Pink Poogle Toy Forum

I'll join you guys there

*hits head against wall beside DM and Christopher*

Oh come on that was gold.


<.<


Black gold, you might say.



hehehehe.

God I love you. That made me laugh more than anything else this week.

He's using radio waves to ignite the hydrogen dissolved in water. The question is, how much energy is required to generate those radio waves? Even if you could fill up your car with salt water, you would still need a constant source of electricity to ignite it.

The problem with most water- and hydrogen-based fuels is that they essentially attempt to reverse entropy. When left alone, molecules tend toward disorganization and, in the process, release the energy tied up in their chemical bonds. In order to reverse this process (build bigger molecules), energy must be provided to them to form bonds. The plants and bacteria that make up fossil fuels used the energy from the sun did this millions of years ago, forming hydrocarbons.

Hydrocarbons like the ones in gasoline burn very well because their molecules are so massive. They turn into much smaller molecules in a combustion reaction and release their stored energy to move the car forward. Hydrogen and oxygen gas are both more organized than water, so reacting them together to form water releases energy. However, water is the only reliable source of hydrogen gas currently in existence (there are probably other sources, but none of them exists on a large enough scale to replace gasoline). It requires just as much energy to produce a hydrogen fuel cell as is released when it is burned, assuming 100% efficiency (which we are nowhere close to achieving). That power could come from a much cleaner source. A hydrogen fuel cell is essentially a strong, rechargeable battery.

Far into the future (probably at least 20 years), we'll probably be getting most of our electricity from nuclear plants. Some of that power could be used to charge hydrogen fuel cells or lithium ion batteries, which could then power our cars. "Yuppie energy" like solar and wind power simply isn't reliable enough to power humanity; nuclear is the way to go.

Unless like every second sci-fi film you chuck enormous solar banks in space. (Every other second is cold fusion >_>)

TOSO, you have a very nice grasp of basic chemistry as evidenced by your second two paragraphs.

I like how you left out that it would take several years to even build new nuclear power plants, even for breeder reactors. That does not even include all of the location scouting and environmental appeals. Thus your 20yr estimate is when the first reactors might come on line. Then there is the issue of the fuel. The most common fuels used in all types of reactors are all rare earths. For current US reactors, we would become reliant on the Russians for fuel. For Th breeders, we would become dependent on India for fuel. Then fuel reserves and plant life times cut viable use of fission reactors down to within our lifetimes assuming continued use of current reactors and an increase in the number of operating reactors. Plus, seeing how fusion will barely be viable within a normal human lifespan as of today, that option is still far from coming out of science fiction. Nuclear is not the way to go.

You also kindly left off that all anyone needs to benefit from solar is a roof. Cost of solar is going down exponentially while their efficiency is exponentially increasing (Moore's Law in action) making roof mounted panels even more economically viable for the average consumer, especially after the current build-in tax breaks, current utility company price breaks, and the fact that the consumer sells the electricity they don't use back to the grid (allowing them to make money). The problem being is what happens when the sun don't shine. Well, we never said that we wouldn't stop using non-renewables for such situations. That would just be stupid.

As for wind, the hard part would be finding places that get a lot of wind. A good option that I did research on was building wind farms on abandoned oil rigs off the coast. They have a stable enough platform to support a nicely sized farm as well as some existing infrastructure to transmit the electricity back to land. The county of Santa Barbara here is CA is already looking into that possibility (mind you not as much as other ideas). My family has also done a lot of research into putting a small wind farm with our food farm. Another good way to supplement a farmers income other than costly subsidies.

None of these solutions are a surefire fix for dwindling reserves. I will admit that the best solution will probably be a combination of solar, wind, nuclear, and coal (for peaker plants and as backups) as well as continued use of hydro and maybe some wave/tidal for coastal regions. There is not one solution.

I am glad we agree that we won't be using fossil fuels (and horrible, horrible biofuels) 20yr down the line, but once again you have forgotten that H fuel cells are still only viable 20yrs down the line at the soonest. I agree that straight hydrogen is bull. Also, I agree that Li+ are a nice battery idea for the hear and now, but there are actually more efficient nanofiber batteries currently coming into production that can provide equal performance as current ICE vehicles.

A lot of my argument has come from research I did last summer and from ties to friends that continued the research and even did their senior projects on the subject. I will admit that the information that I was able to gather or was given is biased, but I still took it all with a grain of salt (or more). I can contact people to point interested parties to PEER REVIEWED journals to back up arguments presented.

Will you stop that?! D:

Sky and TOSO...oi. The nerdiness. It burns! O_O
*ded*

It's nerds like us that make life possible for the rest of you

To quote Inrun:

I'm not certain what I find more distressing. The fact that I agreed with TOSO. Or that Skynetmain agreed with my agreeing.

Goodness me. Windfarms definately are not a surefire solution where I live. And solar energy has it's issues here too. Great for the summer, really bad for the winter when daylight hours are so short. But still as an option for helping reduce costs for powering it is good. Windfarms work down south in my province, but up in central/north we don't have enough wind.

Plus my province is of course filled with oil goodness. And we're destroying an area the size of florida for the oil sands... so yeah... *squints* I think my province's current motto is "Oil oil everywhere and shoot anyone who disagrees". Either that or "if you don't like oil, get out you bunny hugging hippie".

Yup. Alberta.

*Sniff* You have left me a Shell of a man, I'm going to go cry to my Mobil now, while driving between Chevron's and listening to the BG's.

Okay, I've pretty much tapped that cap.

No, seriously, I'm done.


I did have something constructive to say (I'm shocked too) but it seems to have slipped from my mind while I made as many Oil references as I could.

ASTHALOTH. STOP. NOW.
D:
( )

I'll just nod and smile at everything you nerds say, then But seriously. Bee Pee powered cars.

Aww, I guess that means that this bunny hugging hippie can't ever live in Alberta

Yeah, i'm feeling a bit outed and exposed. The money is great if you're in the oil field... but there's a severe... under appreciation for things like the environment, art, culture... etc. Things that you know are generally associated with being a hippie.

Someone tell Asthaloth that he owns me a new keyboard. Mine just got coated in grape soda.

I still maintain that Oil reserves running low (Relatively) would be far less of an issue if people learned to walk short distances, instead of driving.
I mean, using here as an example.
There are buses into town every 15 minutes (started at some malicious time like 5AM -They've woken me up some nights) with another two every half hour if you take a five minute walk to the main road, and that's not to mention the half hourly bus that goes the long way round (Going past the Hospital, and many other "out of the way" areas) and it's not that hard a walk (I do it every now and then - I am however the kind of lazy that will walk 6 miles home instead of waiting for the next bus, so I don't expect too many others would make the walk) the TPT goes from town to... about a mile up from me, before the renovation site closes it, so that's an easy route for walking or Cycling, and so forth.

Then there are the... weirdos, who Drive to the corner shop (I can see it from my landing...) and I wish it weren't just the one that does it.

But with fewer cars on the roads, the reserves can be spread around, meaning we have more time to find an answer.
Not perfect, of course, but so what.


(And I find it strange, I am most jovial and jokey at the time where I am most terribly angry and depressed. Maybe I've just passed the point where I take it out on the world in general and I'm focussing it internally.)