can only expect the madness to continue.. Or, maybe new office-holders with actually steer us away from fossils, and towards common sense ways - certainly there is a groundswell of support amongst the public like never before, so there is hope!

Passive solar is a great way to build, I agree! And since the 70's, a great body of knowledge has been gained about what works, and what doesn't (like not over-doing the south facing windows, as some of the early homes became "solar ovens" in summer!). Newer skylights are available now that won't leak like the older ones, and some can operate as vents in summer (much as the older ones did, but with better mechanisms and seals)..

Haha yeah, it is ridiculous how much the modern world and powers that be want to extract whatever oil they can get their hands on. And the tar sands in Alberta is a prime example. 1 step forward, 2 steps back if you ask me.

 

Now gas hydrates, something we learned about in geology there. In the text book they say that the most hydrocarbons available are in these gas hydrates down in in the ocean (which makes sense since oil comes from plankton and algae). But they said its extremely hard and unsafe to extract these hydrocarbons....do you know if there is much extraction of them going on currently?

 

But man, can't they just re-invest this money into something longer lasting?!?! But like you said that would make tooo much sense :P

 

 

And yes good point about overdoing it on passive solar heating. Its one thing to be able to have your home comfortable in the winter, but perhaps keeping it cool in the summer is the biggest problem. One of the best solutions I've seen/heard about is a roll out tarp like structure that pulls out over and shades the windows in the summer. That way you still get some sunlight, but its not going to evaporate your beer or cook your pizza thats sitting out on your coffee table from the night before.

double post sorry.

but yeah Nuclear fusion is the way forward, France are already using it to great effect.

 

I guess this is a bit of a nerdy detail, but it needs to be pointed out. France isn't powered by fusion; in fact, no one is, because no one has managed to make a fusion reactor that creates more energy than it uses. Supposedly a useful one will be ready in a few decades, but for now you can't really get power that way.

 

If I remember right, France uses a technique of reusing "spent" cores from fission reactors, so they can get most of their power from fission without producing unmanageably huge amounts of waste. It's still fission, though, not fusion.

On a Related Note....:square::sunny:

Visit your local Energy Fair This summer!:cool:

...ours is on the 20th-22nd of June in Custer. You can check it out on YouTube if you like -

..And I'd like to add that you can find a lot of fairly traded products at these events :>

 

 

And for the Proper English Perspective: