The sun gives us everything.

[grimsprice]

Ok, so i just watched a very uninformative show with my parents about bio-fuels. And to be honest it slightly aggravated me. Every scientist with an idea acts like its the salvation of the world because if they pitch it as only slightly better than what we have now everyone will ignore them. And it got me thinking about fuels and energy sources in general...

think about this...

Every single source of power on this planet falls into two categories:

1: nuclear

2: solar

EDIT: because someone brought to my attention another source of power. the fucking moon, i must now amend my list with another basic source of energy, gravity. Though it is difficult to harness and basically only has one way of giving us power... tides, it isn't all that much of a big hitter on the list... but worthy of note.


People don't seem to understand that any form of crop ethanol fuel, or algae produced bio-fuel is just a really really inefficient way of turning solar energy into power for our cars or houses or what have you.

Instead of wasting time with bio-fuels why don't these people help develop a better battery so electric cars can be even more bitchin than they already are? Or a room temperature superconductor, so we can transport electricity across the country without having to build thick cabling and massive infrastructure. Or maybe come up with better ways of directly taking energy from the sun I.E. improved photovoltaic power cells or better solar plants.

Forgive the scientists rant. That is all. Thank you for your time. Unless you would like to give me your opinions maybe??

EDIT: i would really like to do this to the house of anyone who wastes grant money on biofuel projects...

Spoiler

 

[Julianking93]

I think we should just require everyone to have solar panels. Its more efficient.

 

[TriggerUnhappy]

Why? Because greedy, rich old men run all the oil companies, and would rather make money than focus on efficiency, environmental safety, etc. And we'll rely on these fossil fuels until we've sucked them dry from the Earth, at which point we'll move on to the next big source of profitable fuel, or if we're lucky renewable sources of energy will fully develop and everyone will have power.

 

[pantsoffdanceoff]

Humanity had a choice of saving our wallets or our planet, I personally don't think we made the right choice.

 

[grimsprice]

Why? Because greedy, rich old men run all the oil companies, and would rather make money than focus on efficiency, environmental safety, etc. And we'll rely on these fossil fuels until we've sucked them dry from the Earth, at which point we'll move on to the next big source of profitable fuel, or if we're lucky renewable sources of energy will fully develop and everyone will have power.

just because greedy rich old men don't want their workers to loose their jobs (or so they say...) doesn't mean the scientists developing this bullshit have to whore their worthless ideas like a triple cunted hooker. They're suposed to be scientists, they're supposed to be smart but apparently not. If they would just educate the scientifically ignorant politicians and public they might get funding to do actually important work. Like saving our species from global warming a future fuel wars.

 

[TriggerUnhappy]

Why? Because greedy, rich old men run all the oil companies, and would rather make money than focus on efficiency, environmental safety, etc. And we'll rely on these fossil fuels until we've sucked them dry from the Earth, at which point we'll move on to the next big source of profitable fuel, or if we're lucky renewable sources of energy will fully develop and everyone will have power.

just because greedy rich old men don't want their workers to loose their jobs (or so they say...) doesn't mean the scientists developing this bullshit have to whore their worthless ideas like a triple cunted hooker. They're suposed to be scientists, they're supposed to be smart but apparently not. If they would just educate the scientifically ignorant politicians and public they might get funding to do actually important work. Like saving our species from global warming a future fuel wars.

I'm sorry, but what are we arguing about exactly? I was just saying why things are the way they are, and yes I agree scientists are supposed to be scientists and educate the public, and it seems that many try to only to be ignored or possibly even bribed. (who knows?) Hopefully, people become educated soon enough, but I highly doubt it. Humanity always seems to face problems the same way, we stand on the railroad tracks ignoring what's coming to us, only noticing the train at the last second, and trying to scramble away just before it hits us.

 

[Aardvark]

One day, some smarmy bastard will unlock the secret of zero point energy, release the plans for the generator into the public domain, then all life will end as some terrorist sonsofabitches fail at creating a terror weapon out of the technology, instead managing to boil off the Earth's atmosphere.

 

[grimsprice]

I'm sorry, but what are we arguing about exactly?

Yeah sorry for sounding ranty i was just pointing out that the oil companies are not the root of all evil. An uneducated public and uneducated politicians are the root of our problems.

I just don't understand why someone who can get a Phd in biochemistry wouldn't try everything in their power to do the right work and make the right type of technological advances.

 

[TheLastCylon]

This is why we need to find some Prothean ruins and get us some Mass Effect power.

 

[grimsprice]

This is why we need to find some Prothean ruins and get us some Mass Effect power.

aha! but they aren't actually prothean are they.....

 

[SamtheDeathclaw]

Eh... Without problems such as these there would be no humanity. Large-scale problems force us to adapt and change, causing us to grow into a sentient species. >.< But screw it, I think the human race has outlived it's ability to adapt. We rely far too much on technology. We ARE an evaloutionary dead end.

 

[Kpt._Rob]

You want to know why the American populace doesn't feel that clean energy is a priority? It's as simple as this. 44% of the American population claims to be either certain or fairly certain that the rapture will be coming within the next 50 years. That is by no means a small portion of the populace, and consider what that statistic entails. If 44% of Americans believe that the rapture is coming, and it's coming soon, then they have no incentive to try to preserve the environment. To do so would be rediculous, since they think it's going to get destroyed anyways.

This 44% are, statistically speaking, conservative. So the Republican party, in order to motivate their base, know that it is advantatious to pander to the 44% of Americans that makes up a massive portion of their party, and as a result the Republican party tends to be opposed to environmental legislation.

And until we can our country behind some environmental legislation, it will be particularly difficult to get the money necessary to fund the research which would create improved photovolactic cells and other forms of clean energy.

 

[APPCRASH]

Effeciency, cost, and availability, that is why we don't use solar panels on a daily basis. I'm no expert but you can go have a talk with any professor and he/she will say the same thing.

 

[iamnotincompliance]

For one thing, other scientists are working on batteries. That will be fine in the future when more vehicles are electrically powered. Biofuel is for the here and now: the many millions of vehicles already on the road.

Electrics have three big issues to overcome before mass acceptance: range, recharge time, and cost. Take the Tesla. The $100K price tag notwithstanding (doubtless to come down as electrics become more common), the roughly 220 mile range and 3.5 hour 'quick' recharge are huge hurdles to overcome. Hell, I get better range and a faster refuel driving a '99 Ford Explorer. If you never take long road trips, the range isn't an issue. For those who do, that's where something like the Chevy Volt comes into play. If you drive 40 miles or less in a day (40 being the average commute per day in the US, apparently), you can do that on pure electric power. For a longer trip, a small gas engine keeps the batteries charged, but now we're back to burning oil. The problem now lies in that oil tends to come from... how to put this delicately... unstable regions or areas that harm their populace. Biofuel comes from Kansas, Nebraska, America's heartland, helps that farmers yada yada yada oi that hurt to type that. Point being, biofuel can come from anywhere, anytime, and power what's already out there, while batteries and electrics have a way to go before they get to the big time.

And I'm all for advances that keep my oil burning, carbon spewing Oldsmobile on the road just a little while longer.

 

[grimsprice]

And until we can our country behind some environmental legislation, it will be particularly difficult to get the money necessary to fund the research which would create improved photovolactic cells and other forms of clean energy.

I would have preferred that you left the political bashing and the religious bashing at the door but oh well. Your point still stands as valid... but just remember grues can only survive in the darkness, if you drag them out into the light they get obliterated... as i suspect saying this to anyone either republican or religious will get you the same result. Flames.

And getting politicians behind environmental legislation isn't really the problem... after all we now have a more liberal government here in the US, where most of the scientific advances are still being done, and its not serving us very well... because the politicians are woefully uneducated and think that hydrogen and bio-fuels are the key... which is bullwarky. We need smart politicians, not just evironmentally protective ones... a subtle but important difference.

 

[riskroWe]

Every single source of power on this planet falls into two categories:

1: nuclear
2: solar

Technically solar power is just really inefficient nuclear power, because we're absorbing the trace heat and light from a massive FUSION reaction that's really far away.

 

[grimsprice]

Effeciency, cost, and availability, that is why we don't use solar panels on a daily basis.

Electrics have three big issues to overcome before mass acceptance: range, recharge time, and cost.
And I'm all for advances that keep my oil burning, carbon spewing Oldsmobile on the road just a little while longer.

To both of you. Thank you for agreeing with me. That was my point that we should be doing everything we can to advance these fields of study as quickly as possible. Finding a solution is always going to be better than finding stop-gap measures like bio-fuels.

and i thought i would just pull that last little bit out into the light for all to see....

 

[grimsprice]

Every single source of power on this planet falls into two categories:

1: nuclear
2: solar

Technically solar power is just really inefficient nuclear power, because we're absorbing the trace heat and light from a massive fission reaction that's really far away.

First of all its fusion in the sun not fission and second yes thats true. Really i only said that because if i had said that all our power comes from stars then it would have been oh well it all came from the *** ****. and i didn't want to take it that far...

And third of all saying nuclear power has a certain stigmatism to it about being unclean (the whole cheyrnobyl thingy) and solar is (for our planet) as clean as it gets.

My point being that clean energy comes from the sun and we should be doing whatever we can to take it as directly and cleanly as possible.

 

[JWAN]

I think we should just require everyone to have solar panels. Its more efficient.

if you require it its going to cost a shit ton of money, people will lose their homes and then no one would use solar, besides not everyone is in the right climate for solar. If you lose 5 hours of daylight during the winter then you don't get the amount of power you need OR if they get covered in snow then you need to melt them off or climb up onto an icy platform to chisel them free. If you live in California or in a desert or equator type zone then you can really benefit from them. If you live in the northern US or in Europe then your benefits are almost nill.

besides solar panels are terribly inefficient, they claim that the average house (US home) needs 40 square meters to run everything they need to run but if you require it then people are going to go bankrupt trying to keep their homes up to code.

I say use geothermal and nuclear and tidal, then you wont even need to shovel your driveway and the heat of the planet will always be there.

One form of energy isn't enough to support the populace that's why you need to use every kind of renewable energy (Solar, wind, tidal, bio diesel)

We will always need a form of diesel, ships cannot run on batteries alone and neither can large semis or cargo planes.

 

[JWAN]

Effeciency, cost, and availability, that is why we don't use solar panels on a daily basis. I'm no expert but you can go have a talk with any professor and he/she will say the same thing.

Right if that professor lives in an area where it makes sense to use solar. like a desert or on the equator. If your like the rest of us geothermal would make the "most sense" because the earth always puts out heat while solar is expensive and you need to get a shit ton of sun over a LONG period of time to make them worth anything.

example, Wisconsin: great for summer but winter brings several hours of less sunlight not to mention feet of snow that will cover the panels up.

at absolute best you get a 30% conversion rate from solar so you need a TON of sun exposure over a LONG period of time