Science!! Fucking magnets, how do they work?

Cad

Cad

scientia potentia est
<Bronze Donator>
25,426
49,030
Lithose said:
Yep, it is, but the thing is, even if we swapped over to nuclear, and solar/wind for intermittent day time spikes? We'd still need a lot of oil; there are elements of transportation that won't be able to run on batteries within the foreseeable future. So even if we swapped over electrical generation, we wouldn't really need less oil--in fact, in the U.S. for example, oil is rarely used for electrical generation at all.

71% Transportation
23% Industrial
5% Residential and Commercial
1% Electric Power

The big thing nuclear would end is coal. Which is 22% of our energy usage--so it's a major drop off of emissions. Not sure if it would cut down as much on our natural gas use, since most natural gas plants are there specifically to deal with usage spikes (And Nuclear, from what I understand, is great for base load but it doesn't adapt very well to short term demand increases or decreases.) But that could probably be done by renewable, combined with local storage. But if we could swap just all of our coal electrical generation (91% of coal is used for that) over to nuclear; and then swap all personal transports over to electric (Even just Cars, and motorcycles) we could reduce our oil reliance by around 15%, or so (Not sure if light trucks can swap over to batteries too? But that would drop our oil use by probably 30% or more, all together). But the drop in emissions would be pretty immense, thanks to not needing it for electrical generation alone, just from eliminating coal.

However, from the list below--there are just certain types of transports that right now are going to be oil for quite a while. So being able to pump some of it down, while not needing to pull as much up is probably going to be needed. (Trucks, and everything else down the list below them.)

View attachment 95711
Click to expand...

Are light trucks in your graph pickups? Or 18 wheelers? What are "other trucks" ?
 
ZyyzYzzy

ZyyzYzzy

RIP USA
<Banned>
25,295
48,789
Too lazy to read past couple posts , but plants respire and produce CO2 just like animals, well biochemically like them.
 
Lithose

Lithose

Buzzfeed Editor
25,946
113,036
Cad said:
Are light trucks in your graph pickups? Or 18 wheelers? What are "other trucks" ?
Click to expand...

I think light truck weight I think under 3 tons? Pick ups, SUVs ect. Other trucks are SUV's or large 2 axle commercial.

ZyyzYzzy said:
Too lazy to read past couple posts , but plants respire and produce CO2 just like animals, well biochemically like them.
Click to expand...

Yeah but they also break down CO2, and water to make carbohydrates, and oxygen as a waste, right? The carbohydrates should be able to be sequestered in mass, I think, but I only know as much about this as a few articles. I know the empty fracking fissures are already being looked at as possible sequestration places, just not sure if you could actually pump algae down into there, heh.
 
Cad

Cad

scientia potentia est
<Bronze Donator>
25,426
49,030
Lithose said:
I think light truck weight I think under 3 tons? Pick ups, SUVs ect. Other trucks are SUV's or large 2 axle commercial.
Click to expand...

I'd guess 90% of light trucks then are just passenger vehicles and could be replaced by a somewhat larger than a model S electric vehicle.

Which means ~50% of transportation use of oil could be eliminated. Agree with you that there's definitely some uses of oil that aren't going away anytime soon.
 
Tuco

Tuco

I got Tuco'd!
<Gold Donor>
47,204
80,054
Adebisi said:
YOU GUYS SUPPORT THIS AND HATE ON SOLAR ROADWAYS?!

:smuggly:

^
Our version of kappa, yes?
Click to expand...
Difference between solar shingles and solar roadways is I don't need to drive a fully loaded 18 wheeler on top of my roof, and I don't have dickheads throwing garbage on my roof.
 
Tuco

Tuco

I got Tuco'd!
<Gold Donor>
47,204
80,054
Oh, and how viable is the idea of genetically engineering massive-algae farms in the ocean that grow like mad and shed excess mass to the bottom of the ocean? I'm talking a Texas sized clump of algae that we'll eventually have to nuke to stop it from stripping out atmosphere completely of carbon and ruining our beaches.
 
Tuco

Tuco

I got Tuco'd!
<Gold Donor>
47,204
80,054
Who cares about the fish in the middle of the pacific? There's not even that many that live near the surface in the middle of the ocean, right?
 
ZyyzYzzy

ZyyzYzzy

RIP USA
<Banned>
25,295
48,789
Tuco said:
Who cares about the fish in the middle of the pacific? There's not even that many that live near the surface in the middle of the ocean, right?
Click to expand...
Oceans, well the middle if oceans are generally "deserts" in terms of the akount of life found there. What we need is an engineered microogranism that utilizes plastic polymers to produce carbohydrates. 2 birds one stone. Giant garbage patch eaten up (which is mainly composed of microscopic plastics) and CO2 sequestered.
 
Tuco

Tuco

I got Tuco'd!
<Gold Donor>
47,204
80,054
ZyyzYzzy said:
Oceans, well the middle if oceans are generally "deserts" in terms of the akount of life found there. What we need is an engineered microogranism that utilizes plastic polymers to produce carbohydrates. 2 birds one stone. Giant garbage patch eaten up (which is mainly composed of microscopic plastics) and CO2 sequestered.
Click to expand...
Better yet:
Mr_Fusion_by_emmokapp.jpg
 
Aldarion

Aldarion

Egg Nazi
9,700
26,576
Tuco said:
Oh, and how viable is the idea of genetically engineering massive-algae farms in the ocean that grow like mad and shed excess mass to the bottom of the ocean? I'm talking a Texas sized clump of algae that we'll eventually have to nuke to stop it from stripping out atmosphere completely of carbon and ruining our beaches.
Click to expand...
Problem with this idea is it only buys you a couple thousand years before that deep ocean water returns to the surface and dumps the CO2 right back where it came from. Carbon sequestration has to involve stable, non-volatile substances. Organic carbon pumped into the deep sea eventually returns to the atmosphere (on the scale of a couple thousand years later) unless its sequestered into a stable form. And even if you focused on calcifying algae so they dump calcium carbonate, even that shit is labile in the high-pressure, low-pH environment of the deep sea.

I'm a huge fan of sequestration but I dont think dumping it in the deep sea is the way to go.
 
  • 1Like
Reactions: 1 user
ZyyzYzzy

ZyyzYzzy

RIP USA
<Banned>
25,295
48,789
Aldarion said:
Problem with this idea is it only buys you a couple thousand years before that deep ocean water returns to the surface and dumps the CO2 right back where it came from. Carbon sequestration has to involve stable, non-volatile substances. Organic carbon pumped into the deep sea eventually returns to the atmosphere (on the scale of a couple thousand years later) unless its sequestered into a stable form. And even if you focused on calcifying algae so they dump calcium carbonate, even that shit is labile in the high-pressure, low-pH environment of the deep sea.

I'm a huge fan of sequestration but I dont think dumping it in the deep sea is the way to go.
Click to expand...
Humans are the masters of kicking the can down the road. 100+yrs is the ultimate can kick
 
Lithose

Lithose

Buzzfeed Editor
25,946
113,036
Tuco said:
Oh, and how viable is the idea of genetically engineering massive-algae farms in the ocean that grow like mad and shed excess mass to the bottom of the ocean? I'm talking a Texas sized clump of algae that we'll eventually have to nuke to stop it from stripping out atmosphere completely of carbon and ruining our beaches.
Click to expand...

I don't know, but I do know Algae are pretty easy to farm, especially given they don't need fresh water--it's why, outside of their very high efficiency for photosynthesis, they are used for Biofuels.

I've always wondered by the billionaires who talk about the environment non-stop and who have vowed to give their fortunes away don't just contract out stuff like this that's largely useless in terms of production so won't get done by the market. By farming Algae for no purpose other than to shoot it into the ground or sink it, they kill 2 birds with one stone. They give their money away and create jobs, and they might have a tiny impact on the environment, but most of all they can start figuring out 'best practices' for doing this efficiently so if shit does change a lot faster than we expect and we actually start production programs like the Interstate system or war-time WW2 production, except the projects would be stripping carbon from the atmosphere? We'd have an efficient road map that already worked a lot of kinks out.
 
Lithose

Lithose

Buzzfeed Editor
25,946
113,036
Aldarion said:
Problem with this idea is it only buys you a couple thousand years before that deep ocean water returns to the surface and dumps the CO2 right back where it came from. Carbon sequestration has to involve stable, non-volatile substances. Organic carbon pumped into the deep sea eventually returns to the atmosphere (on the scale of a couple thousand years later) unless its sequestered into a stable form. And even if you focused on calcifying algae so they dump calcium carbonate, even that shit is labile in the high-pressure, low-pH environment of the deep sea.

I'm a huge fan of sequestration but I dont think dumping it in the deep sea is the way to go.
Click to expand...

If we can buy just 200 years we'll be good, with the energy technology. Energy is the big limiter on all human production, it all goes back to energy and how much it costs. We've been making enormous leaps in energy storage, production and efficiency in the last 40 years. A few hundred and it might be really cheap to pull that carbon from the atmosphere and make it into plastic and bury it.
 
Tuco

Tuco

I got Tuco'd!
<Gold Donor>
47,204
80,054
Lithose said:
I don't know, but I do know Algae are pretty easy to farm, especially given they don't need fresh water--it's why, outside of their very high efficiency for photosynthesis, they are used for Biofuels.

I've always wondered by the billionaires who talk about the environment non-stop and who have vowed to give their fortunes away don't just contract out stuff like this that's largely useless in terms of production so won't get done by the market. By farming Algae for no purpose other than to shoot it into the ground or sink it, they kill 2 birds with one stone. They give their money away and create jobs, and they might have a tiny impact on the environment, but most of all they can start figuring out 'best practices' for doing this efficiently so if shit does change a lot faster than we expect and we actually start production programs like the Interstate system or war-time WW2 production, except the projects would be stripping carbon from the atmosphere? We'd have an efficient road map that already worked a lot of kinks out.
Click to expand...
Fuck off of my algae, I'm trying to sink it, not let you burn it up and put it back in the environment you monster.
 
Tuco

Tuco

I got Tuco'd!
<Gold Donor>
47,204
80,054
Aldarion said:
Problem with this idea is it only buys you a couple thousand years before that deep ocean water returns to the surface and dumps the CO2 right back where it came from. Carbon sequestration has to involve stable, non-volatile substances. Organic carbon pumped into the deep sea eventually returns to the atmosphere (on the scale of a couple thousand years later) unless its sequestered into a stable form. And even if you focused on calcifying algae so they dump calcium carbonate, even that shit is labile in the high-pressure, low-pH environment of the deep sea.

I'm a huge fan of sequestration but I dont think dumping it in the deep sea is the way to go.
Click to expand...
Kicking the can 2000 years down the road is about as good as a permanent solution in my mind. What kind of crazy problems are we going to have with the environment in 2000 years, and what kind of crazy solutions we will be able to come up? I feel like it'll make our carbon dioxide problem look like the problem of getting ice to cool the drinks of rich ancient Romans in August.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.