OT: The Avalounge: Steamed Hams, despite the fact they are obviously grilled

[cgf]

"Love Wedding Repeat" is fun.

 

[henchman21]

That's why we need to head back to the moon. There are some interesting articles about an isotope version of hydrogen known as helium-3 which can be converted to a proper source of energy. However, this isotope is not radioactive and has shown to have all the traits for a good source of nuclear energy. I really think nuclear energy is the future (along with magnetism), but not really fission which a lot of the reactors use the principles behind currently, but fusion is the way to go for the future. The problem though is no nuclear reactor right now can control the vast amount of energy that is initially released during a fusion process. It might be attainable as time goes on, but it's still very much concepts at this point. As for the point of electromagnetic potential, it's the ability to make public transportation have the reliability and speed where using a car is considered useless for a decent sized roadtrip.

Mining on the Moon for Renewable Energy
Mining The Moon - Rare Minerals - Helium 3

These literal moonshots are not really within the grasps of our lifetime. I get working towards higher goals, but we also need solutions in the interim. A fusion reactor is at least 40 years off from viability, and that is in a best case sort of scenario with proper funding (which they aren't getting right now). Realistically, that is a 2100 sort of goal. I'm not going to say the world will end continuing on our path until 2100 (the world will far out live our species), but there will be some pretty extreme consequences if we do. There need to be interim and achievable solutions in the next 20-30 years to keep up with human population growth and future energy demands. Nuclear fission should have a part in our future, but we need some real solutions to the waste not just proposals that sound great, but never actually happen and we are left with a crapload of radioactive waste. Hydro definitely has a part too, and IMO gets a pretty bad rap, but we have to be smart about the ecological side effects.

 

[Foppberg]

Hydro can be pretty destructive to the local environmental, even if it is technically a green energy. It's also not an and/or situation, we shouldn't only go with thermal or solar or wind or nuclear, all should be explored.

However outside of huge advancements in carbon capture or some other breakthrough the damage is already done and at this point it's just trying to minimize the impact.

 

[henchman21]

Hydro can be pretty destructive to the local environmental, even if it is technically a green energy. It's also not an and/or situation, we shouldn't only go with thermal or solar or wind or nuclear, all should be explored.

However outside of huge advancements in carbon capture or some other breakthrough the damage is already done and at this point it's just trying to minimize the impact.

Yeah you have to be real careful with hydro, but it can be done where the positives outweigh the negatives. I would agree all have to be explored, nuclear has an especially strong headwind against it just because of public pressure. Hydro (especially with China's lack of give a shit attitude towards their building of them) has it growing against them. In our solution, even natural gas has to play a role for a while. There is too much demand and especially with peaks to sustain our current grid without it.

 

[Pokecheque]

Exactly. Obama said in a speech once that when NASA began charting a mission to the moon, they didn't really have a firm grasp on how they'd get there, but eventually they figured it out. Same goes with the path toward more efficient and renewable energies. We don't know the path and we also don't have the technology to make it pragmatic. We'll have to invent it, which means there'll have to be some real investment, and Big Oil and Big Coal are going to fight that every step of the way.

 

[Bonzai12]

That's why we need to head back to the moon. There are some interesting articles about an isotope version of hydrogen known as helium-3 which can be converted to a proper source of energy. However, this isotope is not radioactive and has shown to have all the traits for a good source of nuclear energy. I really think nuclear energy is the future (along with magnetism), but not really fission which a lot of the reactors use the principles behind currently, but fusion is the way to go for the future. The problem though is no nuclear reactor right now can control the vast amount of energy that is initially released during a fusion process. It might be attainable as time goes on, but it's still very much concepts at this point. As for the point of electromagnetic potential, it's the ability to make public transportation have the reliability and speed where using a car is considered useless for a decent sized roadtrip.

Mining on the Moon for Renewable Energy
Mining The Moon - Rare Minerals - Helium 3

Count me in on this mission

 

[McMetal]

I'm not sure we'll be able to realistically achieve 100% renewable energy for a while. Battery capacity for electric cars is primitive and stupid expensive right now, and solar and wind aren't always going to keep up with demand. First thing to do is just get rid of coal entirely, that's just a phenomenally dirty and wasteful method of generating energy. Natural gas is a good option for smoothing out spikes in demand until we figure out the technology to get around it.

What needs to happen is just committing the resources to START weaning off fossil fuels. Then pour funding into the technology advancements needed to get around the problems inherent in the current approach to renewables. But doing nothing just isn't an option anymore.

 

[Avsboy]

When it comes to renewable energy, I'm fairly certain that even if we shut off all fossil fuel emissions today there would still be a warming effect. We are 20 years too late. At this point a lot of effort should be put towards trying to remove or recapture emissions from the atmosphere.

Climate change 'magic bullet' gets boost

 

[henchman21]

Carbon capture won’t be efficient or prevalent enough to make a dent in the emissions in the near future.

 

[Avsboy]

Carbon capture won’t be efficient or prevalent enough to make a dent in the emissions in the near future.

Is it because of the technology or lack of proliferation? If it's lack of proliferation more money should be invested in the existing technology.

 

[Tweaky]

Would love to get humans back to the moon, and He-3 is one good reason among many. But strip mining the moon cannot be a permanent solution. As a stepping stone to gas mining Jupiter/Saturn...that I could see. Though that is decades away from early planning stages IMO.

 

[SirLoinOfCloth]

We got solar panels installed on our roof this winter but due to covid there have been delays in getting it inspected and switched on.

We were paying around $120/month in electricity bills, and my assumption is that would have increased during the warmer months as we rely more upon air conditioning and less on gas heating. We moved into a brand new house so we don't really have a baseline.

Moving to solar they have told us we should easily be able to cover our usage with our panels and the loan on the panels will be about $120 a month. We will need to pay $20 just to be connected to the grid, but if we can produce as much as we need then our electricity costs should be flat year round and for many years, but electricity prices could fluctuate over the years.

We will see if we made a good investment or not in a few years. I just want the damn things turned on now. Colorado is as good a state as you can get for solar given the number of days of sunshine we get year-round. Not to mention that suncor refinering in commerce City is an absolute disaster and already responsible for a number of dangerous leakages. So not relying on them would be a bonus.

I know solar is prohibitively expensive but it really should be more prevalent in a state like CO given the natural resource we have.

 

[S E P H]

Would love to get humans back to the moon, and He-3 is one good reason among many. But strip mining the moon cannot be a permanent solution. As a stepping stone to gas mining Jupiter/Saturn...that I could see. Though that is decades away from early planning stages IMO.

It causes a ton of political movements as well, like who does the moon belong to if they do decide to start mining it? And if there is money to be made, which there would be, then weapons come into the picture. So besides mining it for a natural resource, it could turn into a war. Now I know this all sounds utterly ridiculous, but honestly 150 years from now it probably won't be.

The interesting question I think is the territorial rights to it, is it first come first serve? Will it be like some 3rd grade rainbow picture where all the races' are holding hands and smiling? Under UN control? Or should every part of the moon be a share for each country currently in existence, but that raises another question in terms of countries change all the time.

E: There actually is a 1967 treaty called the Outer Space Treaty signed by 100 countries in the UN that the Moon is unclaimable (for now...).

 

[Tweaky]

OK, you found the treaty. I think it will end up being parceled up by the UN in sucha way as to minimize conflicts. How that turns out, I have no idea. But one idea I have had is that nations will be limited to scientific endeavors, but private enterprises will be pretty much unregulated, provided they can get there and going without government support. And that could very well be part of Elon's endgame.

 

[CB Joe]

delete

 

[henchman21]

Is it because of the technology or lack of proliferation? If it's lack of proliferation more money should be invested in the existing technology.

Both, but the proliferation won't come until the technology is actually viable... and the viability is very much in question. Carbon capture setup at energy plants has about a 35% energy penalty... meaning you now have to burn 35% more coal/natural gas to get the same energy production. Carbon capture out of the air is energy intensive as well. The estimate in the US that wide scale carbon capture would add 16-18 cents per kWh to our prices today (more than I actually pay for energy today). With how cheap wind energy has gotten, it doesn't make financial sense. For most of the western part of the US, solar is also significantly cheaper than that. Adding those sources to the grid with the carbon capture capital not only makes more economic sense from a pure dollar amount, it cuts CO2 emissions much more effectively.

What also never gets talked about is the storage and usage of captured CO2. The most popular use is actually to drill for natural gas and oil by injecting it into ground. The most viable storage idea is to pump it into voids in the ground... which can cause earthquakes (that will release some of the captured CO2), acidify aquifers (making it easier for heavy metals to leech into our water), and typically leaks out at a small rate anyway.

It isn't a viable technology right now and is more about keeping fossil fuels viable than it is limiting CO2.

 

[Bonzai12]

What also never gets talked about is the storage and usage of captured CO2. The most popular use is actually to drill for natural gas and oil by injecting it into ground. The most viable storage idea is to pump it into voids in the ground... which can cause earthquakes (that will release some of the captured CO2), acidify aquifers (making it easier for heavy metals to leech into our water), and typically leaks out at a small rate anyway.

It isn't a viable technology right now and is more about keeping fossil fuels viable than it is limiting CO2.

I don't subscribe to the earthquake theories exactly. It almost solely depends on which type of rock formations you're injecting it into. In Oklahoma where you don't have very stable/hard formations under the ground, they've seen a lot of earthquakes. In Colorado where we have a lot more rock/granite, we haven't seen any earthquakes despite almost the same amount of drilling activity. Same story goes for Wyoming. The problem is that the industry lets companie inject wherever there is Oil and Gas. There should be stronger consideration on what the characterisics are of the formation you're injecting it into. Government/industry has failed there.

The strongest uses for carbon capture are sodas/seltzers/beer or anything that needs CO2 injected into it. I think there's good reason Seltzer water is making a comeback and being marketed so hard. We're going to need it if we want to take carbon out of the sky and put it into something else.

I'm all for carbon capture and I think it will work. But the uses and demand for the carbon have to increase significantly. I have faith though - humans are inventive and have solved many complex world issues. There's probably things that are going to solve this that we haven't even considered yet.

 

[henchman21]

The strongest uses for carbon capture are sodas/seltzers/beer or anything that needs CO2 injected into it. I think there's good reason Seltzer water is making a comeback and being marketed so hard. We're going to need it if we want to take carbon out of the sky and put it into something else.

That is a VERY temporary capture. The second a can or tap is opened, the CO2 starts going right back into the atmosphere. So weeks, months... maybe years... not decades. For carbon capture to work, it not only has to be captured efficiently, but it has to be stored long-term efficiently.

Reforestation and gov't stepping up with strict protocols around deforestation is actually a viable strategy for capturing CO2 naturally. It isn't really cost efficient, and there needs to be solutions to provide enough food for populations... but it is a path.

 

[Freudian]

We saw the global temperature going down 0.5 degrees Celcius for a year after a big volcano eruption in 1991 so the solution to global warming will be us flying and dumping big piles of sulfur into the atmosphere.

Let's get our best crazy scientists on this pronto.

The one minor drawback to this is that blue skies wouldn't be blue but grey. That, and the possibility of someone getting the math wrong launching us into a new ice age.

 

[Bonzai12]

Reforestation and gov't stepping up with strict protocols around deforestation is actually a viable strategy for capturing CO2 naturally. It isn't really cost efficient, and there needs to be solutions to provide enough food for populations... but it is a path.

very true points. I’m curious though on the deforestation part. I don’t know if you saw 60 mins on this by chance but there’s a ton of carbon in Siberia locked under the earth that is starting to leak out (the ground is thawing out and releasing the worlds biggest concentration of carbon from underground). The scientist there is working to bring buffalo and maybe even wooly mammoths back via DNA to take out the trees. His hypothesis is that the trees have warmed the land there and is causing the ground to thaw. So he’s bringing back the animals that stampeded and knocked out all the vegetation so the ground temp could cool down and freeze. Interesting stuff.

I work for a company that’s currently capturing CO2. I don’t know much about it (they have all kinds of lines of biz) but it seems to be working well and efficiently. I’m surprised they’re not building more but yeah - we gotta solve the problem of where to offload the carbon.

 

[Freudian]

I work for a company that’s currently capturing CO2. I don’t know much about it (they have all kinds of lines of biz) but it seems to be working well and efficiently. I’m surprised they’re not building more but yeah - we gotta solve the problem of where to offload the carbon.

Easy. Burn it for fuel.

 

[Ceremony]

S3E3 of Seinfeld and after what felt like weeks of Jerry arguing with his parents about a pen, sorry

 

[S E P H]

So not that anybody cares, but I finally got to Dream Theatre - Distance over Time and I fully enjoyed it. As you lot know, I am super picking in some of the things I like such as music, but I thought it was a step in the right direction for the band which has had some really average and below-average albums for the last couple of releases. Like The Astonishing wasn't actually that bad, but had just so many songs and because of that it was sort of left down because some of them were useless. Like they didn't really understand that not all the songs should make a record and decided to put everything they wrote on it lol. Their self-titled album wasn't that bad either, but didn't really have any memorable tracks like I think I'll find with Distance of Time. I won't even touch A Dramatic Turn of Events because it was so brutal and boring to listen to.

I think Distance over Time is an album that doesn't really have any strong points, but is built as a solid album from top to bottom. One song I didn't like was "At a Wit's End", but I actually grabbed the instrumental version as I thought it sounded better. There are some songs - which definitely require more listenings' but - that I'll notice will become my favourite such as "S2N", "Out of Reach", and "Untethered Angel". "Room 137" sounds very ELO-ish with DT's signature heavy sound, which actually has a really nice blend of genres within it.

 

[henchman21]

very true points. I’m curious though on the deforestation part. I don’t know if you saw 60 mins on this by chance but there’s a ton of carbon in Siberia locked under the earth that is starting to leak out (the ground is thawing out and releasing the worlds biggest concentration of carbon from underground). The scientist there is working to bring buffalo and maybe even wooly mammoths back via DNA to take out the trees. His hypothesis is that the trees have warmed the land there and is causing the ground to thaw. So he’s bringing back the animals that stampeded and knocked out all the vegetation so the ground temp could cool down and freeze. Interesting stuff.

I work for a company that’s currently capturing CO2. I don’t know much about it (they have all kinds of lines of biz) but it seems to be working well and efficiently. I’m surprised they’re not building more but yeah - we gotta solve the problem of where to offload the carbon.

I haven't seen the 60 minutes of the Zimovs, but I know about their theory. It is fairly controversial, but more based around the idea of herd of animals and the erosion they cause during the summer will heat the permafrost quicker than compacting the snow. It is really less about the trees themselves and more about the snow under the trees and compacting it efficiently.

Carbon capture in the US won't ever really get off the ground until their is a carbon tax... just not economically viable. But if a carbon tax gets implemented, it makes the alternatives so much cheaper. It is really a catch 22.

 

[Avsboy]

S3E3 of Seinfeld and after what felt like weeks of Jerry arguing with his parents about a pen, sorry

Seinfeld really gets good at S5 and S6