 Global warming and flying cars., On some George Jetson type of sh*t. |
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 Aug 12 2005, 08:48 PM
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#26
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Running Target  Group: Members Posts: 1,428 Joined: 9-June 02 Member No.: 2,860  |
Water, by itself, is not going to release any energy. It takes energy to crack water, but you can't combust water (by itself**) to get energy and make a car work. Now, water is the only exhaust product of hydrogen-fueled fuel cells (and you can even trap that water if you feel like it), but it's not the fuel. Hydrogen-burning combustion engines will probably produce some nitrous oxides, just because the nitrogen in the ambient air will get mixed up in reactions in the combustion chambers. If you have an outside power source (like a coal-fired plant, a nuclear plant, solar power, whatever), you can crack water to produce a fuel (hydrogen), or you can use water to steam-reform oil, coal, etc. into assorted flammable gases. But in none of those cases is water the actual fuel. **Incidentally, water will burn with fluorine. (Of course, that's not water powering the car itself.) But if you want to have a super cold tank of liquid fluorine in your car and hydrofluoric acid in the exhaust, you're probably a toxic shaman or suicidal, or both. Plus, it's not a very efficient fuel combination. Even fluorine has trouble making water burn.
Petrochemicals are a convenient source for many, but not all, synthetic materials. Heck, petrochemicals are not even *required* for synthetics normally synthesized from petrochemicals. In addition to the genetic engineering route (engineer germs to crap plastics), there are other chemical routes to synthesize petroleum-derived synthetics.
Even if you mean Titan (the moon of Saturn, not Jupiter), it's not efficient to access the hydrocarbons there. It'd be easier to engineer some bacteria, keep them fed on sewage and sunlight, and let them crap out profitable synthetics. For some more complicated synthetics (like spidersilk), you might need a more advanced animal (like the "spider goats," goats engineered to produce spider silk in their milk.) One fascinating possibility is fusion-powered recycling. Just shovel in all your trash into a fusion-powered electric arc and send the resulting plasma through an system of looping magnetic pipelines. Isotopes of different weights will take different paths through the pipelines, allowing you to separate the feedstream isotope by isotope. Collect hydrogen there, carbon here, aluminum on the next bend, iron over there, etc. Then use the waste heat from the operation to power the chemical plants that recombine the elements into steel, aluminum alloys, petrochemicals... But, in any case, "going green" doesn't mean living in a world of primitive materials.
Or just vat-grow muscle tissue, stimulated and toned to the preferred degree of tenderness and marbling. (Lesson: when you go eco-friendly, you don't have to resort to 18th Century technology and vegan diets.) |
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Aug 12 2005, 09:11 PM
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#27
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Why oh why didn't I take the blue pill. Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 6,545 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Gloomy Boise Idaho Member No.: 2,006 |
We should restrict everyone food intake too, force them to use pill supplements as well. Get rid of every drink but water, make them eat soy everything. And then shoot the people who don't want to live that way. You sound like a vegetarian, peddle your ideas to Peta. |
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Aug 12 2005, 09:15 PM
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#28
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Incertum est quo loco te mors expectet; Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 6,548 Joined: 24-October 03 From: DeeCee, U.S. Member No.: 5,760 |
I'm guessing you didn't make that up, but that is one of the neatest (and funniest) ideas I've heard. Somehow the idea of using fusion to sort my tin from glass just cracks me up. |
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Aug 12 2005, 09:36 PM
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#29
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Grand Master of Run-Fu Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 6,840 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Tir Tairngire Member No.: 178 |
There's another source: Thermal Depolymerization, or TDP for short. It can convert almost anything organic into long-chain hydrocarbons, in theory. Currently, the research is focused on making the process more economical; but with gas prices skyrocketing, even if it takes $55 to make a barrel of light, sweet crude using TDP, it'll be more cost-efficient than traditional pumped oil.
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Aug 12 2005, 09:54 PM
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#30
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 675 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Seattle Member No.: 2,034 |
I have heard (a friend read a book partly about the following) that a large part of the reason plastic is so cheap and thus so prevalent is that we use so much gasoline & fuel oil. The plastic is made out of the longest chain hydrocarbons which would otherwise be toxic waste and have to be further processed somehow (probably they could still be burned, just less efficiently). Happens that one thing we can process it into is plastic. So if we reduce gas & oil burning we will simultaneously and automatically reduce our use of plastic in some proportion.
Depends on how many people you want to support. Realistically I think people start getting shot in large numbers long before we reach that point.
Don't troll. |
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Aug 12 2005, 10:31 PM
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#31
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Deus Absconditus Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 2,742 Joined: 1-September 03 From: Downtown Seattle, UCAS Member No.: 5,566 |
From this thread here and elsewhere, I have comt to the conclusion that you are more deliberately abrasive than Brillo, and seem incapable of making a positive statement. Which is fine, of course, if you're happy with it. Just don't try to win the Dumpshock Sunshine and Rainbows competition. |
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Aug 12 2005, 10:34 PM
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#32
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,013 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
This is Dumpshock. The winner of the Sunshine and Rainbows competition will be awarded the prize atop a heap of bodies.
~J |
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Aug 12 2005, 10:35 PM
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#33
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Deus Absconditus Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 2,742 Joined: 1-September 03 From: Downtown Seattle, UCAS Member No.: 5,566 |
Well, yeah. But it'd be a shame if you got to the top and saw all them bodies and was like, "Heavens! All my friends are corpses!" and were actually *surprised* by it.
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Aug 12 2005, 10:37 PM
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#34
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 807 Joined: 9-October 04 Member No.: 6,741 |
That explains the miniguns mounted on the front door. |
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Aug 12 2005, 10:42 PM
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#35
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Why oh why didn't I take the blue pill. Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 6,545 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Gloomy Boise Idaho Member No.: 2,006 |
You know I come here to talk about shadowrun, not get pushed people's ideas about politics, religion, or how they should eat. My response was to his.
If I said, "we should force everyone to be Catholic becasue its smart" people would flip. And they would be in their right. Keep your politics out of my Shadowrun, this isn't Reeses. @Adarael, you have to have me confused with someone else. I have my bad mood days, but I am one of the nicer people on the board. |
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Aug 12 2005, 10:59 PM
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#36
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Target Group: Members Posts: 77 Joined: 21-July 05 From: San Francisco native Member No.: 7,511 |
The water engine: http://members.tripod.com/~anon99/water_en...ine/index2.html Google it up, there are several websites on different water engines.
Cattle, you say I'm wrong, the requote me agreeing with me. What's up with that? Did you even read anything I wrote?
Petrochemicals - used to make plastics. Jupiter is full of them. And yeah, oil don't grow on trees all that fast. It's running out, and that will speed up over time and eventually dry out.
Cotton is not anywhere near as efficient as hemp for textiles. Bamboo can replace most modern uses of hard wood. Hemp and corn both can replace wood for paper. |
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Aug 12 2005, 11:09 PM
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#37
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Target Group: Members Posts: 77 Joined: 21-July 05 From: San Francisco native Member No.: 7,511 |
Who's advocating anything? Well you are, but not me. I'm just pointing out a basic fact - consumption of meat uses vastly more resources and is a social luxury not a necessity. If we really wanted to, we could go far on resource management by cutting it out of the system. I made no statements on whether or not that was a good idea in terms of social dynamics. If the facts of the world have to agree with you own personal choices, you won't get very far in life. The fact of the matter is, human beings do a vast amount of wasteful things that in terms of just resources are not ideal choices. All of us here, posting on this board, in raw economic terms, could find better things to do with our time. But we -choose- to be here. However that doesn't mean we aren't making a, technically, wasteful descision. As for thread relevancy - the thread does refer to global warming, and out of that came the issue of overpopulation or likely populations. My comments are in reference to the notion that we -could- support a vastly larger population if we simply make choices different than those we do make. That says nothing for advocacy, I'm not the one making it political here. |
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Aug 12 2005, 11:42 PM
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#38
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Midnight Toker Group: Members Posts: 7,686 Joined: 4-July 04 From: Zombie Drop Bear Santa's Workshop Member No.: 6,456 |
The problem with cutting down on meat production is simple nutrition. It is possible to make up for the lost protien, fats, and minerals. However, it takes a great deal of effort to do so. Between careful diet management and actually following the food pyramid, the latter is much easier than the former.
Personally, I say just move all farming out into outer space. This would be good for Earth's enviroment and allow the production of enough meat to support everyone. After the multi-trillion dollar investment of actually building farming communities in outer space and shipping up all of the livestock, that is. As for global warming, I say it will keep going untill it stops on its own. The thing about global warming is that there is absolutly no evidence that suggest that human activities contribute to global warming in any significant manner. It is far more probable that so called global warming is just a part of the Earth's natural temperature cycle. |
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Aug 12 2005, 11:55 PM
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#39
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,028 Joined: 9-November 02 From: The Republic of Vermont Member No.: 3,581 |
And, of course, everything you read on the Internet is true. The engine on that site claims to be using as fuel hydrogen that has been separated out of water using a chemical reaction with aluminum, producing aluminum oxides and hydrogen, which is then burned in the engine to produce water and power. The problem is... do you have any idea how much energy it takes to produce the aluminum you need to produce your hydrogen fuel? Aluminum was practically unknown until the modern era, because it takes godawful insane amounts of electricity to refine it from the ore. This is just the usual "we can use electrolysis to produce hydrogen from water, and then burn the hydrogen for power!" stupidity with the point where thermodynamics steps up and kicks your ass pushed back a step further behind the curtain. You use more energy breaking the hydrogen out of the water than you'll ever get back burning the hydrogen. On top of that, you use more energy breaking the aluminum out of aluminum oxide ores than you'll ever get back turning the aluminum back into aluminum oxide. Trying to hide point one behind point two just gets your ass kicked by thermodynamics twice. TANSTAAFL. |
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Aug 13 2005, 12:03 AM
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#40
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,428 Joined: 9-June 02 Member No.: 2,860 |
That's not a water engine, it's a hydrogen engine. It combines two reactants (water and aluminum) to produce hydrogen, which is burned. So, no, it doesn't run on water "and nothing else." And John makes a good point about how frickin' energy-hungry aluminum production is. If you're going to go through the trouble of churning out aluminum to make hydrogen, just use the energy to make hydrogen from water.
Except it's at the bottom of a gravity well 60km/s deep, plus another several kps from Earth. And Jupiter is not full of petrochemicals. It is 75% hydrogen by mass, 25% helium, plus some traces of other things include water, ammonia, and (yes) methane. But methane is a trace, not vast puddles of oil.
I'd stick to synthetics. Something germs crap out, like cellulose, or maybe some polyethylene reinforced with glass fibers. Glass: a great material you can make with sand and solar heat. You don't have to turn to the stone age to live green. |
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Aug 13 2005, 12:22 AM
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#41
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Chicago Survivor Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 5,079 Joined: 28-January 04 From: Canton, GA Member No.: 6,033 |
Hover test
That is the most current video, still from a few years ago. Note, no fuel line connected. Note, more than 5 feet, more like 15 to 20. Note, it's listed as a hover test, hence why it's not zipping around. The line you can make out at the end as it settles down it the tether required by the FAA for the testing, nothing else. |
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Aug 13 2005, 12:25 AM
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#42
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,428 Joined: 9-June 02 Member No.: 2,860 |
Actually, I got the idea from "Voyage from Yesteryear," by James P. Hogan. But if the power is cheap enough, it should be plausible. Crack compounds to their elements, sort them out, and then recombine them into basic ingots, oils, and other chemical feedstocks. |
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Aug 13 2005, 08:49 AM
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#43
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Deus Absconditus Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 2,742 Joined: 1-September 03 From: Downtown Seattle, UCAS Member No.: 5,566 |
Uh huh. |
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Aug 13 2005, 11:37 AM
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#44
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 530 Joined: 11-June 05 Member No.: 7,441 |
C'mon, let's not trash hydrogen based engines too much. The use of hydrogen extracted from water is a highly renewable, available, and portable (and potable!) resource. Using elecytrolysis to produce hydrogen from water isn't stupid in and of itself. Using "non-renewable" energy sources to do it is stupid. Yes, in that case, thermodynamics steps up and kicks your butt. But in the case of renewable resources... well, the laws of thermodynamics still apply, but in the case of renewable resources, the sun pumps plenty of usable energy into the system (Earth) and will continue to do so for the forseeable future. The fact is, hydrogen and water are *not* a reasonable energy source. They are just a way of making the energy source *portable*, a critical feature of sources like oil and gas; they obviously have the added bonus of being highly renewable and minimally polluting. (Aside: Another nice feature is the water output; use your fuel, and get drinking water out of the equation! Add energy, get oxygen! There's a reason NASA loves this tech. Pound for pound, it's the best battery for manned space travel available, because you can go back and forth between battery, water and air.) But all that aside, don't knock the hydrogen based engines too much. They're potentially a big part of the renewable energy source problem. Just recognize that all it does is make the energy portable. You still have to get the actual energy somewhere else -- preferably from the sun or moon. |
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Aug 13 2005, 12:45 PM
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#45
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,428 Joined: 9-June 02 Member No.: 2,860 |
I'm all for hydrogen if... 1) You have a cheap power source to make it from water 2) You can find an easy way to store it Right now, hydrogen is most easily obtained from oil. It's a waste product of oil refining. |
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Aug 13 2005, 02:22 PM
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#46
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Incertum est quo loco te mors expectet; Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 6,548 Joined: 24-October 03 From: DeeCee, U.S. Member No.: 5,760 |
As has been said, the example is a load of hooey. It might function, but you'd be using more (whatever energy source) to run it than the existing hydrogen electrolysis systems used.
I read what you wrote, but it simply wasn't clear. You seemed to indicate that nature 'retaking land' wouldn't make a huge impact because so much land was already green. I refuted that, my original statement is clear. Are you rather suggesting that we could support a greater population on less land? Because that was not actually expressed in your original statement.
As has been pointed out, that is a wicked gravity well. Perhaps harvesting hydrogen from Jupiter (since it's lighter, and therefore farther out from the core) would make a little more sense? Then again, perhaps harvesting hydrogen from comets, open space, reasonably sized gas giants or any of the many other possible sources would make just a LITTLE more sense, all told. |
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Aug 13 2005, 08:27 PM
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#47
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,428 Joined: 9-June 02 Member No.: 2,860 |
Even a space elevator might incur transport costs of several nuyen per kilogram lowered to Earth, making it difficult to import any low-price, bulk commodity (like petrochemicals) to Earth. |
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Aug 13 2005, 09:11 PM
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#48
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,428 Joined: 9-June 02 Member No.: 2,860 |
And VatMeat gets closer to reality:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4148164.stm Get rid of the ranches if you want to, but you don't have to go vegan if you go green. Mmm. Cloned, vat-grown meat. Hey, if you vat-grew human meat, would it be cannibalism if you chowed on it? And could ghouls be sustained by it? |
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Aug 14 2005, 07:14 AM
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#49
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Horror Group: Members Posts: 5,322 Joined: 15-June 05 From: BumFuck, New Jersey Member No.: 7,445 |
VatMeat - Yum Yum. So much better than Soy. I think that SR's official canon needs to get with the pace of real tech. :) (Or at least, update again. What they thought was probably gonna be the primary food in 1989 is looking more like cheap ink and sauce in 2005. :P )
And about energy in autos and such - Solar energy is probably the best you could shoot for. The problems, however, lie in: A: Harvesting it in enough quantity. Ideally, we'd pull a Dyson Sphere scenario. Failing that, we can set up mucking huge networks of solar-collecting satelites around the moon or something. But that raises problem B early. B: Distributing it. While it's true that current power lines don't give a drek whether the electricity they conduct comes from the pure-yellow-sun, black-as-ass coal, neon-green nukes, or something else entirely, we have to get it into cars. If we go with the space collector idea, we also face the challenge of getting it down to earth. (Maybe make a space elevator that, instead of being used as an elevator cable, is a gigantic power conduit?) Then, the problem is getting it into a portable form - we'd need truely high capacity capacitors. SR 'solves' this problem with the Grid, but has anyone ever thought about the inherant unsafeness of that much juice running just under the pavement? I don't think it ever actually says how the power gets into your car from the Grid - is it like, arcing between the ground and the underside of your auto? Collection strips on the tires? What? C: Using it with an efficiency to rival petrochems. Let's face it. We all want voom voom. Especially when you're in a trade where your life and death may depend on your ride's ability to squeeze out 10 more KpH than the 'Star. To be truely acceptable, electric cars must: A: Offer the convienance of gasoline. Nobody has four hours to wait at the pump while their ride gets juiced. You need to plug an' chug, and chug fast. B: Offer an efficiency comparable to that of gasoline. You put the foot on the pedal, and you need to GO. Most people won't give a hoop if that GO is the form of a high pitched whine or the roaring rumble of a Hemi. (Me, I'm funny. If my car dosen't rumble, I don't feel like it's really going. :) ) C: Offer an economy comparable to gas. Even if you can do 0 - 60 in 3.8 seconds and your car fills it's batteries in two mintues time, it's still not very useful if you have to recharge it every few hours. So to summarize: We have all the energy we could ever possibly need. It's that huge glowin' thing, most Shadowrunners consider it a vauge childhood memory, if that. The problems are A: Harvesting it. B: Getting it to us. C: Using it properly. And I'm rambling, aren't I? :) |
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Aug 14 2005, 07:39 AM
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#50
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Midnight Toker Group: Members Posts: 7,686 Joined: 4-July 04 From: Zombie Drop Bear Santa's Workshop Member No.: 6,456 |
Nokola Tesla was working on a method of wireless energy transmission before his death. Unfortunatly, a lack of funding kept him from completing is work.
If someone could get Tesla's trdient energy transmitter to actually work, it would solve most energy traansmission and storage problems. There is no need for gasoline when power is simply broadcasted to your car. |
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Lo-Fi Version | Time is now: 27th June 2026 - 06:46 AM |
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