News:

It's a bad decade to be bipedal, soft and unarmed.

Main Menu

Some simple facts about the future people would rather not face

Started by Cain, July 16, 2011, 06:16:24 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Dysfunctional Cunt

Quote from: Doktor Howl on July 18, 2011, 05:58:19 PM
Quote from: Sano on July 18, 2011, 04:21:48 PM
Isn't silicon kind of getting rarer on earth though?

Yeah, the desert out here in Arizona is now just bedrock.

:lulz:

I blame windows  :|

Doktor Howl

Quote from: Khara on July 18, 2011, 06:18:33 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on July 18, 2011, 05:58:19 PM
Quote from: Sano on July 18, 2011, 04:21:48 PM
Isn't silicon kind of getting rarer on earth though?

Yeah, the desert out here in Arizona is now just bedrock.

:lulz:

I blame windows  :|

Enjoy your rocky, bare beaches, America!

:lol:
Molon Lube

Adios

Quote from: Iptuous on July 18, 2011, 03:01:28 PM
at what point would you prognosticate that these facts will become overwhelmingly obvious to the masses? (or at least to all the decision makers)


The worst drought in 60 years in the Horn of Africa has sparked a severe food crisis and high malnutrition rates, with parts of Kenya and Somalia experiencing pre-famine conditions, the United Nations said on Tuesday.

More than 10 million people are now affected in drought-stricken areas of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Uganda and the situation is deteriorating, it said.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/28/us-africa-drought-idUSTRE75R2JQ20110628

It is an annual tradition for Chinese to race dragon boats at the end of each spring, but this year, the tradition has run aground. Many streams and lakes along the Yangtze River have almost dried up.

The world's third-largest river -- stretching from the Himalayas thousands of miles to the east meeting the sea -- has been experiencing its worst drought in decades. The drought is withering farmers' wallets, threatening a Chinese species even rarer than the panda and raising questions about a clean energy source that China hopes to bank its energy future on.

"Because of the drought, what used to be a lake is now dry land," said Liu Jinghua, a woman living by China's second-largest freshwater lake -- Dongting -- which has lost two-thirds of its water over the past few months.
http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2011/06/14/14climatewire-chinas-drought-threatens-farm-income-drinkin-63459.html?pagewanted=all

BabylonHoruv

Quote from: Fuck You One-Eye on July 18, 2011, 04:14:52 PM
Quote from: BabylonHoruv on July 18, 2011, 01:10:16 AM
Quote from: Fuck You One-Eye on July 18, 2011, 12:20:14 AM
Name one agricultural byproduct (i.e. something that is NOT in and of itself a food product) that can be used to make ethanol on a large enough scale for it to matter.

Cornstalks.

You understand that it takes more than a gallon of ethanol's worth of energy to get a gallon of ethanol from corn, right?

Nevermind what the phosphate-laden runoff from growing corn does to rivers and the Gulf.

The corn is being grown anyways, for the kernels, might as well get some use from the stalks.  As far as the energy inputs most of that is heat, which can come from burning cornstalks.
You're a special case, Babylon.  You are offensive even when you don't post.

Merely by being alive, you make everyone just a little more miserable

-Dok Howl

Doktor Howl

Quote from: BabylonHoruv on July 18, 2011, 08:30:42 PM
Quote from: Fuck You One-Eye on July 18, 2011, 04:14:52 PM
Quote from: BabylonHoruv on July 18, 2011, 01:10:16 AM
Quote from: Fuck You One-Eye on July 18, 2011, 12:20:14 AM
Name one agricultural byproduct (i.e. something that is NOT in and of itself a food product) that can be used to make ethanol on a large enough scale for it to matter.

Cornstalks.

You understand that it takes more than a gallon of ethanol's worth of energy to get a gallon of ethanol from corn, right?

Nevermind what the phosphate-laden runoff from growing corn does to rivers and the Gulf.

The corn is being grown anyways, for the kernels, might as well get some use from the stalks.  As far as the energy inputs most of that is heat, which can come from burning cornstalks.

How many calories of energy are you going to get per stalk?
Molon Lube

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

This is another one of those times that I love, when laypeople think they've come up with a perfectly obvious and reasonable solution that makes perfect sense.

GOSH, I WONDER WHY THEY DON'T JUST INVENT A PERPETUAL MOTION MACHINE?
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Doktor Howl

Quote from: Nigel on July 18, 2011, 08:46:06 PM
This is another one of those times that I love, when laypeople think they've come up with a perfectly obvious and reasonable solution that makes perfect sense.

GOSH, I WONDER WHY THEY DON'T JUST INVENT A PERPETUAL MOTION MACHINE?

Also, now we're burning the stalks we were going to use to make ethanol.

HAVING CAKE AND EATING IT TOO, ITT!
Molon Lube

Dysfunctional Cunt

So they're giving up on fuel cell technology alltogether as a viable energy source?

Eartha-ly Delights

Quote from: Cain on July 17, 2011, 03:50:56 PM
Quote from: ϗ, M.S. on July 17, 2011, 02:48:15 PM
Sucks that I'm going to live through all this, but if one has plans of immortality I guess it's a necessity. I do see, amid the coastal flooding and petrolium decline, a hasty and frightened switch to alternative fuel sources, and advanced recycling processes. Landfill mining, anyone? Coal will last much longer, so there may be a switch to diesel and electric vehicles. Ethanol will be ultimately abandoned because it's a complete shit fuel and the growing population will need food farming land. Nuclear will continue, with increased solar and wind production, especially wind. You should see the massive turbine areas in Indiana, basically farms as far as the eye can see, regular farms, with turbines sticking up like alabaster pillars. Fission is too far off to even be considered in the picture. I see mass transportation becoming much more frequent as well.

Unfortunately though, coal will exacerbate climate change.  Which I'd really, really rather not do.  A mix of renewable and nuclear, to make up the shortfall, seems the most sensible approach (assuming the nuclear industry doesn't continue its march to near investment banking levels of irresponsibility and regulatory deception) but that takes decades of planning and building.

And I don't think we have decades for that anymore.

The creeping nightmare of the mining industry at present is Coal Seam Gas. Their PR passes it off as a clean, plentiful and relatively innocuous energy source, just lying fallow, asking to be exploited. Without risk of harm to ozone or ocean...yeah, right.

http://www.ccag.org.au/index.php/coal-seam-gas

And they like to keep it quiet when they fuck it up...which they do...often.
http://www.gladstoneobserver.com.au/story/2010/07/24/coal-seam-gas-and-ucg-are-different/
Say what you will about the Nazis, but no woman ever fantasised about being tied up and ravished by a Liberal Democrat, now did she?
PJ O'Rourke

Sometimes glass glitters more than diamonds because it has more to prove.
Terry Pratchett

PopeTom

Quote from: Khara on July 18, 2011, 08:56:05 PM
So they're giving up on fuel cell technology alltogether as a viable energy source?

I didn't think energy cells were an energy source. More an energy storage medium.
-PopeTom

I am the result of 13.75 ± 0.13 billion years of random chance. Now that I exist I see no reason to start planning and organizing everything in my life.

Random dumb luck got me here, random dumb luck will get me to where I'm going.

Hail Eris!

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: PopeTom on July 18, 2011, 10:15:11 PM
Quote from: Khara on July 18, 2011, 08:56:05 PM
So they're giving up on fuel cell technology alltogether as a viable energy source?

I didn't think energy cells were an energy source. More an energy storage medium.

If you can store energy efficiently, we have a limitless, cheap, clean source; the sun. But if you can't, you're SOL.

Efficient energy storage is the holy grail. It would solve all our energy problems.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Dysfunctional Cunt

Quote from: Nigel on July 18, 2011, 10:27:59 PM
Quote from: PopeTom on July 18, 2011, 10:15:11 PM
Quote from: Khara on July 18, 2011, 08:56:05 PM
So they're giving up on fuel cell technology alltogether as a viable energy source?

I didn't think energy cells were an energy source. More an energy storage medium.

If you can store energy efficiently, we have a limitless, cheap, clean source; the sun. But if you can't, you're SOL.

Efficient energy storage is the holy grail. It would solve all our energy problems.

I honestly sometimes think their idea is to use up every other option before trying anything new, just to make sure no one can go back to the way it was, because there is nothing left...

Does that make sense?

Adios

Quote from: Khara on July 18, 2011, 10:29:34 PM
Quote from: Nigel on July 18, 2011, 10:27:59 PM
Quote from: PopeTom on July 18, 2011, 10:15:11 PM
Quote from: Khara on July 18, 2011, 08:56:05 PM
So they're giving up on fuel cell technology alltogether as a viable energy source?

I didn't think energy cells were an energy source. More an energy storage medium.

If you can store energy efficiently, we have a limitless, cheap, clean source; the sun. But if you can't, you're SOL.

Efficient energy storage is the holy grail. It would solve all our energy problems.

I honestly sometimes think their idea is to use up every other option before trying anything new, just to make sure no one can go back to the way it was, because there is nothing left...

Does that make sense?

Follow the money...

P3nT4gR4m

Quote from: Khara on July 18, 2011, 10:29:34 PM
Quote from: Nigel on July 18, 2011, 10:27:59 PM
Quote from: PopeTom on July 18, 2011, 10:15:11 PM
Quote from: Khara on July 18, 2011, 08:56:05 PM
So they're giving up on fuel cell technology alltogether as a viable energy source?

I didn't think energy cells were an energy source. More an energy storage medium.

If you can store energy efficiently, we have a limitless, cheap, clean source; the sun. But if you can't, you're SOL.

Efficient energy storage is the holy grail. It would solve all our energy problems.

I honestly sometimes think their idea is to use up every other option before trying anything new, just to make sure no one can go back to the way it was, because there is nothing left...

Does that make sense?

It's human nature. Greed. Gimme everything, now and fuck the price.

I'm up to my arse in Brexit Numpties, but I want more.  Target-rich environments are the new sexy.
Not actually a meat product.
Ass-Kicking & Foot-Stomping Ancient Master of SHIT FUCK FUCK FUCK
Awful and Bent Behemothic Results of Last Night's Painful Squat.
High Altitude Haggis-Filled Sex Bucket From Beyond Time and Space.
Internet Monkey Person of Filthy and Immoral Pygmy-Porn Wart Contagion
Octomom Auxillary Heat Exchanger Repairman
walking the fine line line between genius and batshit fucking crazy

"computation is a pattern in the spacetime arrangement of particles, and it's not the particles but the pattern that really matters! Matter doesn't matter." -- Max Tegmark

PopeTom

Quote from: Khara on July 18, 2011, 10:29:34 PM
Quote from: Nigel on July 18, 2011, 10:27:59 PM
Quote from: PopeTom on July 18, 2011, 10:15:11 PM
Quote from: Khara on July 18, 2011, 08:56:05 PM
So they're giving up on fuel cell technology alltogether as a viable energy source?

I didn't think energy cells were an energy source. More an energy storage medium.

If you can store energy efficiently, we have a limitless, cheap, clean source; the sun. But if you can't, you're SOL.

Efficient energy storage is the holy grail. It would solve all our energy problems.

I honestly sometimes think their idea is to use up every other option before trying anything new, just to make sure no one can go back to the way it was, because there is nothing left...

Does that make sense?

I think the idea is to use the cheapest until

a) an even cheaper source is found.

or

b) the cheapest source of energy starts to be uncommon enough (or unable to meat demand) so as to have its price rise to compare with the next cheapest source.
-PopeTom

I am the result of 13.75 ± 0.13 billion years of random chance. Now that I exist I see no reason to start planning and organizing everything in my life.

Random dumb luck got me here, random dumb luck will get me to where I'm going.

Hail Eris!