ok i watched one of the kirk sorenson thorium videos and i've totally drunk the kool-ade. let's do this
― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Monday, 12 September 2016 22:53 (seven years ago) link
yeah i've been curious about it for a while now, and the cynic in me says (w/o data) that we're not using it because a) there's some fatal flaw that isn't being reported or b) Big Energy interests are actively suppressing it
― jason waterfalls (gbx), Tuesday, 13 September 2016 00:15 (seven years ago) link
when they realise all you need to do to acquire it is send out a truck to drive over fields of it they'll love it
― calzino, Tuesday, 13 September 2016 06:53 (seven years ago) link
admittedly the video i watched is redolent of the sort of conspiracy theory magnum opuses the internet excels in but sorensen says several times that he thought the same thing - "there's some fatal flaw that isn't being reported" - and went to grad school in Knoxville to find out, and everybody was like nope, you're right
the bit of the video that i actually found most interesting i still don't quite understand - about producing jet fuel out of seawater (related vid here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_3495016107 ). the guy makes a good point about aviation: electric planes don't exist and won't exist. you still need some kind of energy-dense hydrocarbon to make these things fly. but how any of that relates to nuclear i don't quite get
― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 13 September 2016 07:18 (seven years ago) link
ah i guess the idea is that the electricity required for electrolysis has to come from somewhere? and that's where thorium (or what have you) comes in
― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 13 September 2016 07:22 (seven years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9TR9G5bd7w I don't know if there has been any talk about DAPL around here, it's something I've been following closely.
― JacobSanders, Tuesday, 25 October 2016 18:08 (seven years ago) link
kinda wish there was a thread for #NODAPL, we'll see where it goes after today. heavy shit going down.
http://www.democracynow.org/2016/10/27/developing_100_militarized_police_demolishing_nodapl
from yesterday:
https://cldc.org/2016/10/26/update-militarized-police-presence-at-standing-rock/
― sleeve, Thursday, 27 October 2016 23:46 (seven years ago) link
https://www.tesla.com/solar
― schwantz, Saturday, 29 October 2016 15:42 (seven years ago) link
this seems Actually Good
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/8/31/17799094/california-100-percent-clean-energy-target-brown-de-leon
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Tuesday, 11 September 2018 18:51 (five years ago) link
Energy industry is fucking bonkers right now, so much is happening in CA
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 11 September 2018 18:55 (five years ago) link
see also: new cash rebates for battery storage being offered in CA and HI
― sleeve, Tuesday, 11 September 2018 18:55 (five years ago) link
everybody wants everything to be electric from clean energy sources (sucks to be you SoCal Gas!)
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 11 September 2018 18:56 (five years ago) link
I want nearly all energy to be electric so I can keep burning natural gas to cook
― faculty w1fe (silby), Tuesday, 11 September 2018 19:33 (five years ago) link
otmfm
― sleeve, Tuesday, 11 September 2018 19:38 (five years ago) link
though if the utility figures out how to harvest biogas and pipe it to my house at sufficient scale I'll happily burn that too. Anyway the electricity mix in my state is like 80%+ hydro 😎
― faculty w1fe (silby), Tuesday, 11 September 2018 19:45 (five years ago) link
where are you... Colorado?
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 11 September 2018 23:28 (five years ago) link
Seattle iirc
here's an overview of the new CA legislation:
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/on-to-the-governors-desk-what-100-clean-energy-means-for-california#gs.U3FXrJs
― sleeve, Wednesday, 12 September 2018 14:28 (five years ago) link
It makes more sense to use methane/natural gas for space heating and cooking heating over electricity on efficiency grounds, but in the future the methane will be provided by excess renewable energy.
I fully expect a much worse case scenario for global warming than most, but should society recover, there's a high likelihood it will be with a methane infrastructure providing energy storage/generation/end-user heat production.
― godless hippie skank (Sanpaku), Sunday, 16 September 2018 18:55 (five years ago) link
I haven't probed deeply into it, but I expect that there are already feasible and demonstrated solutions to every one of the technical problems associated with stopping fossil fuel use completely.
The biggest and most intractable problems are that such solutions would require a massive recapitalization of our energy infrastructure, coupled with removing many trillions of dollars worth of assets from financial markets. I fear that won't happen until the disaster is already so far advanced that the collapse of society is already well underway.
― A is for (Aimless), Sunday, 16 September 2018 19:39 (five years ago) link
I fear that won't happen until the disaster is already so far advanced that the collapse of society is already well underway.
no need to fear, we're likely already past the tipping point
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609642/the-year-climate-change-began-to-spin-out-of-control/
there are a lot of ways to collapse, though. the task now is to mitigate it as much as possible.
― Karl Malone, Sunday, 16 September 2018 19:53 (five years ago) link