Kentucky's recent oil spill should be a sign to change our energy economy

[Areloch]

Sadly I'm not optimistic, those problems will probably not be solved by the time I'm in the ground 6 feet under.

Solar is a bust, solar farm is just as bad for the ecology (see cooked birds and displaced animals). Non-farm solar panels are a freaking fire hazards (for firefighters). Wind causes a shitload of bird death and noise pollution. Tidal harvesters killing marine life. The only solution is a rapid decline in consumption, which really means a lot of people are gonna have to die. Nukes are our greatest and best option, especially with the all the newer, safer design with built-in kill switch, but with the world being ignorant and self-righteous hypocrites screaming "NO TO NUKES", we ain't gonna get a new gen. up and running anytime soon to actually make a difference.

Want changes to the energy economy? Cut living standards, good luck with that, especially with politics and shit mucking it up.

Actually, all forms of renewable are getting more efficient by leaps and bounds, solar especially. Was reading an article about a "Solar Sunflower', which is basically a mini solar reflector farm the size of a radar dish, and it's actually got pretty good output of power, but the upfront price makes it comparatively untenable because solar cells have gotten so cheap so fast that they became cheaper while the sunflower was still in development.

Another similar model being tested to the sunflower is a dish-sized reflector farm that points at a sterling engine to operate the mechanical unit to generate power and that's showing a lot of promise in testing in Africa.

Wind power is also becoming more efficient as well, so even if there was a restriction on how many units could be built in an area for ecological reasons, you could still get solid power gains for the local region.

The real problem currently is less that 'renewables don't make enough energy', and more 'the energy it generates is not constant' and our current powergrids are not set up to retain power not utilized during low usage periods or use power stored for low generation periods. However, large battery units are actually making massive strides in the past few years as well, and large-scale storage of power for builds and neighborhoods could become a reality in a decade or two. (Look at Elon Musk's massive push for localized large power storage units for houses, and Vanadium electrolysis batteries for industrial-scale for examples.)

If the efficiency of the renewables we have that do work continues to rise, and we can store the power that we're making but not using, then most of these concerns become less of the doom and gloom issue they're made out to be.

Also remember, that in the R&D world, just because something is designed, built, tested and it doesn't pan out doesn't mean that the entire field is worthless. It just means that particular implementation didn't pan out.

 

[Cowabungaa]

Not sure that 126k gallons is all that much, the old pool was 40k gallons, sure in the immediate area it will pollute but in the grand scheme of things meh.

Yeah, that's just 3000 barrels of oil. That's not even enough to fill 4 railcars when you get right down to it. Pretty damn small when you get right down to it.

The thing is that a teeny tiny bit heavily pollutes a vastly bigger volume of water. So sure in absolute numbers the spill isn't big, the damage that relatively small amount of oil causes is way bigger.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

The only solution is a rapid decline in consumption, which really means a lot of people are gonna have to die. Nukes are our greatest and best option, especially with the all the newer, safer design with built-in kill switch...

I'm confused. Are you saying our best and greatest option is nuclear power, or to kill millions of people with nuclear weapons?

 

[BrokenTinker]

snio

You know what occurred to me? If we can clone and replicate animals, would it not be possible to preserve endangered creatures in that way? It's an interesting thought experiment that could be achievable in future generations. This isn't Jurassic Park and long dead dinosaurs, after all, we have the genetic material available for study now.

Cloning... has a lot of issues (which was acknowledged by researchers on the AMA, rna can be a *****). And others have pointed out the need for a viable gee pool. Just look at the elephants, they are dying a slow death because their gene pool have shrink to the point that EVERY elephant (african, asian elephants didn't have enough data last I checked) will become blood related. This usually means the end of the species as we know it. There is a small hope that they can mutate themselves given enough time, but time is against the species, with sustained habitat loss and climate change. There has been a species that survived a similar event (yep, it's humans), so there's that.

Sadly I'm not optimistic, those problems will probably not be solved by the time I'm in the ground 6 feet under.

Solar is a bust, solar farm is just as bad for the ecology (see cooked birds and displaced animals). Non-farm solar panels are a freaking fire hazards (for firefighters). Wind causes a shitload of bird death and noise pollution. Tidal harvesters killing marine life. The only solution is a rapid decline in consumption, which really means a lot of people are gonna have to die. Nukes are our greatest and best option, especially with the all the newer, safer design with built-in kill switch, but with the world being ignorant and self-righteous hypocrites screaming "NO TO NUKES", we ain't gonna get a new gen. up and running anytime soon to actually make a difference.

Want changes to the energy economy? Cut living standards, good luck with that, especially with politics and shit mucking it up.

Actually, all forms of renewable are getting more efficient by leaps and bounds, solar especially. Was reading an article about a "Solar Sunflower', which is basically a mini solar reflector farm the size of a radar dish, and it's actually got pretty good output of power, but the upfront price makes it comparatively untenable because solar cells have gotten so cheap so fast that they became cheaper while the sunflower was still in development.

Another similar model being tested to the sunflower is a dish-sized reflector farm that points at a sterling engine to operate the mechanical unit to generate power and that's showing a lot of promise in testing in Africa.

Wind power is also becoming more efficient as well, so even if there was a restriction on how many units could be built in an area for ecological reasons, you could still get solid power gains for the local region.

The real problem currently is less that 'renewables don't make enough energy', and more 'the energy it generates is not constant' and our current powergrids are not set up to retain power not utilized during low usage periods or use power stored for low generation periods. However, large battery units are actually making massive strides in the past few years as well, and large-scale storage of power for builds and neighborhoods could become a reality in a decade or two. (Look at Elon Musk's massive push for localized large power storage units for houses, and Vanadium electrolysis batteries for industrial-scale for examples.)

If the efficiency of the renewables we have that do work continues to rise, and we can store the power that we're making but not using, then most of these concerns become less of the doom and gloom issue they're made out to be.

Also remember, that in the R&D world, just because something is designed, built, tested and it doesn't pan out doesn't mean that the entire field is worthless. It just means that particular implementation didn't pan out.

The 80's wants you maaaan.

Now that's out of my system, the optimism that you've has been around since that long ago. It's actually what caused the slump and subsequent commercial failure of the solar market in the first place, causing the slower research and adaptation on a widerscale (which, in hindsight, was a bloody good thing, especially for the birds).

You don't have to explain the "current problems" to me, I'm well aware of them. The battery front is still abysmal, there are a few promising designs, but there are huge number of problems that people aren't aware of or even think of. How scalable are the manufacturing? More importantly, how toxic will the production be? I facepalmed quite a few years back when people were hailing lithium and hydrogen batteries for things like electric+hybrid cars, saying how it's pollution free. These batteries production has an insane pollution footprint due to their raw materials, their refining process and then the actual production itself. The "buckyball" model seems like it wouldn't be worse than the current production methods, so sure, there's increased efficiency and stability, but the pollution problem remains.

It isn't doom and gloom with these issues, it's being pragmatic and realistic. With a rapidly approaching fuzzy deadline (hell, I'd say it's already too late to stop adverse climate change and we should start on mitigation on a wider scale), we simply can't wait and hope for R&D to catch up for renewable, not when safe nuclear options are already available and past the point of R&D that renewables are at. The sun-flower design isn't anything new, it's just increased efficiency, designs from the 90's as seen in various science mags with the auto tracking. The problem remains for places with infrequent/inadequate sunlight. If there's hope for solar, it would be the ones that utilize defused light for power (yes, this is a thing, and because it isn't "sexy" for the "science journos", not many report on them save for the more serious+technical mags). This is mainly tied with the overall system as the circuitry and laid out can be optimized to not be a fire hazard. And then there's the production of the solar cell themselves that put them on the same level as a coal plant due to the c-Si wafer productions.

With the current tech, factoring in all the production and maintenance of facilities, the overall pollution is overwhelmingly in favour of nuclear (look at molten salt amongst all the other designs). But there's a heavy downside with the newer models of nuclear (ignoring the irrational hate for them), it will put a lot of people out of jobs as the energy sector will become heavily affected. Job loss and the loss tax revenue can cripple the US. So, we are back to square one, "some people" will have to take a hit, and to the surprise of no one, few if any will want to be those "some people".

The only solution is a rapid decline in consumption, which really means a lot of people are gonna have to die. Nukes are our greatest and best option, especially with the all the newer, safer design with built-in kill switch...

I'm confused. Are you saying our best and greatest option is nuclear power, or to kill millions of people with nuclear weapons?

The former. The killing of millions doesn't require nukes, even though that's an option I guess. Guess I shouldn't have those two sentences so close together xP

 

[zumbledum]

Damn right. For all we know this so-called 'global warming' is actually the direct result of the Sun becoming displeased with us for trying to steal it's life-blood. Worse yet, I hear that if you build enough windfarms they'll act like giant propellers, increasing the speed of Earth's rotation and eventually hurling us all off into space!

Apart from how much of a pain in the ass it would be to reliably set up, I can't imagine any dangers you'd face from renewables that are worse than those posed by non-renewables. I guess hydroelectric dams could have the potential for destruction, with flooding and diverted waterways and such. But changing a river into a lake must be better than poisoning it outright.

well heres a few facts as they stand,

1. nothing is ever created or destroyed you only ever change the state of existing things. relevant because this energy we take with renewable isnt being created by the renewable generators its being taken from the environment, which means whatever effects it was having on our weather system it no longer will be.

2.The weather system is beyond our current ability to model, therefore its not predictable by us, relevant because it means we simply have no way to predict what effect the first fact will have. could be zero , could be an extinction level event. and what ever you believe is the case is based purely on opinion and hope not science or fact.


Our weather system is a huge powerful engine. theres a lot of moving parts and it all connects often in ways we dont see or cant control. lets take one example , Imagine America decides to get a sizeable amount of power by placing wind farms and solar power farms all over the deserts , what affect is that going to have? what is that now missing power from the weather system not doing? maybe nothing, maybe the jet stream that comes from the gulf of mexico up to the arctic cirlce will be robbed of just a little bit of power, now the gulf stream isnt quite pushing the warm water far enough north for it to get cold enough to sink in the arctic circle causing the entire Atlantic circulation to falter, that knocks on around the entire system the oceans stop circulating stop getting oxygen go stagnant and all oxygen breathing life in the sea dies , the seas turn red and poison the atmosphere wiping out 99% of life on the planet.

now its easy to pick holes in the logic of my example , im no climatologist i might have made up entirely this interaction, i used the end result because its happened before its one of the great extinctions this planet has endured.

there are a near infinite number of changes that could happen , maybe we just cause the sweet spot for agriculture to drift down a few hundred miles. America looses 75% or its arable land, Africa looses 50% and all the rest moves into the sea.

is it possible ? is it likely? will it happen? and this is my problem with renewable energy, no one can answer any of those questions.
Maybe we have a huge amount of lee way and will be able to leech thousands of KW of power out of the system with nothing happening at all, maybe the second wind farm will be the straw that brakes it.

what we do know is we are going to cause a change and we are adapted to how things are now , so odds are a change wont be to our advantage.

And this is why i find renewable energy to be so dangerous, we cant see its danger so we dismiss it.

 

[Thomas Barnsley]

Spoiler: Quote

Damn right. For all we know this so-called 'global warming' is actually the direct result of the Sun becoming displeased with us for trying to steal it's life-blood. Worse yet, I hear that if you build enough windfarms they'll act like giant propellers, increasing the speed of Earth's rotation and eventually hurling us all off into space!

Apart from how much of a pain in the ass it would be to reliably set up, I can't imagine any dangers you'd face from renewables that are worse than those posed by non-renewables. I guess hydroelectric dams could have the potential for destruction, with flooding and diverted waterways and such. But changing a river into a lake must be better than poisoning it outright.

well heres a few facts as they stand,

1. nothing is ever created or destroyed you only ever change the state of existing things. relevant because this energy we take with renewable isnt being created by the renewable generators its being taken from the environment, which means whatever effects it was having on our weather system it no longer will be.

2.The weather system is beyond our current ability to model, therefore its not predictable by us, relevant because it means we simply have no way to predict what effect the first fact will have. could be zero , could be an extinction level event. and what ever you believe is the case is based purely on opinion and hope not science or fact.


Our weather system is a huge powerful engine. theres a lot of moving parts and it all connects often in ways we dont see or cant control. lets take one example , Imagine America decides to get a sizeable amount of power by placing wind farms and solar power farms all over the deserts , what affect is that going to have? what is that now missing power from the weather system not doing? maybe nothing, maybe the jet stream that comes from the gulf of mexico up to the arctic cirlce will be robbed of just a little bit of power, now the gulf stream isnt quite pushing the warm water far enough north for it to get cold enough to sink in the arctic circle causing the entire Atlantic circulation to falter, that knocks on around the entire system the oceans stop circulating stop getting oxygen go stagnant and all oxygen breathing life in the sea dies , the seas turn red and poison the atmosphere wiping out 99% of life on the planet.

now its easy to pick holes in the logic of my example , im no climatologist i might have made up entirely this interaction, i used the end result because its happened before its one of the great extinctions this planet has endured.

there are a near infinite number of changes that could happen , maybe we just cause the sweet spot for agriculture to drift down a few hundred miles. America looses 75% or its arable land, Africa looses 50% and all the rest moves into the sea.

is it possible ? is it likely? will it happen? and this is my problem with renewable energy, no one can answer any of those questions.
Maybe we have a huge amount of lee way and will be able to leech thousands of KW of power out of the system with nothing happening at all, maybe the second wind farm will be the straw that brakes it.

what we do know is we are going to cause a change and we are adapted to how things are now , so odds are a change wont be to our advantage.

And this is why i find renewable energy to be so dangerous, we cant see its danger so we dismiss it.

I do see your point, it is impossible to say what would happen. Really it's impossible to say what any large change will cause, didn't stop Shell from heading on to the Arctic (and in that case I'd say we all know very well what's going to happen). The question is, does that mean we should let it dissuade us from changing to renewables? I think hell no.

Besides, though I hate to argue using such vague hypotheticals, I find it VERY hard to believe that the mass installation of windfarms could have close to the effects your imagining. Like you, I don't really know anything about climate physics, but I can think of one line of thinking that hopefully works based on logic.
Lets take your American windfarm example. It does make sense that you would drain energy from the wind, but hasn't a lot of our species activity thusfar made similar alterations to non-catastrophic effects? One particularly widespread human activity is deforestation. Surely in that case the reverse would be true; wind would be stronger as a result of less branches to pass through? The branches clearly take energy from the wind, rustling sounds are testament to that, and the sheer size of the forests we've destroyed could feasibly have absorebed significant amounts of energy. With this in mind, maybe building a few windfarms could actually balance out this destruction.
You anticipated someone poking holes in your example like this, but really I'm trying to make a general rebuttal rather than being too specific. My point is, I think the world's landscape has shown it can adapt to physical changes we make, or that it will take a lot for us to make a physical change large enough to matter. Can it adapt to us terraforming the atmosphere with carbon dioxide? I don't see much life on Venus.

 

[Ryotknife]

Out of curiosity, what exactly CAN we change?

Hydro is tapped the hell out, in fact we can probably expect lessreturns from hydro in the future as i personally know there are hydro power plants that havent had water in years. Even if it wasnt tapped it, environmentalists would prevent more from being built.

Wind....actually we are putting a pretty large effort into wind with Texas, ironically, leading the way. Wind is currently at 4%, with plans to bump that to 20% by 2030.

Solar? only practical in southwest US.

I would be more than happy to support nuclear power, but that has become a dirty word in the US.