20W User
True, the power station is as much a heat engine as a car engine, but it has the advantage of being an external combustion engine and so much more flexible on fuel.
The ICE still costs about 4 times the cost per mile; one criterion I left out of power supply desirables was
- Cost
Flux Capacitor User
Yeah, no.Originally Posted by ashiekh
Heat that is trapped on the earth is retained heat, regardless of the reason.
If the heat is reflected out...from white sand in a desert, it goes back into space....if it is trapped in a solar farm in that same desert...well, then you have solar gain....contributing to global warming.
There are papers and studies...It is just not PC....so everyone ignores it.
20W User
Absolutely, and heat trapped by greenhouse gasses is the dominant factor.
Flux Capacitor User
It is one factor.
It is the single factor that gets the most press...
It may indeed be the dominant factor, but the irony is how little people really understand, or care to understand the complexity of the entire system.
My entire life, the US spent Trillions of dollars to reduce particulate pollution.
recent studies suggest that global warming was in fact retarded by particulate pollution in the upper atmosphere, that since the industrial revolution, global warming would have been much more quicker, and much more pronounced, if not for this reflective protection of pollution.
https://e360.yale.edu/features/air-p...global-warming
Again, not the type of research that makes it to the mass propaganda media.
Irony of Irony.
Flux Capacitor User
But, yes, we digress.
I'll let others say if any groundbreaking tech is coming down the pike for PSU.
20W User
It's a cool digression, but I don't want to get into an argument. However
it could be argued that last few percent may not save much but could lead to supplies that need no fan.
Last edited by ashiekh; 10-25-2020 at 01:12 PM.
500W User
Nuclear was once seen as the answer to future energy needs. Politics and irrational fears aside, unless I'm missing something, safe nuclear technologies still seem to be the best choice. That is, barring unforeseen breakthroughs which are always possible. And this, being true for "the grid", disconnected sites - even small devices if nuclear batteries hold any kind of promise.
20W User
Nuclear fusion based on helium-3 mined from the moon seems a distinct possibility.
500W User
I really hope so. Fusion might somehow be the answer sometime in the far future. I hope there are some radical breakthroughs but from what I've read, reactors are still enormously expensive, complex and barely work. Apparently, H3 reactors would need to be even bigger and no one has even built a working prototype yet. Fusion is probably going to be nothing more than an interesting and expensive Euro-science project to keep really smart people busy - maybe forever. I hope not...but fusion seems pretty insane in terms of cost, complexity and lack of practical application. We'll probably have an atmosphere like Venus by the time it can be deployed commercially. On the other hand, better, safer nuclear is ready now, but it's such a dirty word ...
500W User
I think it's a valid argument that holistic, true costs are often disregarded when considering "green" or alternative energy sources in comparison to traditional ones. The reason for that isn't entirely nefarious since measuring the true cost of anything can be either exceptionally difficult or often impossible. We'll eventually deplete fossil fuels regardless, though apparently not as quickly as once believed due to innovations in extraction and the discovery of additional reserves.
I understand that critics have backed off from criticizing fossil fuels so simplistically since the impact of other sources has come to light in more recent times. The amount of methane in the upper crust is considered a real and potentially catastrophic issue if it gets released too quickly, for instance, and global agriculture apparently has a substantial impact as well that may not have once been realized.
Modern internal combustion engines are indeed apparently quite efficient in converting the energy potential of gasoline, which is supposedly a fuel right up there with or maybe even higher than hydrogen depending upon how things are measured.
Still, when you take all emotion, politics and nonsense out of the equation and look at things from as purely a scientific perspective as possible, nuclear just makes sense for anything but the very far future time frame (again, barring potentially unforeseen breakthroughs or innovations ... or someone cracking the matrix ... or aliens ... ).
Last edited by 99wjtx; 10-25-2020 at 05:07 PM.
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