Energy crisis

I have an experiment for you, Raist. Install an electronic timer (maybe 555 timer) into your light switch and make it turn your lights off for 5 seconds every 55 seconds.

Tell me how you like this after 24 hours.

I'm fairly sure the lights in your house were unaffected.

I'm fairly sure the lights in your house were unaffected.

 

Also, solar is the best solution, but it's collecting it and moving that energy to where it's needed that's the tricky part - we'd need much more efficient solar panels than we currently possess to make it viable as a major supplier, plus the manufacturing process isn't particularly friendly from a carbon/pollutant point of view.  Again, long term, renewables have it in the bag, since there is more power out there than we know what to do with - in the short term though we need to clean up gas- and coal-fired power plants (by carbon capture, for instance) and start building nuclear plants to provide a fail-safe backbone of generation, particularly for critical infrastructure (hospitals, water and gas supplies, trains, police, military, air traffic control etc...).

From what I've heard solar should be fine within 5-10 years. And my idea for using it to generate fossil fuels would make moving it easy, and would eliminate the loss of electricity caused by powerlines.

A professor of mine mentioned that about 50% of power is lost in the lines, you can hold florescent light up under large power lines and it will glow. If we cooled the lines down to near absolute zero we would eliminate this loss.

From what I've heard solar should be fine within 5-10 years. And my idea for using it to generate fossil fuels would make moving it easy, and would eliminate the loss of electricity caused by powerlines.

A professor of mine mentioned that about 50% of power is lost in the lines, you can hold florescent light up under large power lines and it will glow. If we cooled the lines down to near absolute zero we would eliminate this loss.

What about the energy required to keep the power lines cool?

Quote from: Raist on September 17, 2009, 08:11:50 PM

From what I've heard solar should be fine within 5-10 years. And my idea for using it to generate fossil fuels would make moving it easy, and would eliminate the loss of electricity caused by powerlines.

A professor of mine mentioned that about 50% of power is lost in the lines, you can hold florescent light up under large power lines and it will glow. If we cooled the lines down to near absolute zero we would eliminate this loss.

What about the energy required to keep the power lines cool?

Obviously that is why we do not do that. I was just making a point. If we ever get to the point where we are moving enough power that coolign the lines would be an overall benefit I think we would.

I'm fairly sure the lights in your house were unaffected.

Yes, but the changes in the amount of light entering my house were real. If you want a more accurate simulation, make the timer dim your lights.

I spent a good deal of my time in natural light, and was very annoyed.

Quote from: Raist on September 17, 2009, 08:11:50 PM

From what I've heard solar should be fine within 5-10 years. And my idea for using it to generate fossil fuels would make moving it easy, and would eliminate the loss of electricity caused by powerlines.

A professor of mine mentioned that about 50% of power is lost in the lines, you can hold florescent light up under large power lines and it will glow. If we cooled the lines down to near absolute zero we would eliminate this loss.

What about the energy required to keep the power lines cool?

Why not increase the diameter of the power lines and make them out of gold instead of copper?

Because gold is EXPENSIVE.

It makes more sense to use HVDC for such schemes, since the losses are lower and it does not require room temperature superconductors (which don't exist) or liquid nitrogen cooling of current superconductors (which would be prohibitively expensive and power consuming).

Only over long distances though. If power plants are relatively common then the conversion would be much too expensive.

Yeah I'm generally referring to the transfer of power from a distant renewable source (like solar in the Sahara or Australian outback) where it can then be distributed locally by regular means.