Designing something to BENEFIT HUMANITY

[tarzoon]

carbon negative fuel produced by bacteria from leftovers, of if you want to call it that way, "renewable petrol"

http://www.technologyreview.com/Biztech/19128/

[PNSD]

A 3.5 litre Ferrari V12 !

[tarzoon]

A 3.5 litre Ferrari V12 !

can you imagine sniffing the ethanol fumes out of that one? F1 would be a lot happier after a few laps

[Ray]

Low cost clean water for third world countires
Low cost Clean power for ()

A few US Navy nuclear carriers provided this to places after the tsunami a few years back. Nuclear is the way to go for power production used in homes and businesses and fear-mongering, twisting of facts, and plain lies have stopped possibly the greatest and cleanest power source man has ever known.

[tarzoon]

A few US Navy nuclear carriers provided this to places after the tsunami a few years back. Nuclear is the way to go for power production used in homes and businesses and fear-mongering, twisting of facts, and plain lies have stopped possibly the greatest and cleanest power source man has ever known.

True. Just have to find a nice third world country where to dump all the radioactive waste afterwards.

Tesla also had plans for free electricity and they were 'lost'.

The US can't make half-decent public healthcare, the UK is severely budgeting on it, traders are making food price go up artificially to pay for expensive hookers and cars, oil price is sky high for no reason whatsoever, China is sort of agreeing in cutting down emissions but never say by how much, airplanes are not part of the Kyoto treaty, there aren't enough fields to make alternative crops without side effects, my organic mango that flew 10 thousand miles to arrive fresh is rotting without me eating it first, half the world has 2 showers a day while the other half doesn't have water, half the world is trying to get the latest gadgets made by slaves in China or India or Thailand with rare materials from Congo and remote areas in Canada, while the other half is suddenly being hit by el niños, and my AC doesn't cool down enough in these hot temperatures.

There's a lot that can be designed, but the most important thing is to change mentalities and start being sensible about what can be done everyday.

[jon-mullen]

Sorry, double post.

[jon-mullen]

my AC doesn't cool down enough in these hot temperatures.

You can afford AC? Capitalist swine! (j/k)

There's a lot that can be designed, but the most important thing is to change mentalities and start being sensible about what can be done everyday.

I'd settle for changing the way we have these debates. It took close to 15 years to get some consensus on climate change in this country and in the meantime Peak Oil's really become the bigger issue IMO (if it wasn't always the bigger issue). I guess the lobbyists finally decided they'd held up human progress enough.

It would be nice if you could look at a study from the NYT or WSJ and believe that it had no political motivation behind it, but what are the odds of that, really? There are still people who will insist that black is white, oil must be constantly being produced because the earth's only 5700 years old anyway, and trendlines are an invention of the mainstream media. We can't even really agree where we're going or where we're at, how can people possibly choose between competing technologies?

Speaking of the NYT, this was actually on the front page yesterday, an article about burying CO2 in the ground. I seem to remember a story in my chem book about over 1000 people dying when underground CO2 was liberated from a swamp near them, but hey, it might work.

[flynfrog]

In third world countries people going hungry is the result of having no good way to store food. How about a portable food storage unit that can be air dropped if need that would prerve food longer.

Could be air tight for grain. Or some sort of canning device.

[tarzoon]

Speaking of the NYT, this was actually on the front page yesterday, an article about burying CO2 in the ground. I seem to remember a story in my chem book about over 1000 people dying when underground CO2 was liberated from a swamp near them, but hey, it might work.

UK is planning the same thing for their new power plants. The small difference is that the CO2 will be buried in monstruous natural caves below the ocean/sea.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... rgy-policy

Still, I think these are pennies. Intercontinental flights are more damaging that power plants (I don't remember seeing any exhaust pipe or catalytic converter in an aeroplane before). And cows, pigs and other animals grown for the meat produce A LOT of CO2 (I don't remember catalytic converters out of their asses either).

My point here is: money has to circulate! That's how the market goes. Power plants, crude oil, flights, cattle, plastic bottles, toyota priuses, all come as part of the process.

[Michiba]

Still, I think these are pennies. Intercontinental flights are more damaging that power plants (I don't remember seeing any exhaust pipe or catalytic converter in an aeroplane before). And cows, pigs and other animals grown for the meat produce A LOT of CO2 (I don't remember catalytic converters out of their asses either).

I think you're confusing the meat production CO2 with methane production in relation to greenhouse gasses

[Giblet]

I don't know too much about ethanol, but getting our food and energy from the same source seems like a bad idea.

You can't have a separate food and gas crisis when it all comes from the same pot.

Companies like Coke should get involved, since it is already basically their job to feed us as much High Fruitcose Corn Syrup (HFCS) as possible. Pepsi sells "Vitamin Water" now which a lot of people drink. Guess what, it has more HFCS than Pepsi proper. Yuck.

As well, HFCS has a property that keeps you from being told you feel full. This is why people can slam back so much cola at a time. It's like a "fullness suppressant".

I vote for a car that runs on Cola.

[ISLAMATRON]

cellulosic ethanol FTW, grass clippings, tree trimmings, corn husks, used toilet paper, mash it all up, let the algae chomp it up and burn it in your ride

[xpensive]

Low cost clean water for third world countires
Low cost Clean power for ()

A few US Navy nuclear carriers provided this to places after the tsunami a few years back. Nuclear is the way to go for power production used in homes and businesses and fear-mongering, twisting of facts, and plain lies have stopped possibly the greatest and cleanest power source man has ever known.

If the French could get their Super Phenix breeder-reactor up and running, it would be a giant leap for mankind IMO.

[tarzoon]

I think you're confusing the meat production CO2 with methane production in relation to greenhouse gasses

Sorry, you're right! Methane is over 20 times more damaging than CO2 to ozone.

I don't know too much about ethanol, but getting our food and energy from the same source seems like a bad idea.

That's what happened with corn price because of greed fuel. There a few offices in London, NY and a bit around the globe that kept the corn price high with that excuse, for the sake of making personal profit. The excuse was that the extra money was going to the producer.

Companies like Coke should get involved, since it is already basically their job to feed us as much High Fruitcose Corn Syrup (HFCS) as possible. Pepsi sells "Vitamin Water" now which a lot of people drink. Guess what, it has more HFCS than Pepsi proper. Yuck.

A bottle of coke uses three times its content in water, and where Coca-Cola company lays down a factory, the populations are affected. There was a dispatches episode with Mark Thomas where he reveals some of this stuff:

http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/d ... la/1068847
http://vodpod.com/watch/1488708-mark-th ... nsor-video

It's clearly one-sided, but it's worth a critical view.


As I mentioned before, I believe that the solution is carbon-negative.

[ringo]

If we really want to benefit humanity we need to turn to the thing that humans have been looking to for thousands of years.
Geuss what it is?

Its the sun!

Humans have been glorifying the sun since the beginning of humanity. They were trying to give us a hint all this time!

All other energy sources are pointless and only ease our problems slightly. Wind is good, but who knows what will happen if we expand so much on draining the energy of the wind. Maybe we affect the weather drastically or sea life or other forms of life.
We need to avoid all the other distracting "sources" and go directly after the real source, the sun.

This is how we are going to do it. Set up Nation sized panels in space. We can place the panels over the Poles. This way we kill 2 birds with one stone; we block the suns rays and prevent melting of the ice caps and we get high radiation solar energy.
You see, having the panels in space will get unfiltered radiation while protecting the earth at the same time.
The solar energy will be transmitted to earth by huge carbon nano tube cables. Carbon nano tubes also have superconductive properties so the length of the lines wont be such a big factor.
Distribution is anyone's guess, but this would mean 100% Independence of oil, while being 100% green.
Only problem?... Initial cost but It's worth it.

more on cnt http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_nanotube