by Big Tex 60 Replies latest social current
Fellow posters............we already have the technology for sustainable energy resources here ON EARTH! We don't need H3. The problem isn't finding more energy, the problem is that the present "system" of thinking and money making, i.e. greed keeps it from being employed on a large scale.
Terri
we already have the technology for sustainable energy resources here ON EARTH!
For instance?
Big Tex, for instance, we have SOLAR energy. It won't be easy at first, but, once in place, it will be so much healthier and cheaper! There's one book I'd recommend anyone to read: Solviva: How to Grow $500,000.00 on One Acre and Peace On Earth by Anna Eady............then there's another book I have: The Great Book of Hemp. Did you know that Henry Ford built a car out of hemp fiber and that hemp oil is better for us than Omega3, from fish? Hemp fibres are longer and stronger than cotton fibres. Those are just TWO I can think of off the top of my head................Dennis Weaver's "Earthship" home is built out of old tires, aluminum cans, and rammed earth. He uses solar to heat and cool his home. I could continue.....................but, I want to also apologize for hijacking your thread. I didn't mean to start a war here, but, it really pissed me off when Gita got so snotty, and started name calling. I apologize for my part in it.
we have SOLAR energy. It won't be easy at first, but, once in place
Oh I agree. I'm a huge believer in solar. But, and the reasons are debatable, we don't have the technology currently to use it on a wide spread basis. Actually I've read where hydrogen fuel cells are the wave of the future to power ground transportation, i.e. cars, buses, et al.
As for greed, there's no question. Personally I wish they'd throw a few billion in research and solve the solar/hydrogen problems and move away from fossil fuel. They don't because of money. Before WWII, it was thought nuclear fission was decades away if even possible. But the U.S. gathered the best minds, spent a billion in infrastructure and manpower and 4 years later they achieved the result. I believe something similar could happen, albeit not in the same time frame, but it could jump us up to a whole new level of technology.
Or not.
BT, I will confess that I have not really looked into the hydrogen issue yet. I just freaked out when I first heard Bush talking about the moon and Mars, then, when I saw this thread, I let my emotions get the better of me, and got on my soap box. There is also wind power to think about, haven't done much looking into that yet, either, but, I agree with you, if money and minds were focused, as they so often are on other things, like the moon and Mars, it's amazing how quickly they can get things done. And, contrary to what some people may think, I do try to walk and live my talk. I recycle as much as my circumstances permit me to. I recycle at work also. My car is ten years old. My apartment uses electric power. I give my books and used clothing to others when I can. In little ways, I try. At this point, I can't buy my own home, but, if I did, I'd try my best to make it as energy efficient as possible. I'm not against technology, per se, I'm against waste of natural resources. I'm for trying to find sustainable alternatives that do as little damage to the earth, etc. and other people as much as possible.
One problem I always heard about fusion reactors was the heat involved. I've read that they could construct fusion reactors now but that would mimic the sun's 10 million degrees and that would vaporize the reactor (along with a lot of other things). I haven't heard anything about it in some time, so I have no idea where they're at now.
Fusion is the banging of two elements together so hard they stick together and release energy as they do so. Some radiation is released in process but fuel and waste products are incomparably unradioactive compared to 'nuclear power' which is, fission, banging a very small particle into an element so hard it splits it apart.
As you note it requires humungous levels of heat.
In the centre of the sun it requires less heat, as the pressure is very very high, and just as a pressure cooker uses pressure to cook at a lower temperature, so does the sun.
It is rather difficult to duplicate the pressure in a reactor, downright impossible without several hundred thousand kilometers of sun directly above your head. So we need temperatures that would melt ANYTHING... made of matter.
Magnetic fields are not made of matter! The Russians came up with a design called a tokomak, which is basically a ring dougnut shaped doodad which contains the plasma (gas so hot the atoms in it have lost their electrons) in a magnetic field.
This has been the big problem with fusion power. I remember at Primary School in the '70's that fusion would be lighting our homes in the 80's. It is very hard to do and so far the longest sustained fusion reaction has been tens of seconds long, and required more power to instigate than could be harnessed (this data changes, so I might be a little out-of-date on this).
He3 requires lower temperatures to fuse, from memory. The sun fuses hydrogen into helium, and helium into a succession of heavier elements, the rate of heavier element formation increasing as the hydrogen is used up. We truly are stardust, as the big bang was just hydrogen and helium formation, nothing heavier (although there are tentative theories which indicate some heavy elements may have formed in the big bang too).
If 'we' crack it, then we have cheap and comparatively clean power. If we get good at He3 fusion, we could one day get isotypical H or He to fuse. If we can get H to fuse, then fuel will be water... however, that's a step ahead, and if zero-point energy can be tapped before then (which is possible as fusion is so damned hard), we're likely to regard fusion power in the same light as steam power; big magnificent machines, but rather complicated and inefficient.
Is helium 3 in a gaseous state or solid?
In pure form a gas. Just as you can have oxygen in chalk, so too you can have helium in solid form when it's a compound.
sunnygal; nah, what gets the pro-techies backs up is non-techies who don't know what they are talking about. We could mine Helium 3 on the Moon for 1,000 years at 1,000 times the rate of consumption quoted in the article... and we would only need a cube 3.6 miles (6km) on its side in all that time. A lump of rock the size of Everest would be more than enough. And that is 1/1,225,000,000,000,000 (let's call it one million billionth) of the weight of the moon, or 0.0000000000000008%.
The orbital change would not be measurable.
Now, okay, I have a bit of a scientific background, but anyone with a desire to can type 'weight of moon' (yeah, I know it's mass) into a search engine and get the answer just as I did. The rest is elementary maths, with a figure of 3,500 kg/cubic metre taken as a weight of ore, a figure which I thinks right but which anyone could estimate with a few moment work.
Instead of this, people panic and run around like headless chickens. Just because we were spoon-fed at the meetings doesn't mean we can be spoon fed now. Take responsibility, and don't make it someone elses fault if you don't know something you could have found out easily.
Moon already is an energy source -- it provides the tides on the ocean and tidal power is already being harnessed
stillajwexelder: Clever! (that's a compliment by the way!)
I would not habe taken it any other way abbaddon!!
Instead of this, people panic and run around like headless chickens. Just because we were spoon-fed at the meetings doesn't mean we can be spoon fed now. Take responsibility, and don't make it someone elses fault if you don't know something you could have found out easily.
???? I seem to have missed something here.................who was I making at fault, and for what?? I happen to have a deeply spiritual view that it is wrong to misuse and abuse what nature has provided for us. And, for that matter, I did admit and apologize to Big Tex for my emotional response and hijacking his thread And, I'm still puzzled at your reason/need to chastise me?????
