The best alternative energy source

[SilverDNA]

I've want to add some source of energy production that is overlooked here.

 

- Water turbines go back till the use of watermills and are a well exploited source of energy production and they are save. 71% of our planet are covered with water. Embankment dams use water turbines and there are plans to use on some points of the oceans.

 

In my opinion it alternative energy sources (solar-, water- and wind-energy) are worth of exploiting and investing in. At the moment there are world wide some very ambitious projects in planing and developing that are worth watching.

 

The only draw back is that the great energy concerns adapted the philosophy of green energy only slowly because of the great subventions on (mainly) nuclear power plants form states, with is highly regulated by them and sported. I think we can agree on the danger from nuclear waste products that are endangering us all aside from the (un)safety of the power-plants. In my opinion it needs a shifting of subvention to the alternative energy sources even more. But because the financial crisis of the last years some states consider to build even more nuclear power plats against the new development in more efficient technologies for the alternative energy sources. I personally think that the political depressions (based on lobbing) set this all to a rate of development unacceptable for me. A politician that is at the same time chief executive officer or consultant to an energy concern has his mind on the money he/she revives from the concern more than in the future of our planet. (This has to stop first in my opinion.)

 

I do not favor one alternative energy source. I think a combination (at the right places) of all alternative energy sources is the future for our planet.

[Surenas]

For we're doubtlessly still in the mood of talking instead of doing anything, here a temporary solution for the still growth-orientated among us - a generation and a half after the famous paper of the Club of Rome:

 

The best alternative energy source is energy saving

 

I thus ought to shut down my network... stop taking a shower trice a day... selling my Jeep for a flock of sheep or directly shoot myself for the own wasting of energy... :wacko:

[JimboUK]

"Green" is by no means to be understood in a negative fashion, as the absence of truth or somethin. The opposite is the case after an industrial century and a half of the total denial of nature as such. In the meantime almost all political colours have adopted "green philosophy", the one more, the other less. So what?

 

On solar energy.

Ever thought on what would probably cover the Arab Peninsula and other waste areas on earth when the oil flow dries out?

 

On nuclear energy and genetic research

Let us not end with a six-pack of nuka cola and a handfull of 7.62er ammunition in our hands fighting a somewhat helpless fight against armed mutants and privileged mercenaries of the remaining companies for drugged water and food, eh!

 

The green agenda has been hijacked by those hoping to gain from it. As a taxpayer I grip my wallet tightly when any politician starts talking about green issues, I know somewhere in there it will cost me money. It's the same with green products, we're often told it's good to replace our perfectly functional stuff with green alternatives, the fact that the manufacture of these goods often negates any benefit the new ones provide is ignored. "Green" has become a multi billion dollar industry that doesn't benefit the environment or consumer.

[Surenas]

You'll aways find free riders and profiteers in the wake of an event (even at war; cf. Halliburton / 3rd Gulf War), even of a trend like the growing ecological awareness of the consumers. People simply want to do it right and thus easily run into a commercial trap, but for sure not twice into the same, a radical selection process to purify the market from bad eggs is thus the logical long-acting consequence. All that isn't that new and no good reason to return to the old ravage of the resources, leaving nothing behind but wasteland, pollution, anger, fear and frustration.

[Marxist ßastard]

I think we can agree on the danger from nuclear waste products

There is no danger. And welcome to the debates forum.

[Surenas]

I think we can agree on the danger from nuclear waste products

There is no danger. And welcome to the debates forum.

 

Pls tell that the people of Europe that have exerienced the fruit (and animal birth-) season after 4/26 1986.

The final disposal, however, usually in salt domes is still in the debate and utmost risky due to possible and then incalculable tectonic fractures and deferrals.

 

So, "no danger" is just a fluffy political phrase with a short half-life period that we'd better should not shout wholehearted from the rooftops, cos somebody might remind us later...

[Vindekarr]

Well what a lot of peopel dont realise is that two types of neuclear power exist, fission and fusion.

 

When some (ignorant joe-normal) people hear the terms: radiation, cherenkov, reactor, nueclear, uranium, iridium, and fusion, they think "arrgh! zomg its radioactive and I'll grow three heads, AAAAAIIIEEEE! shut down the reactor!"

 

That is because they are stupid and ignorant.

 

Firstly only some radiation spectrums are harmful, even fewer cause mutation. ionizing radiation can be harmful, but thats covers only a fraction of all radiation types. For example, your eyes see "visible light" radiation from the infrared spectrum, and that only does you harm if you look at an extremly 'bright' object that is emiting or reflectiing a huge amount of VL radiation, such as a star or the Sun. Even then, you wouldnt get supermutants or two headed brahmins, radiation mutation usualy comes in the form of horrific burns, much like those caused by napalm, or in the form of gastric issues, as it attacks the softer, wet tissue first, and the intestines often soak it up.

 

Second, as I mentioned two types of neuclear energy are common, aswell as several other more rarified types I wont bother describing.

 

Fission is dead, outdated technology. Fission was the popular reactor technology of the 1950s. It has since then become obselete. It had a very high safety record, with only a few accidents, but the accidents in question, such as three mile island and chernobyl were so severe that even nations such as soviet russia who had put trillions into the rapid rise of fission were forced to listen to activisists and cancel further programs.

 

Fission produces a LOT of energy, it can produce electricity in all sorts of ways, but one classic form is using heat from a nueclear furnace to make a vast amount of steam and thus drive turbines, The weakness is the fission process: these rely on splitting an atom which produces vast amounts of energy, heat, and many diferent forms of radiation, a goodly number of which are harmful, lethal, or mutagenic. The other main weakness is that their psychological effect on the local populace. These are extremely safe, but a few civilians per hundred are too stupid and too poorly educated to beleive that or understand the science behind it. These people are its biggest vulnerability as zealot minorities have a lot of power in the west, and can derail even the best laid plans. In short, like most progressive technologies, it is let down by a few inbred, retarded hippies who refuse to see the need for controled technological growth, that isnt to say that al;l anti nueclear protestors are retarded, inbred or hippies, merely that this has more zealots attacking it than nearly any other technology.

 

Fusion is a much safer process, a much more efficient process, but unfortunately is a few decades off. I fully admit I dont know much about the internal workings of these. But I can tell you that like fission they usualy generate electricity via thermal energy. In this case they make that thermal energy by FUSING two (hydrogen?) atoms together to create plasma, Plasma reactors are perhaps the safest non coal powerplant possible. Plasma is an incredibly hot "substance" that can be used for an almost endless number of uses, but is also very safe and easy to manipulate because it can be held in a magnetic field, a magnetic field surrounds the inside of a nueclear fusion plant's fusion chamber and holds in the plasma while fusion is underway, making it unable to escape. All in all this produces almost no radiation; the fallout is about your average daily intake, and doesnt spread more than a hundred metres, give or take, outside the facility itself in case of an accident. So even if it did explode, and it simply wouldnt, you wont get super mutants. The only real problems with these are getting "chain fusion" making lots of hydrogen(?) atoms to fuse and react, for more plasma, right now working plants cant make more than a few plasma balls at a time and that isnt enough to ignite more than a few lightbulbs if that. And secondly, fanatics. Terrorism would be a problem, like any powerplant, especialy coal plants, these are easy to sabotage, though harder to damage than existing coal plants, they are by no means durable. But another huge problem is "eco warrior" factions and militants, themselves no diferent from politicaly motivated murderous sociopaths, in this case potentialy attacking fusion plants to prevent further plant construction, it has been seen happen in australia; a certain group of environmentaly motivated beligerants stormed a coalfire powerplant, attacked security guards and hung banners advertising their group off the chimneys-before the fool's equipment broke, leaving them stranded for an entire night before their arrest,

 

In the end fusion is one of the best possible energy solutions, but it is set back a lot by sociopathic extremists and technological barriers, if people were smarter, then maybe we wouldnt be in this mess in the first place.

[Vindekarr]

just explain to me in plain english what green energy is.

 

I hear this term alot. and this discussion in most circles simply devolves into CEO-speak. so drop the euphamisms and slang. what is green energy?

 

<snip>

 

"Green" has almost become a dirty word. I associate it with companies trying to sell me things I don't want or need, politicians looking for another way to empty my pockets and workshy hippies terrified of progress. I prefer to look on it as "Clean", no one wants to live in filth. No one wants factories/power stations that push out filth into the atmosphere, what goes up must come down and I don't want it on me. No one likes the stench you find in rush hour traffic, not only is it unpleasant it's also a health hazard. It's in all our interests to clean up our act, the trick is doing it without damaging businesses and our ability to compete with less developed parts of the world.

 

Clean eh? you may also want to consider how progress will effect quality of life. Is it worth worth having clean energy if it means giving up modern human society and culture? no it isnt. A problem all forms of energy face is extremism. On the one hand you have people like me, the extreme far right of this discussion. people think nature can go **** itself, its humanity that matters and who will happily accept null greenhouse technology, but only if it makes no major impact on lifestyle. On the other you have the exact opposite, extremist "greenies" who for the most part want to preserv the environment any way possible, no matter what it costs us.

 

 

Both sides talk a good fight, both sides have massive flaws in their arguments. "brownies" like me would see the world become a heavily urbanised "iron and steel metropolis" but that isnt to everyone's liking, some would even consider it a living hell, something out of a George Orwell novel, with thousand metre tall skyscrapers and endless urban ravines, with nature being forced to evolve and cope with perhaps the most un natural environment possible. Ive met "greenies" so zealous in their crusade for dear mother nature that they consider human life second to that of animals, though they remain hypocritical on this in theory, either not comprehending what they are proposing, or assuming its going to be someone else's beloved family who are murdered in the name of trees.

 

The point is we need balance, neither side is right, and neither side has the solution. Tossing off our clothes and running back into the african jungles to resume life as inhuman primates is not an option. Neither is allowing this to simply get worse for the sake continuing our current society. I have a feeling what finaly breaks this will be neither sides solution, or the possibility jnobody else seems to have to guts to imagine: that a working solution could well come too late.

[ginnyfizz]

Kudos to you, Vindekarr! I agree, there is a lot of wailing about saving the planet, but as you rightly point out, no-one is REALLY going to cast off all the modern doodads and go skipping back to the Stone Age. I too find the extremist greenies who value human life after animals rather disturbing, witness the persecution in the UK of anyone involved in any form of animal research.

 

I for my part cannot understand how the greenies can argue that wind farms and tidal barrages are green when they destroy habitats as they do. And yet they throw their hands up in horror at the thought of nuclear plants, which despite Chernobyl and Three Mile Island have a fine safety record. France and India I notice have taken the sensible approach and press ahead with their nuclear option. For whilst fusion may be a while off, breeder reactor technology, where to put it crudely, the plant uses plutonium and eats it own waste (and hence there is little to be dumped) and continuously breeds its own fuel, has been around for a while. An area where Britain led the field until a certain Government listened to the green lobby...

 

And I still say - if we can find new oil strikes and coal seams, then we should use them too. We need to be realistic.

[Vindekarr]

They arent even all that unatural.

 

A few years ago a team of scientists, by shear accident, discovered a colony of microbe creatures living in the bottom of a nueclear fission reactor, eating the iron out of the spent fuel rods-despite being in frigid water in a lightless leadlined tank with ambient harmful radiation so intense it would kill a human. Admitedly smaller creatures are much better at surviving radiation than large ones, a study found that small beetles can have many times the rad resistance of large creatures. But i found this just astonishing, even a tiny beetle would be killed the extremely radioactive tank, which contained spent fuel rods, in freezing cold stagnant water, so Im not sure how the microbes survived, but it does prove to a point that nueclear and nature can co exist.

 

And as for animal rights, its the same here in australia, you even mention you support animal testing and you're political career is literaly over, likewise it would be very very unwise of an academic or scientist to admit that either. I just find it a bit ridiculous, how is the life of mice worth persecuting your fellow human beings? Doubly worrying when they start ranting about all life is equal and start harping on about how "maybe we are the problem" All life isnt equal. Humanity is sentient, it has thoughts, feelings, emotions and culture. It can change its environment via tools and has the mental ability to devise ways to leave its own birth planet. Why do they think mice, which have almost no thoughts, no emotions, and no ability to even comprehend its environment, let alone make an environment for itself, is equal or superior to a human being? And its almost frightening when they say that humanity is the cause of nature's troubles and should be stopped, because are these people somehow incapable of irony? dont they realise that you cant simply cleanly remove humaity from the picture. To "remove us from the situation" as one zealot once put it, they would have to kill more innocent people out of hatred than the nazis, imperial japanese, apartheid, and every other terrorist and insurgant group in the history of humanity put together times 10. Aswell as them obviously not realising they would have to butcher their own families and loved ones, and kill themselves, for the sake of disgusting things like sloths, chimps, tigers, and insects.

 

Certainly Im just as much an eco fascist for proposing unlimited city growth and macroindustrialism. but thats a lot more eco freindly in the long run than exterminating all human life, which dare I say evolved in nature, or for obliterating all modern cities and society, which would go against the more subjective human nature, but the real need is for balance. One model I saw tonight was "spire farming" the idea of verticaly stacked, skyscraper sized greenhouse structures, each able to provide about the same crop yield as a typical farm, but allowing existing farmland to become wilderness once more, removing the need for an entire branch of very un environmentaly freindly machinery in the form of gargantuan, technologicaly inefficient harvesters. If you could replace roads with air travel, prefferably with a personal, car sized air vehicle like the Moller SkyCar, you would be able to erase road networks aswell, resulting in several thousand square kilometres of wilderness in england alone. But the cost of this would be animal rights, you would need to grow livestock indoors, in batteries to feed us, but even then, thats a lose-lose situation. Because on one hand, If you raise keep them in tower farms, you entrap all the harmful methane, if all cows and sheep were moved to towerfarms today, you would eliminate a huge portion of all greenhouse gas production, but on the other, this probably will never see use because a lot of people would rather our "burgers-to-be" wandering around a field obliterating the atmosphere than living in a cage doing no damage. This itself is worth debate, its going to be a burger when it grows up, do you make it happy now, or fatten the hell out of it and add a little seasoning?