BMW M3 versus Toyota Prius

[RacingManiac]

obviously all energy are solar(much like fossil fuel itself), eve nuclear one could argue that without the sun there wouldn't be a solar system which won't give you the uranium and whatnot, but "solar" technology like photovoltaic(solar electric) is at the current technology(and forseeable future) and cost, highly impractical. There are only so many places in the world that can sustain a reliable solar power "plant" due to their climate and ease of transmission capability. Same can be said for wind power as well. Reason why people sees the current "renewable fuel" as the future because you are converting solar energy, but the method we do it can rely on the existing facility and equipment and technology.

[nota]

There are only so many places in the world that can sustain a reliable solar power "plant" due to their climate and ease of transmission capability.

Seems to work ok under the gloomy skies of europe

World's Biggest Solar Plant Goes Online in Germany | Germany | Deutsche Welle | 22.06.2008

[Kitdy]

obviously all energy are solar(much like fossil fuel itself), eve nuclear one could argue that without the sun there wouldn't be a solar system which won't give you the uranium and whatnot, but "solar" technology like photovoltaic(solar electric) is at the current technology(and forseeable future) and cost, highly impractical. There are only so many places in the world that can sustain a reliable solar power "plant" due to their climate and ease of transmission capability. Same can be said for wind power as well. Reason why people sees the current "renewable fuel" as the future because you are converting solar energy, but the method we do it can rely on the existing facility and equipment and technology.

Now for a bit of a physics lesson for those that didn't take it is high school or university or read books and the like.

Hydroelectric energy is gravitational, so it is not dependent on the sun - rather the motion of the Moon around the Earth.

Nuclear is not particularly solar - it is energy gained form the weak nuclear force. However, were there no stars, there would be no society as we know it. I am not sure if there are any models for life in our universe that allows for life without stars. Furthermore, elements greater than iron did not exist in the universe until after the first generation of stars died and the supernovae that they created fused elements with atomic number greater than that of iron.

As for all energy, there are only 4 kinds of energy that modern physics has identified (and it seems as there are no more than this), so all are energy is from either the gravitational force (the force created by objects that have mass), electromagnetic force (the force created by objects that have charge), the weak nuclear force (the force that holds protons and neutrons together in the atom), and the strong nuclear force (the force that holds quarks together to form things like protons, electrons, and neutrons).

To the best of my knowledge, humanity has no large scale energy recovery systems pertaining to the strong nuclear force, but all the others are used.

[mikelzapi3]

Hydroelectric energy is gravitational, so it is not dependent on the sun - rather the motion of the Moon around the Earth.

You are mixing tidal power with hydroelectric energy. Tidal power is the result of gravitational forces, but hydroelectric power is directly related to the sun. The water that goes down the river, is falling, beacause it was "lifted". You can pump it (a common method of storing energy in potential energy form when the electrical grid is producing more power that the consumed), or if you look at the natural way, the sun evaporates the water, giving to all that water mass a huge potential energy. If that water falls in a mountain, it has some potential energy untill it arrives to the sea, so we can extract some energy.

[Bob]

Without getting in to an argument as to what is solar energy and what isn't my point was that energy based on fuels which take a long time to naturally synthesize (gas, oil, coal, and nuclear, although nuclear is more viable than the others) will switch to renewable energy, either sunlight or derived from the thermal or chemical effects of sunlight. Tidal energy is indeed in a separate category, but cannot support current energy needs. My technical knowledge of tidal energy is limited, but I think that the ecological impact alone would make it impossible. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Solar energy is therefore the only long term energy solution, particulary solar collectors based in space.

[clutch-monkey]

what about geothermal? or was that mentioned?

[Kitdy]

You are mixing tidal power with hydroelectric energy. Tidal power is the result of gravitational forces, but hydroelectric power is directly related to the sun. The water that goes down the river, is falling, beacause it was "lifted". You can pump it (a common method of storing energy in potential energy form when the electrical grid is producing more power that the consumed), or if you look at the natural way, the sun evaporates the water, giving to all that water mass a huge potential energy. If that water falls in a mountain, it has some potential energy untill it arrives to the sea, so we can extract some energy.

Yeah my bad, the thermal radiation evaporates it and then gravity pull it down the rivers to the oceans, so I guess it is a combination of the two.

[Bob]

what about geothermal? or was that mentioned?

It was mentioned briefly, and like oother sustainable forms, it comes from te sun's heating effect on the earth. But I think with any indirect solar energy sources, such as geothermal, wind, and hydroelectric, the sames problems come up, these being
- Land usage, and the number of suitable sites being limited or affected by politics and other concerns
- Ecological disruption, because the infrastructure for any land based energy production will be enormous
- Expansion difficulties
etc...

Again, I see solar, in space, as the only way to go. There's no ecological destruction, very low running costs, more power/area than earth based solar by a factor of 8, and room for effectively unlimited expansion.
Further, space based power would be a huge step towards reaching the moon and asteroids, which would bring in tons of metals rare on earth as well as manufacturing capabilities that are impossible or very expensive in a high gravity field.

[henk4]

I think in the end the difference is between energy sources for which you need to burn fossile fuels and sources that can do without that....

[Kitdy]

It was mentioned briefly, and like oother sustainable forms, it comes from te sun's heating effect on the earth. But I think with any indirect solar energy sources, such as geothermal, wind, and hydroelectric, the sames problems come up, these being
- Land usage, and the number of suitable sites being limited or affected by politics and other concerns
- Ecological disruption, because the infrastructure for any land based energy production will be enormous
- Expansion difficulties
etc...

Again, I see solar, in space, as the only way to go. There's no ecological destruction, very low running costs, more power/area than earth based solar by a factor of 8, and room for effectively unlimited expansion.
Further, space based power would be a huge step towards reaching the moon and asteroids, which would bring in tons of metals rare on earth as well as manufacturing capabilities that are impossible or very expensive in a high gravity field.

Geothermal isn't from the energy of the Sun, it is from the Earth's own heat, magma, and the like, at least as far as I know.

Space based solar energy would be-ultra expensive and there are losses in transporting the energy to earth.

As far as I am concerned, and as I have stated before in this forum, the true future of energy lies not with the Sun, not with the wind, not with the heat of the Earth, no the future of energy generation is the power of the Sun, the thing that makes life as we know it possible: nuclear fusion - something that has the potential to revolutionize power generation as we know it. It is clean, it is renewable for literally billions of years and the power generation is simply on a scale none of our modern plants can even come close to.

Furthermore, it is safe, it is no ecologically damaging, it will eventually become cheaper and more economical than virtually all other sources of energy. We are talking about a source of energy that's impact is overwhelming and almost hard to gauge the scope of.

When fusion power becomes implemented into the power grid on a large scale, pollution from power generation will virtually be eliminated. The initial problems will be high cost, but over time this will come down. With this being true, electric transportation will truly become green - there would be no longer any need for the internal combustion engine in the automotive industry, there would be no need for fuel economy standards at all. I suppose collectors and enthusiasts could still enjoy driving internal combustion cars, but there would probably not be enough of these people to cause significant damage to the ecosystem.

Pollution would be drastically reduced globally, things would be better.

That's the way I see it at least.

[mikelzapi3]

In a long term, I also think that nuclear fusion is the solution, we will see if the ITER project is successful, because they are claimining 500MW in a sustained fusion for 400s. If the project is going well, they say that it could be possible to produce cotinuos energy for 2050.

But in our case, the car related problem, nowadays there are a lot of interest that push in the direction of the hydrogen. Big oil companies won't let you recharge your battery driven car at home, they want you to go to a gas station to fill the tank with hydrogen, that's the problem. Two weeks ago, i saw a documental called "who killed the electric car", and it's amazing the power of oil companies.

I like cars, and i would prefer a car that burns hydrogen to make sound and feel like it has a gasoline engine (Like BMW hydrogen concepts). But, if I have to choose between battery powered or hydrogen cell powered electrical cars, I would take the battery powered. You don't have to use electricity to obtain hydrogen (from methane, of course!), and then lose half of then when storing, and then obtain a poor efficiency in a cell, to finally use it on a electrical motor.

And we have seen with the tesla roadster, the autonomy is not that bad, 350 km (220miles)

[Matra et Alpine]

The Tesla's more impressive than I'd thought it woudl be.
They had one driving aroudn Le Mans posing ... coudln't get it to do a burn-out though



had the chance to talk to the techies and there's more power coming

Her's one way to make any car look good


YouTube - Tesla Roadster leaving the pits at Le Mans

[mikelzapi3]

The performance of this machine is amazing, I would try it to see if the feeling is good. Nowadays, I coudn't tell if I would prefer that car over a car with an internal combustion engine, but I think that enthusiats or companies like Ferrari would prefer to keep using ethanol/methanol instead of switching to electrical.

But well, all will depend on the performance of the drivetrain vs weight, I don't think ferrari would make a much more slower car only because it's heritage

[Bob]

Geothermal isn't from the energy of the Sun, it is from the Earth's own heat, magma, and the like, at least as far as I know.

Space based solar energy would be-ultra expensive and there are losses in transporting the energy to earth.

As far as I am concerned, and as I have stated before in this forum, the true future of energy lies not with the Sun, not with the wind, not with the heat of the Earth, no the future of energy generation is the power of the Sun, the thing that makes life as we know it possible: nuclear fusion - something that has the potential to revolutionize power generation as we know it. It is clean, it is renewable for literally billions of years and the power generation is simply on a scale none of our modern plants can even come close to.

Furthermore, it is safe, it is no ecologically damaging, it will eventually become cheaper and more economical than virtually all other sources of energy. We are talking about a source of energy that's impact is overwhelming and almost hard to gauge the scope of.

When fusion power becomes implemented into the power grid on a large scale, pollution from power generation will virtually be eliminated. The initial problems will be high cost, but over time this will come down. With this being true, electric transportation will truly become green - there would be no longer any need for the internal combustion engine in the automotive industry, there would be no need for fuel economy standards at all. I suppose collectors and enthusiasts could still enjoy driving internal combustion cars, but there would probably not be enough of these people to cause significant damage to the ecosystem.

Pollution would be drastically reduced globally, things would be better.

That's the way I see it at least.

I keep pretty up to date on fusion technology, or so I thought. As far as I knew, the only fusion tech we have requires more input energy than it produces.

Further, fusion requires fuel... what are you expecting to fuse, iron? Hydrogen is the only element that we can hope to efficiently use at this point, but 'free' hydrogen is hard to obtain, and limited, just like any other fuel. Cracking hydrogen from water takes as more energy than it makes, by definition.

Do you believe that with fusion we're getting something for nothing? Surely you know that fusion requires free, fusiable elements and is another fuel based energy source, much like fossil and nuclear fission power.

And you're right about space based infrastructure being expensive to create, but remember that in space a collector could be incredibly thin and light, and thus the payload for a rocket would not be that high. The hardest part of the entire process is lifting materials to orbit.

In a long term, I also think that nuclear fusion is the solution, we will see if the ITER project is successful, because they are claimining 500MW in a sustained fusion for 400s. If the project is going well, they say that it could be possible to produce cotinuos energy for 2050.

But in our case, the car related problem, nowadays there are a lot of interest that push in the direction of the hydrogen. Big oil companies won't let you recharge your battery driven car at home, they want you to go to a gas station to fill the tank with hydrogen, that's the problem. Two weeks ago, i saw a documental called "who killed the electric car", and it's amazing the power of oil companies.

I like cars, and i would prefer a car that burns hydrogen to make sound and feel like it has a gasoline engine (Like BMW hydrogen concepts). But, if I have to choose between battery powered or hydrogen cell powered electrical cars, I would take the battery powered. You don't have to use electricity to obtain hydrogen (from methane, of course!), and then lose half of then when storing, and then obtain a poor efficiency in a cell, to finally use it on a electrical motor.

And we have seen with the tesla roadster, the autonomy is not that bad, 350 km (220miles)

Do you have more info on the ITER project? Specifically, what are they fusing?

Again, it's likely hydrogen. If we had an unlimited source of hydrogen, we could simply burn it for energy, but that's the problem- we don't. Collecting hydrogen is very difficult because it rises to the edge of the atmosphere, and cracking it from water or other hydrogen compounds is more expensive in terms of energy than fusion can make up for.

[RacingManiac]

Seems to work ok under the gloomy skies of europe

World's Biggest Solar Plant Goes Online in Germany | Germany | Deutsche Welle | 22.06.2008

It just opened, how would you know that it will produced the projected amount of electricity? It's always optimistic in the projection for projects like this. Especially when there are pressure to push it to go a certain way and you jump into something without maybe doing as much research as one should before spending 130 million euros.

BTW I took high school physics, I just dont use if for my work....because it is what it is, highschool physics...