NationStates Jolt Archive

If you had to choose one (Or more) sources of power that would COMPLETLY replace all existing power sources, what would it be? Don't forget feasibility, dangers, can it be used everywhere,etc,
Discuss please.

Solar. The sun is the closest thing we have to "infinite" and I think human potential will be able to develop it over the next few centuries into a way that it's safe and efficient.

Until we have that kind of technology, I strongly believe in using ethanol to its full and total potential, and hopefully start running conventional cars on it soon enough.

Drilling for oil on American soil doesn't solve the problem, it just takes away a golden toilet seat from a Saudi prince while the wells are still running dry all over the world.

I don't think we'll ever have just ONE alternative source of Energy. You could never set up enough wind turbines, you can't always count on the sun, etc. Hopefully people will realize that and use all diffrent sources for energy.

realistically the only way to meet world energy needs in the next 100 years is nuclear.

Hamsters on wheels.

BURN TeH HIPpIES...

Solar Power.

The infrastructure needed to set up solar panels/cells across the world would be massive and expensive...but when faced with a worldwide(more or less) energy crisis, massive and expensive is going to happen anyway. Might as well spend some time trying to remedy the problem.

I also voted for pie.

Nuclear, solar, hydro and wind are all great. Solar panel tech is supposedly rapidly improving, which is great, but it's still not nearly as potent a resource as would be necessary to rely upon it completely. Hydro is tough because it moves animals around, and causes legal disasters as a result. Wind is great, but no one with money wants to live near a turbine.

So I say, ideally we'd have nuclear as the workhorse, while relying more on solar as the tech improves.

Edit: oh, and burn the hippies. :)

http://www.wired.com/images/article/magazine/1507/st_redbull_f.jpg

red bull


Oil is cheaper.

So I say, ideally we'd have nuclear as the workhorse, while relying more on solar as the tech improves.


The *only problem with nuclear is the interminable waste it produces. Plus, uranium and whatever other nuclear elements used are nonrenewable as much as coal or oil.

*not really

Negative.

I voted nukes, solar, hydro, and wind. Though, I think the world should run on sexual energy alone. :p :D

I am SO sick of threads on good subjects which are tainted by Conserative Morality's gormless OP questions ...

That I voted for coal, and only coal.

*blows a big fart in CM's general direction*

The sun is our main source of energy anyway, so if we had to choose, I'd say advance solar energy as far as possible. If it would be at all feasible, I'd even say a bunch of solar power plants in space would be extremely useful, though how that would work I leave up to the astronauts. Transferring energy to earth, given the amount of energy we could potentially capture that goes lost into the depths of space, doesn't exactly seem like the biggest problem in this respect (asteroid mining could come in real handy).

Still, for now, solar power in the barren places of our world seems like a good idea. Oil, coal, wind and water are mostly solar power captured in one form or another anyway and nuclear, while extremely useful, seems like a bad long-term solution. It's very good short-term though.

I am SO sick of threads on good subjects which are tainted by Conserative Morality's gormless OP questions ...

That I voted for coal, and only coal.

*blows a big fart in CM's general direction*

No natural gas? :(

Nuclear energy is safer, causes less pollution, and looks cooler than the more traditional forms of energy (oil, coal, natural gas). Just as soon as people allow governments to designate sites to store the waste until it is safe, there will be very few problems with the power plants (other than not being able to use the land after the plant closes). This would of course only be possible for countries already in the Nuclear club, as any country outside of it would probably just weaponize it (I'm looking at you Monaco!).

I am SO sick of threads on good subjects which are tainted by Conserative Morality's gormless OP questions ...

That I voted for coal, and only coal.

*blows a big fart in CM's general direction*
:( *cries* You made a little kid cry. I hope you're happy you monster!

A Dyson sphere is the way to go until someone figures out how to move star systems near the galactic core and dump them into the black hole at the center for power. And I will watch with glee from Sigma 957 as the pathetic lower life try to escape their fate.

Oil is cheaper.

but, for how long?

Probably solar, given the choices in the poll. It's more reliable than wind and more easily installed on a small scale for local use, but is also massively abundant and increasingly cheap. However, my first choice would be geothermal. Completely reliable and abundant power that could meet virtually any current need if properly scaled.

Zero Point energy FTW.

Sexual Energy.

Zero Point energy FTW.
Isn't ZPE the lowest possible energy that a quantum mechanical physical system may possess and is the energy of the ground state of the system? Stop watching SG-1 and SG-A for your science, they butcher it.

Sexual Energy.

I'm more a fan of animal magnetism, myself.

but, for how long?

It'd have to go to at least $1000/barrel before it was more expensive that Red Bull. :p

I picked nuc. Here's why:

Natural gas: good but not very cost effective and it is a finite source.
Coal: Terrible. It's finite, dirty, horrible for the environment, and actually dumps a surprising amount of radioactive material into the air. That apart from the 'regular' pollutants and the dangers inherent in mining the stuff
Oil. Bad. Finite supply and economic asshattery make this one a bad but unfortunately necessary choice in the real world for now
Nuclear power. Not perfect, but when safety procedures are properly followed it's teh cleanest and most abundant source of power. The problem is that when it's managed poorly...
Hydro power. Ideal if you happen to live near a river
Wind power. Not very efficient and no t always practical. Takes up an incredibly large amount of land and is unreliable
Solar power. The amount of energy consumed to manufacture solar cells exceeds the likely output of the cells over their lifetime on average.
Organic fuels. What does that even mean? Ethanol? Again the amount of energy consumed to manufacture it exceeds its output. Vegetable oil is another possibility but farming the organisms needed to produce it leads to soil exhaustion and limits food production
BURN TEH HIPPIES! Think of the smell...

I picked nuc. Here's why:


Hydro power. Ideal if you happen to live near a river

Organic fuels. What does that even mean? Ethanol? Again the amount of energy consumed to manufacture it exceeds its output. Vegetable oil is another possibility but farming the organisms needed to produce it leads to soil exhaustion and limits food production


Hydro power is bad for river environments not likely to have any further hydro damns built in the US.

Ethanol. your using dated information you now get 1.3 BTUs out for every 1.0 BTUs in with corn. A very low number yes but still a gain. main issue is like you said we would have to have masses of fields.
It might be usable with sugarcane,you get about 5 out for 1 in with sugar cane, or Genetically modified to be sweeter corn(make it cooler climate sugarcane) but hippies hate when we genetically modify things.

I've always been a fan of nuclear power. It may have some drawbacks, but these can be managed. At any rate, I'd rather live next to a nuclear plant than anything burning fossil fuels.

Di-Lithium focused matter/anti-matter reactors.:D

don't worry, after the rapture we will power everything with the holy spirit... its infinite and it doesn't cause cancer... unless you sin... repeatedly!

Isn't ZPE the lowest possible energy that a quantum mechanical physical system may possess and is the energy of the ground state of the system? Stop watching SG-1 and SG-A for your science, they butcher it.

The idea that large amounts of energy can be gained through the zero point predates the SG shows. It is however considered pseudoscience by the vast majority of physicists.

The idea that large amounts of energy can be gained through the zero point predates the SG shows. It is however considered pseudoscience by the vast majority of physicists.

ZPE is real look at the Casimir effect. what is pseudoscience is that we can use the energy to do any sort of work what so ever. Because to take energy out of ZPE and do something with it means reducing the background energy to below ZPE which to anything in line with our knowledge of physics is impossible.

Everything's nuclear. The sun is a big glowing nuclear fusion reactor 93 million miles away. The sun's energy evaporates water that eventually rains down and powers hydroelectric dams, so water power is nuclear. Fossil fuels come from long-dead plants and animals that depended on the sun, so oil, gas, and coal are nuclear. Nuclear is nuclear.

I know what you are going to say. Sure, not everything is directly nuclear, but how does a nuclear plant work? The nuclear reaction heats water into steam, which generates the power needed to power the generators. So nuclear power stations are really steam power stations. The more you know.

Out of the list I picked nuclear.

Coal, oil and natural gas are too finite to provide a long term solution, you need to burn quite a bit to produce a decent amount of energy.
Hydro electric power requires you to dam rivers which can cause flooding problems, put pressure on faults and destroy wildlife habitats.
Wind is unreliable as a primary power source, it rarely operates at full capacity and people don't want to live near them.
Solar power is not feasible everywhere as a primary power source, any ideas about using orbital solar panels bring in problems of how to get it down to earth.
Organic fuels Require the switching of land use from food to energy production, drives up the cost of food and increases the risk of shortages.
BURN TEH HIPPIES! Useful, but not a long term solution as far as power generation goes, although it would cut down power requirements. Hmm maybe you have a point there.
Pies are an unlimited source of energy. As well as LG's insanity You need energy to bake pies :D (I havn't been here long enough to understand the LG part)

So therefore nuclear is the only real option in the list: Uranium is a limited resource but it's relatively abundant at the moment, plus you don't need a great deal to produce a reasonable amount of energy and plutonium can be put back through a reactor. The waste is a problem but not an insurmountable one and it's cleaner in general than burning coal or oil. Also, in the nuclear section i'm including nuclear fusion (if it can ever be made to work) which produces even more power and eliminates the waste problem.

There is one option you missed though which is geothermal. It's not feasible everywhere but it produces a fair amount of energy where it can be used (Iceland gets just about all its power from geothermal) and is clean.

Dynamic energy

Pies are an unlimited source of energy. As well as LG's insanity You need energy to bake pies :D (I havn't been here long enough to understand the LG part)
.

*scampers into the thread, pushes you in mud and scampers back out*

*scampers into the thread, pushes you in mud and scampers back out*

Scamper power FTW!

Doesn't matter. If only one currently available source of energy could be used we're totally screwed regardless of what it is.

Scamper power FTW!

Scampering is a highly underused and underrated mode of transit. *nod*

I picked hydro, wind, solar, and organic. The first four are unacceptable, for various reasons.
Geothermal would be good, too.

The idea of only picking one power source is absurd. We need nuclear power in the short term, combined with major investment in renewables with a view to eventually phasing out non-renewables completely.

*scampers into the thread, pushes you in mud and scampers back out*

*Wipes mud off face* Damn you and your highly efficient scampering.

I prefer nuclear for our short term energy needs. I would prefer that all replacement power plants in the UK were nuclear as old fossil fuel plants are decommissioned. In the long term, I'd like to see a reliance on clean and completely renewable energy. In the UK we should rely on those sources in which we have an abundance - that means wind and tidal energy. In sunnier climates solar is also feasible as is geothermal energy where drilling for it is appropriate - if I'm not mistaken, there could be thousands of sites around the world where this is possible. Hydro power is useful but can be very limited in its application.

Realistically until a massive power providing method that is completly safe (eg - no waste) can be found, nuclear is unfortunately the only real answer.

However living within 15 miles of 3 wind farms, i must say that wind either off shore oin on shore, could provide the energy needed to some areas. Its not suitable for powering a nation as small as Britain entirely but it could work for several communities...

Solar is only really viable on the equator (maximum efficiency) and water is mch like wind except for tidal enbergy, most electric companies are considering tidal barriers, trashing a rivers eco system in the process (tidal barrier on the severn.. are you insane!!!!!)

It'd have to go to at least $1000/barrel before it was more expensive that Red Bull. :p

That can be arranged

http://e.deviantart.com/emoticons/p/plotting.gif

http://iconhell.com/i/iconhell_surrealthoughtz_mwahahaa.gif

Sexual Energy.
Haha, I said it first! :p
I'm more a fan of animal magnetism, myself.
You quoted him, and not me?! You make me cry! *cries* :D