The People On ATS Have Changed

Thanks for the link. I learned something from it allthough most of it I already knew. I just think we need to keep ALL our options open and it already seems we are going that way already. I know it takes ALOT of energy to procude H2, more then it takes to get at the Sweet crude stuff we are so addicted to, I'm not talking about setting up a complete H2 economy RIGHT AWAY. We obvously need Fusion to do that, but getting started is not hard at all. IMO The best way to help clean up our act would be to invest invest invest. Money talks and bull# walks as the saying goes. There is also another type of solar tech that is starting to get off the grownd, it's called the Enviro Mission Solar Tower. It's going to be built in Australia and will produce 200 Megawatts of power when completed. Google it up you'll be impressed. Australia is going to build 5 of them, and China is going to build at least 7. Even if we do not get off of Oil completely we can use technology to reduce demand.

Another far off solution(and I am thinking in Far Off terms do not get me wrong, I'm being as realistic as I can possibly be with my laymans knowledge of the subject) would be to completely re-build from the bottom up the Internal Combustion Engine using molecular precision instruments. The main reason why Cars are inefficent today is because they were produced using a Top Down approach(which I call Bulk technology) and that is imperfect to say the least. It is theoretically possbile to get the emmissions from combustion down to almost nothing. But then again that is FAR off in the future and we may find something else in the meanwhile.

Point is we need to utilize all of our resources to reduce demand for Black Gold, at all costs. You have any ideas to add?

To drogo, I know man, it can be hard and myself? I don't ask people of your stature to do this kind of stuff, just recycling and minding what you do is more than enough in todays age keep pluggin away. OH! and are you trying fluorescent bulbs?

Originally posted by Off_The_Street

I see all this talk about magic alternative energy as the solution to all our problems, and no one has ever sat down and posted exactly how they plan on doing this.

Am I the only person who has actually done any analysis of this problem? And if so, why?

Well that's not helping at all. There are two options. a) we could do something or b) we could sit back and watch the world die and us with it.

So, let's all be good people and choose a)

Now let's work out the details! But saying no, it's not going to work doesn't help anyone.

FYI, CNN is airing a special tonight (Sunday March 27) called Melting Point, about global warming. I believe it is on at 8:00 EST. The advertisements are saying things like, What is the environmental impact from global warming? and showing ice flows and houses falling into the ocean. Good for mainstream awareness.

[edit on 3/27/2005 by rwatkins]

Originally posted by sardion2000
here is also another type of solar tech that is starting to get off the grownd, it's called the Enviro Mission Solar Tower. It's going to be built in Australia and will produce 200 Megawatts of power when completed. Google it up you'll be impressed. Australia is going to build 5 of them, and China is going to build at least 7. Even if we do not get off of Oil completely we can use technology to reduce demand.

Yes, I read about that in Popular Mechanics and Wired magazines few months ago. It look great! But I wanted to see if it is truly economic feasible out of that and hopefully further new developments would lead to 200 Gigawatts of power instead of megawatts.

Originally posted by sardion2000
Another far off solution(and I am thinking in Far Off terms do not get me wrong, I'm being as realistic as I can possibly be with my laymans knowledge of the subject) would be to completely re-build from the bottom up the Internal Combustion Engine using molecular precision instruments. The main reason why Cars are inefficent today is because they were produced using a Top Down approach(which I call Bulk technology) and that is imperfect to say the least. It is theoretically possbile to get the emmissions from combustion down to almost nothing. But then again that is FAR off in the future and we may find something else in the meanwhile.

Great innovation you got there.

Originally posted by sardion2000
Point is we need to utilize all of our resources to reduce demand for Black Gold, at all costs. You have any ideas to add?

Right now, I'm reading Paul Roberts' "The End of Oil" book that I just bought recently. I'm only in the Part One section so far.

We are at the end stage of the Hydrocarbon Age. However, I firmly believe that there will be a new source of energy to replace the hydrocarbons (oil, coal, gas) and the hydrogens (nuclear, hydrogen, water, wind, solar) in the future. It is really in the distant reaches of space within our Solar System, waiting to be discovered, mined, processed and delivered to Earth en masse. This I predict will happen and Mars will be the first step to finding new source of energy in the outer space.

humanoid says:

"Well that's not helping at all. There are two options. a) we could do something or b) we could sit back and watch the world die and us with it. So, let's all be good people and choose a). Now let's work out the details! But saying no, it's not going to work doesn't help anyone."

You're saying, in effect, 'We need more energy, I don't know how to do it, so let's work out the details.'

Before you can work out the details, you need to know what your options are -- and aren't.

Photovoltaics will not give us enough power, even if we were to cut our present energy usage in half and held it steady there -- which simply won't happen. Photovoltaics are expensive and hazardous to make, and they cover up the ground which will, in effect, render hundreds of square miles under these massive solar arrays as worthless. There is no present way to store the energy which is neither non-hazardous nor cost-effective.

The only thing we can use now -- or in the forseeable future -- to cut our dependence on hydrocarbons is nuclear fission, which is certainly not the perfect power source!

But unfortunately, it's all we have that can do the trick.

What are your recommendations, humanoidcontent?


[edit on 27-3-2005 by Off_The_Street]

Off_The_Steet, you say you've researched alternative energy. Did you investigate Geothermal Power Plants? What is your take on this?

I think this looks promising. It looks like there are several test sites allready running. I need more time to look into it. I did a search and there is alot of info on it.

Originally posted by humanoidcontent
OH! and are you trying fluorescent bulbs?

Fluorescent lights ae much harder on the eyes, which are a non-renewable resource

Fluorescent light tubes and the supporting ballasts are also bad for the environment. The ballasts have PCBs.
So, we use less energy but create more hazardous waste....makes sense to me...NOT!!

RWatkins says:

"Off_The_Steet, you say you've researched alternative energy. Did you investigate Geothermal Power Plants? What is your take on this?"

"I think this looks promising. It looks like there are several test sites allready running. I need more time to look into it. I did a search and there is alot of info on it."

Before I go into one of my typical long-winded answers, gwatkins, I invite you to join us in the alternate energy research thread at www.abovetopsecret.com... We need people like you to contribute to this thread.

Geothermal is a niche source, and if you live in New Zealand or Iceland or Yellowstone National Park, it is worth exploiting (and it is being exploited).

But think of the engineering problems with geothermal. If you have geothermal capabililties near the surface, then your site, by definition, is geologically unstable. Do you want to rely on a power source which has to be located near extremes in volcanism with the associated earthquakes? I certainly wouldn't consider it a good investment!

Of course, we could bore a three-mile deep hole, pump water into it, and capture the resulting steam to do work. But think of the infrastructure costs, and how much thermal energy would be lost as the steam travels (and condenses) up through a couple of miles of bore. The good news is that it would not be high-tech, brand-new engineering. We can drill deep for oil; we do it all the time.

A better approach, in my opinion, would be to use big Stirling-cycle engines that operate off the temperature delta of surface seawater and water at a couple hundred meters' depth. If you had these Stirlings on an offshore oil platform (which makes sense), you could use the elecricity to distill the seawater, take the hydrogen out, make it into a liquid, and ship it to shore.

Actually, when you think about it, with enough power, you could be completely self-sufficient on an offshore platform: Thermal delta means electricity, which means distilled water, and food-farming in the sea -- that could be the future for a lot of us!

[edit on 28-3-2005 by Off_The_Street]

Thanks Off_The_Street, for the input. I see your point that geothermal would be limited to locations, unstable ones at that. I also like your idea on offshore rigs using sterling engines.

I will take a look at the alternative energy research project and maybe join. I will U2U with more info.

humanoidcontent,



interesting, your..HUMAN SURVIVAL comment , but in order for that it


seems to me, we need HONEST info first

and I'm positive , we're getting spin , spin , spin...

[ that's what my awareness has been noticing ] , pure [ sugar coated doggy doodoo ] spin...and I'm not just talking global warming either...