Global Warming

[Nortos]

How are Wii's bad for the environment 360's r the one's that take most power to run PS3 all the way as best

[Vell]

I think she was talkin bout Nintendo...

[Nortos]

I know Nintendo Wii lol

[Vell]

lol, anyway yeah, I just didnt continue the conversation.

[Blizzard]

I better lock this before it turns into spam. :3

[Fantasist]

Good point, that's what I was afraid of.

*locks topic*

EDIT: Wait, it's already locked? The fast reply box is misleading >.<

[Blizzard]

No, I just locked it less than 97 seconds before you posted so you couldn't see this left, next to the quick reply box:
Warning: this topic is currently locked! Only admins and moderators can reply.

[Fantasist]

Yeah, I see it now. So this is the last post for good

[Vell]

umm nope, the thread is reopened apparently

[Blizzard]

Yes, I reopened it on request and now stop spamming it up. -_-

[Phasedscar]

Actually fro last what I heard it's not mankind's fault that it's getting warmer. One volcano alone yearly lets off more CO₂ than all mankind. It's a natural cycle which means that we could soon have another ice age. =/

The reason for that is from the normally salty Atlantic Ocean gaining fresh water from the polar ice cap melt.  As more freshwater is introduced the chance for the Mid Atlantic Current shutting off increases exponentially.  When that shuts off warm water from the equator can no longer reach the northern reagons such as England and the eastern seaboard of the US.

Also, durring the Cretacious Period, the average temperature of the earth was about 6ºC warmer (about 11ºF) then it is now.  I don't believe Global Warming is completely caused by man, though I know we do contribute.  But I also thing the Earth is MUCH more resilient then we give it credit for.  I mean after all we've suffered 6 mass extinction periods before entering this age.

Granted that the dinosaurs demise was not for environmental reason, but rather the cataclismic event known as the KT Event where a 6 mile wide (9 KM) meteor smashed into the earth, causing any living thing within 1000 miles of ground zero to perish instantly.  Dibrea from the impact sent hunders of thousands of tons of material into space where it stayed there for roughly a day before crashing back down causing the surface of the earth to heat up to about 300ºC.  In this event 80% of the life on Earth was extinguished.  But out of that mammals took over again the earth was recolonized by a plathora of living organisms.

The whole point of that was to basically illustrate that even though a catastrophic event can happen, it does not mean the end of life on this planet.  I don't expect that to happen for about another 3 billion years when the sun expands and swallows the Earth whole.

[Vell]

well, Earth itself will survive, and creatures will always keep popping up on it as long as it exists, (plethora/debris) its just i do not believe humanity is doing good for it, the Earth is SUPERIOR to us in EVERY way, we have to cheat just to escape it for a few months, probably shorter actually. and even then, we have to return shortly.

even in Star Trek, if they didnt have 'replicators' theres no way they would have been able to go on long journeys, for the sole reason that they would have to restock on food.

and we're barely a fraction on it, and as far as we know we're killing it, and all we think is 'Oh shit, Earth might be dieing, HOW DOES HUMANITY SURVIVE?!' not a single person gives a shit about the planet. its all, OH NO HUMANITY GONNA DIE! if Earth is threatened but humanity will be fine itd be like 'meh, bye Earth, wheres planet number two?'

[Phasedscar]

I suspect that within the next 100 years or so we'll come up with quite a few new technologies that will vastly improve our quality of life and that for the rest of the planet.  This year the first flexable solar cells will be coming out, and they can be made into things like roofing shingles.

Not to mention the idea of having gardens on top of buildings as part of the heating and cooling systems.

Personally I think the best thing that will be coming out in the next few years will be the hydrogen cars.  Something that splits H2O into H and O both of which are fuels, and converts them back into water again is a very effecient use of materials.

I honestly wish fusion power plants were developed already, but I don't expect it to happen for at least another 30 years.

[Vell]

truthfully, as long as humanity doesnt end up continuing to make it so i have to hear agony every night, I MIGHT decide to hate them a TAD less.

[Blizzard]

Wait a moment, nuclear power plants are based on the fusion of atoms. What exactly would a fusion power be?

I know that fission is much more powerful than fusion, though. But the power resulting from fission is still to devastating to be actually usable. Scientists are still trying to figure out how to control the process of fission, so it's pretty hard to tell when there may be a breakthrough.

I believe that if humanity is able to actually master power production (and I mean in such a way that energy is not just cheap but free), it might have a chance against extreme climatic changes without "leaving the planet" for a period of time. The main problem of humanity "destroying" the planet today is the actual lack of resources. In fact, people are supposed to give back resources to the planet in a different form from the one they use. A good example would be planting new a new forest if cutting off another one. Humans simply take the resources and don't give anything back. Solving this problem or at least finding a better solution is one of the challenges of the 21st century.
There already are many laws for protection of the environment and the fines are high enough that it doesn't pay off for most companies not to follow them. Many more laws are protocols are planned for the future.

[Phasedscar]

You got that backwards Blizz, fission is the seperation of an atom's nuclei into 2 distinct new atoms, and is what we're doing already.  We split Uranium and Plutonium atoms down until it turns into Iron Ferite.  Uranium and Plutonium are extremely unstable atoms which is why they're prime candidates for this process.  Unfortunately it leaves behind the toxic byproduct of nuclear waste...

Fusion is what the sun does, combining atoms together to create larger atoms.  Hydrogen fuses together to form Helium.  The real power from this comes in the fact that it takes several steps where energy is created for each transformation. 

The Helium bomb was the first nuclear device to harness the power of fusion, but as it is, we can only sustain it for a few seconds at an actual loss of power instead of gaining power.  The Hydrogen Atomic Bomb that was dropped on Nagasake and Hieroshima was a fission bomb and was extremely powerful in it's own right, but released about 5 times less energy then it's fusion brother.

I just wanted to clear that up for ya    On everything else, I definitely agree.

Oh, I forgot to mention, fusion is safer to use because it doesn't leave radio-active materials as a by product.  The process can't continue after Iron, which is the last of the stable metals.  I can't say this for sure but I think with fusion one bucket (about 3 liters) of water can generate about 7 megawatts of power.

[Blizzard]

Ah, thanks. Yes, I obviously confused them. xD

I wouldn't say that fusion is safer. I'd rather say it's cleaner as (just like you already said) there are no radio-active byproducts. If I'm not wrong fusion is more devastating than fission as it releases more power and large amounts of power are harder to keep under control.

[Phasedscar]

Yeah, that's one of my chief concerns about it, but I think just like most nuclear power plants going online today they'll be about 20 miles from the nearest town.  Far enough away that IF it explodes it wont harm a large portion of the population.

My guess is power will be provided and supplimented  through mainly wind, solar, geothermal and hydro-electric generators.  Fusion will probably be used to provide large quantities for power for several cities larger then 250,000 people and military, science R&D complexes like NASA.  Either way it's better then coal, and will ultimately be cheaper then fossil fuels...  I just don't ever expect energy to become free.

Maybe it will in the long shot future when we have solar panals with 80% effeciency in capturing sunlight?

[Blizzard]

Phew, 80%, that's a lot. The usual is 16%-18% for now, even though a friend told me the other days that somebody was able to make a solar cell that runs at 25% efficiency. The little problem with solar energy is that the technology is developing, but not that fast. There were a few boosts of development during history (like the crude oil crisis in the early 70's and the energy crisis at the end of that decade in the last century), but they were not constant. Still, solar energy technology is still being developed and had an increase rate of 10%-20% per year during the last couple of years. In 2007, though, the increase was 50%: From installed 6GW the capacity went up to 9GW. I suppose the "current crude oil crisis" boosted the development. I am really curious what rate of growth there will be this year.

It's interesting, though, that even solar power plants are not without side effects. Of course those side effects are much weaker than the one from a power plant that runs on fossil fuel, but there still are. One type of solar power plant can cause damage to the eyesight due to increased electromagnetic radiation of reflected light beams. Another one can cause an increasement of the average temperature in that region. Of course this goes for solar power plants that were built close to settlements.
Another factor could be the ironic need of energy, people and material resources to built such a power plant. xD In any case a solar power plant pays off very soon and can deliver relatively clean energy.

I wrote a hands-on seminar a couple of months ago so I'm pretty much informed on that subject.

[Phasedscar]

certainly sounds like it lol.

50% a year is about the same rate as transisters, so maybe it wont be as far away as I was thinking, possibly in the next 40 years if the trend continues.

Keep in mind though that not all solar power plants have to use the liquid salts that the current day ones do.  There might be a trend to start using solar panels as roofing shingles, siding, house paint, car paint, acrilec glass, tempered class, and so on.  Basically every exposed surface of your house and car can generate electricity rather then take electricity.

I mean, imagine it, a time when homes don't pay electric bills and you no longer need to get gas for your car?  Assuming humanity lasts that long it'd be a great step forward into advancing civilization.