Economics, Resources

[AcneVulgaris]

No, I didn't say that. You are changing what I said. I never once said to only rely on native resources. You are changing what I said so you can attack it rather than actually thinking about what I did say, which was to use our resources rather than not. That does not preclude the use of external resources, but it does allow for lower prices via competition.

Don't try to straw-man me.

First: Where is this mysterious equation, you allude to?

Second: So you wrote a sloppy premise, which I used the context of the original premise to fill in, it made you look dumb, and you're moving the goalposts. Fine. Now, if I understand you correctly, you're stating that using our and the rest of the worlds resources, it's mathematically impossible for us to run out of resources in the next 7500 years. You're going to have to move the goalposts a lot more to get that anywhere near reality. I await the next relocation with interest.

[Nielk1]

First: Where is this mysterious equation, you allude to?

Second: So you wrote a sloppy premise, which I used the context of the original premise to fill in, it made you look dumb, and you're moving the goalposts. Fine. Now, if I understand you correctly, you're stating that using our and the rest of the worlds resources, it's mathematically impossible for us to run out of resources in the next 7500 years. You're going to have to move the goalposts a lot more to get that anywhere near reality. I await the next relocation with interest.

And now that your straw-man failed you are going Ad hominem. Who taught you to argue that way? I have to get the equation which means that we technically cant discuss its validity until I find it. I am damn busy making something of myself in this society so time is a premium. I can however go into what I recall basing it on.

For one, you are assuming a static use and not bothering to apply the rate of technological advance nor the emergence of alternate forms of energy (real ones, not this crap we are being forced into now). For one, nuclear is a great option for power if one deals with the waste. If one uses the reactor type currently illegal in the US you can get a whole lot more power for what waste you do have. As for the waste, I don't see why we don't just fire the damn stuff into space (and I don't mean orbit). Hell, if we didn't ban the use of nuclear energy in space we could create the power needed to lift the waste and fire it to a dump anywhere we wanted. Granted, the biggest issue with nuclear power in space is heat, but with a modification to the terrestrial reactor design we can make the state of "melt down" an actual contained state. Since the vacuum is a perfect insulator the heat would be incapable of radiating from the pellets except as the actual 'radiation', which could be used to heat the water that runs the steam turbines.

Also, there is evidence that the Earth in fact creates oil at a far faster rate than previously believed, this means that what was viewed as a finite quantity of resources (which is a joke anyway since we know it gets replenished, we just though it was REALLLY SLOW) might not be. Furthermore, we have known untapped resources of oils that are larger than any current tapped or tapped in the past, yet we don't use them simply because of environmental laws.

Engine efficiency is so ridiculously low that applying the past rate of advancement in this area over time vastly increases the usability of the parts of oil used for these engines. The only thing we really are in danger of running out of is plastic, which is actually made from oil's extras, specifically, its chemical feedstocks which can probably be created in other ways, though not as cheaply. Furthermore, current recycling, and implied improved rates of recycling in the future can offset this deficit.

Basically, you are taking the Malthusian argument that "if present trends continue, we are all doomed", but the problem with that is that present trends never continue on a linear path. For this reason, one must also consider the rate of change in these trends to even faint accuracy.

Furthermore, I should note that I am in no way a Cornucopian, I am a cynic and a pessimist, so if you find me optimistic about anything (like this) you should probably take some notice.

The reason I don't have the equation on hand is because it was a theoretical muse outside of my area of study. Ironic since most people come from another field, enter economics, and then scream we are all going to die (Malthusians). I had written this equation after hearing about the Drake Equation for life in the universe and the doom and gloom of our oil supply during the election. I will probably have to reform this equation, which is a right bitch since I've forgotten most of my integration, but from what I noted above anyone should probably be able to manufacture something like it. It was based on the rates of change in current trends rather than current trends themselves. From there I just plugged it into your standard Malthusian doom equation.

[Ded10c]

Nuclear power will get even more interesting once fusion finally becomes a viable option; and annihilation after that. Both are proven to create many times more power than fission.

Also noteworthy is that one of the largest oil wells known to exist is sitting somewhere in the region of the falklands, hence the stirring of old Anglo-Argentine tensions in the region.

[AcneVulgaris]

(angry tirade)

So there's no equation? You said there was an equation. Lets stick to facts.

[MrTwosheds]

They don't fire it into space because if the rocket explodes then the waste will be dispersed into the atmosphere, which is exactly where we don't want it. Not a safe plan at all. I understand that it is entirely feasible to generate energy from the waste too, the same way it can be generated by solar radiation.
Furthermore there is a fairly limited supply of uranium that is easily available and it takes very large amounts of fossil fuel energy to mine and process it in the first place, it is not "clean" energy through its whole cycle, only once you've actually got it into the reactor. What you could use is a plutonium reactor...Then you could recycle the ridiculous number of warheads the previous generation of paranoid leaders saw fit to construct. Probably keep you going for a few century's

Quote:
Since the vacuum is a perfect insulator the heat would be incapable of radiating from the pellets

No idea where you got that from, space local to our planet has 2 states, bloody hot or bloody cold depending on wether your in the shade of something else or not, plenty of radiating going on, just not very much via gas particles.

Quote:
Also, there is evidence that the Earth in fact creates oil at a far faster rate than previously believed

Eh? Oil is the fossilised remains of life forms built up over millions of years and then buried underground by geological action and squeezed into/from rocks by huge pressure. The time scale this occurs over may well have been misjudged, but it is unlikely that any significant "replenishment" will occur within the life expectancy of the species known as Homosapien, even if we did stop exterminating the life forms that create it.

This discussion is getting daft, I know that you know, that allot of the stuff your saying here is utter garbage, the product of the fantasist anti-science share-holding selfish **** who only care about what happens to them in their one little life and don't give a damn about future generations or any of the rest of creation.
You should either be ashamed of being gullible enough to believe it or ashamed of being such willing pawn in what is possibly the most corrupt and disgusting attempt to manipulate knowledge the human race has ever witnessed.
History has not ended yet, I wonder what name it will give those lying science deniers once their agenda is clearly disseminated and understood by all?

It seems to me that it is a process very much like the "racial superiority" delusion the 3rd Reich cooked up for the German people, tell people what they want to hear, gain power from doing so and stuff the consequences.

[Zax]

when words like "pawn" "wake up" or "slave" get thrown around it is time to ignore the commenter.

[Psychedelic Rhino]

Anyone else smell the metallic aroma of a locked thread?

[Red Devil]

there has been speculation that oil does not come from decomposed organic matter, but from chemical reactions deep within the earth itself:

http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/201 ... commentary

http://www.livescience.com/9404-mysteri ... y-oil.html

[Zax]

there has been speculation that oil does not come from decomposed organic matter, but from chemical reactions deep within the earth itself:

http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/201 ... commentary

http://www.livescience.com/9404-mysteri ... y-oil.html

That would effectively make oil earth poop, and all of us are burning bio fuel. Eww. But the question then becomes: what does the earth eat to make this poop?

[Red Devil]

itself

[Zax]

itself

Dun- dun- DUN!

[AcneVulgaris]

And when it runs out of itself to eat, it will eat us. Not all at once, though. Until the very end, the rich will live in cities on huge stilts, and drive enormous vehicles that run on the petrochemicals composed of the poor people the earth has eaten and pooped out.

Until the earth disappears in a cataclysmic thunderclap of cosmic flatulence.

[MrTwosheds]

when words like "pawn" "wake up" or "slave" get thrown around it is time to ignore the commenter.

But I didn't actually say Hit...
Seriously though, even if there was loads of oil, burning it all is probably suicidal. Still this seems to be the plan anyway, and who am I to disagree with the vast majority of people who just don't care. Evolution in action, too stupid to survive, like telling kids not to take drugs, waste of time, they don't listen and actually do it more because its cool to be bad. Now all you guys need is good plan to kill off all the plankton too, just to prove that there is no need to absorb atmospheric c02 at all.

[APCs r Evil]

Hmmm... Huge numbers of radioactive particles in the oceans should show plankton who they're dealing with.

[Nielk1]

(angry tirade)

So there's no equation? You said there was an equation. Lets stick to facts.

There was no angry tirade, but from your response I can tell what will happen if i continue to bother with you.

I will look for the equation, fail to find it, and rewrite it based on all the things I noted in my post which you called apparently "not facts". Then I would post it and you would just give a one liner as to why it was irrelevant.

What I told you in my non-angry post was a number of facts. You choose to call them 'not facts' when it suits you. Nice job. You are not worth it. However I will continue to talk with the other people here.

Quote:
Since the vacuum is a perfect insulator the heat would be incapable of radiating from the pellets

No idea where you got that from, space local to our planet has 2 states, bloody hot or bloody cold depending on wether your in the shade of something else or not, plenty of radiating going on, just not very much via gas particles.

Incorrect. Space is a perfect insulator and has no temperature aside from that on its extremely rare particles. What YOU are referring to is heat via Solar radiation.

Basically, you are believing science fiction. If you were to be thrown out into space, you would not freeze like one does in the movies. Solar radiation does *not* give that much heat that fast either.

TVTropes, of all things, goes into great detail on this, and most likely so does NASA.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/A ... paceIsCold

Like I said, heat is the only issue, not cold. And as the reactor core would be encased away from Solar radiation, all the existing management systems for solar radiation based heat (we have space craft and stations working in the sun after all) would do fine while the core sat as a perfect sphere of super heated radioactive goo without any way other than radiation to transmit its heat.

Now, about getting the radioactive material into space. Space travel, at least in the United States, is increasingly safe (or it was before they canned the shuttle after they misused it for years). Furthermore, new techniques pioneered by private industry have made space entry as simple as flying a plane and re-entry as easy and slow as a feather falling from the sky.

Personally, I would look into placing reactors at the Earth's trailing Lagrangian point to fire a microwave beam to a satellite in orbit of our planet and then to others and finally to the surface. In case of an emergency the reactors could be shed from orbit before we made the orbit back around.

Getting the fuel into orbit could be done rather safely, but not if all you can think about is placing a big rocket booster under it. Same with waste.