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davieG

Technology, Science and the Environment.

By davieG, in General Chat

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leicsmac

leicsmac

Posted
Posted
Just now, The Bear said:

That's why it needs serious investment. The technology is there in theory, we just need to be able to sustain it continuously. 

Yep. Progress is being made - albeit slowly, and getting more interest would be the best way to speed things up.

 

Seeing as the reward is a power generation system with potential output an order of magnitude higher than anything we have right now, it's worth going for.

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ozleicester

ozleicester

Posted
Posted
On 12/12/2018 at 20:29, The Bear said:

That's why it needs serious investment. The technology is there in theory, we just need to be able to sustain it continuously. 

Excuse my ignorance on this.. but arent we left with some awful stuff when using Nukes?

 

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leicsmac

leicsmac

Posted
Posted
14 minutes ago, ozleicester said:

Excuse my ignorance on this.. but arent we left with some awful stuff when using Nukes?

 

It's never ignorant to ask such questions IMO. :thumbup:

 

To answer for our Ursan friend, nuclear fission does produce quite a lot of unpleasant waste that then has to be stored carefully - though less as the techniques for applying it become more refined.

 

Nuclear fusion, which the OP was referring to, however, is rather different - it produces much less waste, which is much less dangerous biologically, and with a radioactive half-life that is much less than the products of fission. Better all round.

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The Bear

The Bear

Posted
Posted (edited)
15 hours ago, ozleicester said:

 

 

15 hours ago, ozleicester said:

Excuse my ignorance on this.. but arent we left with some awful stuff when using Nukes?

 

As above, fission is the messy one which creates lots of nuclear waste. 

 

Fusion is what happens in the centre of stars and the major bi-product is Helium, which is what you get when you fuse two protons together (Hydrogen has one proton, Helium has two). Helium is also a non toxic inert gas, which ironically the Earth is running out of for use in things like MRI scanners (CERN also uses it to supercool their magnets).

 

The only other "waste product" if you can call it that is a Neutron which can theoretically interact with other materials, even though it has a half life of only 7 x 10-22 seconds. Depending on how well you contain those would decide if it was an issue. Likely not though. 

 

How can you create a neutron when Hydrogen atoms don't have neutrons, I hear you ask? Well the most reliable way to create fusion here on Earth is to use two heavier isotopes of Hydrogen called Dueterium and Tritium. Dueterium has 1 proton and 1 neutron, Tritium has 1 proton and 2 neutrons. You fuse one atom of each together and you get Helium-4 (a stable version of helium with two neutrons) + a neutron + lots of energy. 

 

 

Sorry if that was boring btw. 

Edited by The Bear
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ozleicester

ozleicester

Posted
Posted
7 minutes ago, The Bear said:

 

As above, fission is the messy one which creates lots of nuclear waste. 

 

Fusion is what happens in the centre of stars and the major bi-product is Helium, which is what you get when you fuse two protons together (Hydrogen has one proton, Helium has two). Helium is also a non toxic inert gas, which ironically the Earth is running out of for use in things like MRI scanners (CERN also uses it to supercool their magnets).

 

The only other "waste product" if you can call it that is a Neutron which can theoretically interact with other materials, even though it has a half life of only 7 x 10-22 seconds. Depending on how well you contain those would decide if it was an issue. Likely not though. 

 

How can you create a neutron when Hydrogen atoms don't have neutrons, I hear you ask? Well the most reliable way to create fusion here on Earth is to use two heavier isotopes of Hydrogen called Dueterium and Tritium. Dueterium has 1 proton and 1 neutron, Tritium has 1 proton and 2 neutrons. You fuse one atom of each together and you get Helium-4 (a stable version of helium with two neutrons) + a neutron + lots of energy. 

 

 

Sorry if that was boring btw. 

very interesting... There must be a down side?

 

What are the negatives here, otherwise, why are we not doing this now?

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The Bear

The Bear

Posted
Posted

Even though it sounds simple in theory  it's still incredibly difficult to achieve. In order for two atoms to fuse you have to push them together with incredible force to get them close enough for the strong nuclear force to overcome the repulsion of two similarly charged nuclei. You have to do this by forcing them together at very high temperatures (equivalent of fast speeds). We're talking tens of thousands of degrees celcius. 

 

So then there's the amount of cooling you need, the complexity of the apparatus, and the issue with containment of the waste. 

 

We can do it for short periods (minutes), but we need to do it for longer sustained periods (months), and safely. Which is the hard part and why such investment is needed. It's doable though and is obviously very appealing if we can get there. 

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leicsmac

leicsmac

Posted
Posted
45 minutes ago, The Bear said:

Even though it sounds simple in theory  it's still incredibly difficult to achieve. In order for two atoms to fuse you have to push them together with incredible force to get them close enough for the strong nuclear force to overcome the repulsion of two similarly charged nuclei. You have to do this by forcing them together at very high temperatures (equivalent of fast speeds). We're talking tens of thousands of degrees celcius. 

 

So then there's the amount of cooling you need, the complexity of the apparatus, and the issue with containment of the waste. 

 

We can do it for short periods (minutes), but we need to do it for longer sustained periods (months), and safely. Which is the hard part and why such investment is needed. It's doable though and is obviously very appealing if we can get there. 

latest?cb=20150320192210

 

It's not really a question of problems arising from doing it, it's a question of sheer technical difficulty in terms of materials and arrangements - similar to a space elevator, come to that.

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davieG

davieG

Posted
  • Author
Posted

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-46455844

 

Climate change: The massive CO2 emitter you may not know about

 

Cement is the most widely used man-made material in existence. It is second only to water as the most-consumed resource on the planet.

But, while cement - the key ingredient in concrete - has shaped much of our built environment, it also has a massive carbon footprint.

Cement is the source of about 8% of the world's carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, according to think tank Chatham House.

If the cement industry were a country, it would be the third largest emitter in the world - behind China and the US. It contributes more CO2 than aviation fuel (2.5%) and is not far behind the global agriculture business (12%).

 

 

It'll be hard to cut back on this unless someone can invent a better alternative or improve the product.

 

 

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yorkie1999

yorkie1999

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, davieG said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-46455844

 

Climate change: The massive CO2 emitter you may not know about

 

Cement is the most widely used man-made material in existence. It is second only to water as the most-consumed resource on the planet.

But, while cement - the key ingredient in concrete - has shaped much of our built environment, it also has a massive carbon footprint.

Cement is the source of about 8% of the world's carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, according to think tank Chatham House.

If the cement industry were a country, it would be the third largest emitter in the world - behind China and the US. It contributes more CO2 than aviation fuel (2.5%) and is not far behind the global agriculture business (12%).

 

 

It'll be hard to cut back on this unless someone can invent a better alternative or improve the product.

 

 

Lego.

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leicsmac

leicsmac

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, Buce said:

Risk of ‘domino effect’ of tipping points greater than we thought, study shows: 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/20/risks-of-domino-effect-of-tipping-points-greater-than-thought-study-says

Interesting, and it stands to reason that such things tend to be dynamic and depend on each other as they are interconnected.

 

However, I would also posit (though I'm no expert) that such tipping points are then followed by a re-establishment of equilibrium at some point in the future (for instance, 50 million years ago the average temperature on Earth was stable at about 10-12 degrees C hotter than it is now) and recovery after mass extinction events of the past also shows this.

 

Carlin continues to be right: "The planet is fine, the people are fvcked."

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Buce

Buce

Posted
Posted
6 hours ago, leicsmac said:

Interesting, and it stands to reason that such things tend to be dynamic and depend on each other as they are interconnected.

 

However, I would also posit (though I'm no expert) that such tipping points are then followed by a re-establishment of equilibrium at some point in the future (for instance, 50 million years ago the average temperature on Earth was stable at about 10-12 degrees C hotter than it is now) and recovery after mass extinction events of the past also shows this.

 

Carlin continues to be right: "The planet is fine, the people are fvcked."

 

I think you may be being a little complacent there, Mac; after all, it's now believed that Venus was once a habitable world.

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leicsmac

leicsmac

Posted
Posted
5 hours ago, Buce said:

 

I think you may be being a little complacent there, Mac; after all, it's now believed that Venus was once a habitable world.

Certainly, though if it was it wasn't for long geologically speaking and you can be at least reasonably sure that it was just natural heating caused by an undesirable place in the habitable zone of our Solar System was responsible.

 

I mean, I don't mean to underestimate what humans could do to this planet in terms of damage should we want to but as much as we have shaken things up, what we have done and likely what we will do on that score (barring the development of extremely advanced terraforming/mutating technology) doesn't compare to the Permian or even the Cretaceous extinction events - both of which still led to recovery for life after a geologically (a few million years) short time.

 

I think that sometimes it should be considered that humanity as we know it now has existed in a relative flyspeck of time compared to that of life on the Earth in general, and that even after great cataclysms things tend to recover, and as such overestimate our ability to damage the Earth in a timescale that is truly, truly long term. I'm not saying that it can't happen, but for the reasons above I think it much more likely that humans would instead cause an extinction event thourough one of a variety of methods that would account for around 50-70% species total (including humans themselves) and the Earth would attain standard biodiversity again within a few million years.

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Buce

Buce

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, leicsmac said:

Certainly, though if it was it wasn't for long geologically speaking and you can be at least reasonably sure that it was just natural heating caused by an undesirable place in the habitable zone of our Solar System was responsible.

 

I mean, I don't mean to underestimate what humans could do to this planet in terms of damage should we want to but as much as we have shaken things up, what we have done and likely what we will do on that score (barring the development of extremely advanced terraforming/mutating technology) doesn't compare to the Permian or even the Cretaceous extinction events - both of which still led to recovery for life after a geologically (a few million years) short time.

 

I think that sometimes it should be considered that humanity as we know it now has existed in a relative flyspeck of time compared to that of life on the Earth in general, and that even after great cataclysms things tend to recover, and as such overestimate our ability to damage the Earth in a timescale that is truly, truly long term. I'm not saying that it can't happen, but for the reasons above I think it much more likely that humans would instead cause an extinction event thourough one of a variety of methods that would account for around 50-70% species total (including humans themselves) and the Earth would attain standard biodiversity again within a few million years.

 

Apologies - when you spoke of the planet establishing an equalibrium, I thought you meant on a timescale that would allow human survival. 

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leicsmac

leicsmac

Posted
Posted
56 minutes ago, Buce said:

 

Apologies - when you spoke of the planet establishing an equalibrium, I thought you meant on a timescale that would allow human survival. 

Ah right, allow me to further clarify and say I certainly wasn't, then. :thumbup:

 

There are a lot of consequences of human activity, both potential and actual, that will take a geological rather than human time scale to recover from and/or reestablish an equilibrium.

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