That was not really a debate, there was only 1 side given in the report.

Also he says that nuclear power is a failed technology from the 20th century, he's wrong in that nuclear energy has huge untapped potential (as long as it's done right), the fact it's from the 20th century means nothing, should we give up food cause that was like, you know, so last century.

Having said that, leaking tritium sounds incredibly bad, substances with a half life of over 12 years shouldn't really be leaking into water supplies.

As far as putting money into this tech and not solar etc, did Obama not sign the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act a while ago which gives $90'ish billion to those kind of techs? Or did solar/wind power tech's get completely overlooked even with that huge investment, maybe someone has more information on that.

Lastly, the liquid flouride thorium reactor talked about at the google tech talk looked promising, i wonder if this kind of tech was even considered
http://www.videosift.com/video/Liquid-Fluoride-Thorium-Reactor-Google-Tech-Talk-Remix

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
Interesting. My knowledge on fusion is limited to the basic function of it. I know little to nothing about reaction fusion technology. My brain finds it hard to fathom that harnessing the power of the sun couldn't have volatile reputations.
Actually the Sun is a very inefficient form of Fusion. The power output of the sun is 3.846×10^26W, the volume of the Sun is 1.412×10^27 m3. So the output of the sun is only 0.27W per cubic meter of sun.


Another interesting fact is that the Sun loses 7 million tons of mass every second. 4 million is converted to energy via e=mc^2 and 3 million tons are lost to the solar wind. However at the end of the Sun's 10 billion year lifetime it will have lost less than 1% of its mass. Truly astronomical numbers

^first of all, i don't think it's fair to measure the energy calculation in joules.

Solar income is by far the biggest energy contribution to the production of crops, not any human factor. we're merely facilitating a nice opportunity for the plants to convert photons to food, because we can't to that ourselves. so the whole thing rests on our metabolism being "wasteful", energy-wise.

Another reason strict caloric calulation is meaningless for farming, is that the US and EU are subsidizing their domestic agriculture industry with billions of dollars, making farming methods and yields completely divorced from the financial success of a farmer.
Here, I can mostly speak from experience in the EU, where subsidies are often given for weird, counterintuitive behavior, meant to satisfy other goals than production, such as specific, fashionable environmental concerns ("preserve hedges and enclosures!"), or simply to preserve employment in that sector. Talk about wasteful.

And why isn't the haber process sustainable? Because it's dependent on fossil fuels? it only gets the hydrogen part from natural gas, the nitrogen comes from the atmosphere. A lot of people are spending lot of money these days on developing efficient, large scale, renewable hydrogen production, such as electrolysis machines running off solar/wind/nuclear power.
When people talk about "sustainable", they often forget to take into account future developments, and proceed to make gloomy prognoses based on current technology (see: Thomas Malthus)

They didn't have the resolution of the schwarzschild radius, but that's not exactly necessary to make a super massive black hole likely. Because they do know that within the relatively small radius they do see there is a mass of millions of stars, and you would expect these to shine quite brightly or show other signs of being there. For example very massive stars have extreme solar winds which could be visible on these scales.

To be pedantic:
1) Turning the deserts into fertile lands wouldn't cure hunger in the long term. Famines are caused by changes in the amount of food production. Although this is addressed later, with the idea of perfect meteorological systems.
2) A geologically inactive planet would be a crappy place after million of years. Erosion would wear down all of the mountains. Ecological diversity would disappear. Nutrients would become increasingly scarce. For example, Australia, the oldest, flattest, and least geologically active continent, has some of the worst soils in the world (although it does still have some fertile regions). See http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/LivingWith/PlusSide/fertile_soils.html

And if the geological activity completely stops, meaning the Earth's core stagnates, then our magnetic field goes away, then our atmosphere is scoured by the solar wind and we are bombarded with cosmic rays and Earth become more like Mars.

So really we should be hugely grateful that we're on this geologically active planet.

Sometimes I wonder if you really believe anything you actually write.


>> ^quantumushroom:
"A few smoke stacks"?
Yeah, those evil smokestacks, a side effect of allowing people to have energy to heat their homes and cook food and have manufactured items that save millions of hours of manual labor. Those.

All well and good when that was the only way we knew how to make energy. But seeing as now we know how to use solar, wind, wave, thermal, hydro etc. I think it's perfectly agreeable to suggest that maybe we could be using forms of energy creation/capture that do not pump toxins into the atmosphere. I mean, really, you think that what we, as more than 6 Billion people, do has no effect on the earth? You are truly imbecilic.

I really don't get your mindset, well, other than being someone who can't be stuffed actually making an effort, and likes big cars, huge wasteful lives and does all he can to somehow delude himself into thinking it's not a hugely selfish existence.

Which I think is where most right wingers come from, the point of selfishness. If they are comfortable, no matter how badly that life affects others, they want to keep their 'stuff' and not have to change.

More costs to Coal plants ->
Coal-Generated electricity price goes up ->
Natural Gas, Solar, Wind, Geothermal solutions become alot more viable ->
More money goes to funding, building and improving Natural Gas, Solar, Wind, Geothermal solutions ->
Natural Gas, Solar, Wind, Geothermal solutions become a more common, cheaper way to produce electricity ->
No one wants to use Coal anymore, because it's too expensive.

Hard in the short run, good for everyone in the long run.

>> ^joedirt:
"Not a single drop of gasoline"
WHAT A DUMB CUNT!
You know how much more petroleum is wasted by converting to AC, transmitting to your house, then charing your car, then storing in DC batteries.
What an ignorant fuck, compared to refining oil, shipping gasoline to gas station, then filling up a car. Even with a horrible burn ratio in a combustion engine (most of the energy goes into heat and friction), your petroleum goes a ton further.
(Now if Tom Hanks had a video about his solar power plant in his backyard, this would be a different story, but CA steals all its power from other states like a big welfare mom.. and that power is mostly coal and oil.


Here's the difference though...you have a petroleum based car and that is your only option...petroleum. You have an electric car and then your options are wide open...coal and oil? Sure...but your not limited to just that..solar, wind, nuclear, hydroelectric, hydrogen, manure, geothermal, etc... Some of these things such as wind or solar are things that you could conceivably generate yourself.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'solar, wind, trippy, near, earth, objects' to 'solar, wind, trippy, near, earth, objects, black rain, semiconductor' - edited by kronosposeidon

Good stuff. I picked up a 5-CD set years ago called "Symphony of the Planets", where they took the solar winds bouncing off of different planet's magnetospheres and translated it into sound. It sounds completely alien, but oddly enough, familiar at the same time. Great ambient stuff to zone out to, when you're zoning that is...

It's like looking at solar winds.

I 100% agree. I've seen several "Clean Coal" billboards, and they make me angry. Carbon sequestration is simply delaying the inevitable. It's still a fossil fuel, should not even be mentioned in the same sentence as renewable energy, such as hydro, solar, wind.

Aha! Nice.

In reply to this comment by StukaFox:
So a planetoid strikes a perfect glancing blow on early Earth, which rips the planetoid apart but doesn't blow protoearth into smithereens.

The result of the collision is that Earth receives an addition of iron to its core, which in turn generates a stronger magnetic field, thus keeping the solar wind from stripping off our atmosphere, a la Mars.

The collision also imparts a slight axial wobble to Earth, allowing for an uneven heating and cooling of the planet, generating weather systems in our atmosphere and supplying a near-constant temperature that's perfectly suited for complex amino acids to form chains.

Finally, the remains of the collision hang in our sky, providing us with a fairly workable asteroid shield, tides -- and at the right moment in time, -perfectly- block the sun, allowing a group of astronomers to confirm the predictions of a Swiss patent clerk and thus understand the fundamental nature of the universe.

Your god is an awsome god? My science makes your god look like a toddler.

So a planetoid strikes a perfect glancing blow on early Earth, which rips the planetoid apart but doesn't blow protoearth into smithereens.

The result of the collision is that Earth receives an addition of iron to its core, which in turn generates a stronger magnetic field, thus keeping the solar wind from stripping off our atmosphere, a la Mars.

The collision also imparts a slight axial wobble to Earth, allowing for an uneven heating and cooling of the planet, generating weather systems in our atmosphere and supplying a near-constant temperature that's perfectly suited for complex amino acids to form chains.

Finally, the remains of the collision hang in our sky, providing us with a fairly workable asteroid shield, tides -- and at the right moment in time, -perfectly- block the sun, allowing a group of astronomers to confirm the predictions of a Swiss patent clerk and thus understand the fundamental nature of the universe.

Your god is an awsome god? My science makes your god look like a toddler.

>> ^oileanach
The power source is a serious issue I agree. I can't stand it when people suggest that electricity (or similarly hydrogen) is a SOURCE of energy - it's just a means of transmission. Now in a place like France where they have more nuclear power than they can use (especially at night) charging batteries would be a good alternative to burning fossil fuels.

>> ^Kagenin
Quote from his comments:
Here in Southern California (power company: SCE), when I charge this bike, about 50% of the electricity comes from natural gas, 20% from Nuclear, 15% renewable (Geothermal, Wind, etc), and only 9% comes from coal

Nuclear energy and gas/coal are unsustainable/inefficient/old-fashioned/dangerous (esp. nuclear)/centralised (elitist) sources of energy, e.g. read this article by Jeremy Rifkin
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0929-33.htm
Conclusion of the article is that there are a lot better options available: "Instead, we should pursue an aggressive effort to bring the full range of decentralized renewable technologies online: solar, wind, geothermal, hydro and biomass. And we should establish a hydrogen storage infrastructure to ensure a steady, uninterrupted supply of power for our electricity needs and for transportation."