78stonewobble

Well I'm no expert. 24 mio hectares is about the size of the entire United Kingdom and this is just for the electrical production. If you want the heat too, I certainly would coming from Denmark, it's about 7x times these numbers, using this method. I pulled the numbers from this and related articles (50 MW plant): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andasol_Solar_Power_Station It's in Spain, so somewhat more efficient than putting a plant in ie. the UK or Denmark. Presumably fresh water IS best, since it would be less corrosive to piping and so on, but whether it's necessary I don't know. The molten salts, are supposedly produced in the same ways as fertilizer (afaik) and if calculated that right (quite a bit ago), diverting the entire worlds fertilizer production to a project like this would get enough salts produced in 20-30 years. However that would presumably leave alot of people starving, which offcourse is another way of solving the entire problem, but if we only use 5 percent of the global production of fertilizer, it would take hundreds of years to produce enough. Again feel free to check my math, because I sure as hell isn't sure of it. Pumping water uphill does seem like a better solution, but it is highly dependent on geography and can be dangerous, since dams can and do collapse. If the geography isn't there... It becomes a mega project by itself. Yeah, the water vapor is tiny compaired to what evaporates from the ocean, but it is replacing co2 production and there, supposedly, water vapor is a much more capable greenhouse gas. So a plant like this would be adding to global warming, but whether it's alot or nothing, is beyond me, at this very early hour. The reason I picked this plant is because it was both plant AND storage (well 7.5 hours worth of storage). I'm still interested in knowing the enviromental cost of producing that many photo voltaic panels on such a scale, deploying them and maintaning them indefinately. If anyone has any ideas... While I do think a project like this could be possible, it is a mega project and there are other difficulties. Supplying the entire world from one megaproject in ie. Sahara (or perhaps 2-5 places world wide)... Would be awesome, but think of the cooperation needed and the infrastructure and how many contries would be entirely dependent on the goodwill of other countries, because they could cut the cables at any point. Think about how we need to scale it up often, to accomodate the parts of the world that want to live like we do (and who can blame them for wanting to?).

I made some quick calculations about solar at some point... If I get this right... In 2008 the total global energy consumption was 143,851 TWh with electricity being 20,181 TWh a year. A modern solar power plant that produce 165 GWh a year and can store this energy uses: 51 hectares of solar collectors. About 200 hectares of total land usage. 28,500 tonnes of molten salt (60 percent sodium nitrate and 40 percent potassium nitrate). 870,000 cubic meters of water a year (or vaporised). To fully supply the world with solar power, if all things stay the same, would require: 6,222,309 hectares of solar collectors. 24,401,212 hectares of total landusage. 2,477,172,727 tonnes of molten salts. 106,145,272,727 cubic meters of water a year (or vaporised). Hmm... that doesn't seem right does it? Well, if true... I stick by my original line of thinking, that providing a significant proportion of just the worlds electrical usage from solar power is a pipedream. Perhaps someone else could provide some information of the additional effects of manufacturing, deploying and maintaning that many solar panels, the molten salts for storage and that much extra water vapor to the atmosphere. PS: Possibly the manufacture of sodium nitrate and potassium nitrate is quite the bottleneck.

Good point, though isn't that only on short timescales? On longer time scales forests do pull co2 out of the air, after all that is where coal come from? One could argue that agriculture does the same. Depositing carbon in animals, humans and soil?

Well I meant that you could plant a forest, that entirely offsets you co2 emissions and get the kerosene as per usual, which is presumably the most efficient method, from fossil carbon. Or ie. if you build a solar plant to similarly offset co2 emissions from kerosene from regular sources, it would be smaller than a solar power plant to directly produce co2 from the air? Otherwise it's the whole air carbon waste thing over again? o.O

What... Like wood? ... But more seriously... Why not just plant a forrest?

I would create the demand, that would drive any development and improvements. So basically sink money into it, rather than save them. Permanent presence on the moon for maintaining a far side astronomical station. Ie. moon side of VLBI, large optical observatories and what not. A permanent asteroid and comet ressource and space borne manufacturing industry. A permanent long term viable human population on space stations that is self sufficient. Supported, initially, by the mass produced rockets that launch the equivalent of 4-6+ saturn V payloads a year. Every year, for the forseeable future. PS: I think the cost of a saturn V in 2014 dollars were around 1,9 billion USD, rounding up to 2 billion. 6 launches a year for 12 billion USD is "just" 0,8 percent of the yearly revenue for the ten largest automotive producers put together.

I'm wondering just how many extremophiles there are, at NASA probe building / handling facilities. Hmm... In any case, wouldn't the most obvious choice be to genetically engineer a bacteria that is easily killed in space (through radiation, lack of atmosphere or whatever) and eats extremophiles and then soak the probe in a bath of those?

The reverse could be true... Having a payload waiting around, while waiting for the launch capability, if there isn't money for doing both. In any case, big space ambitions are one thing, they come and go along with politicians and public support. One thing I think that should be done, is having policies in place, that even if "we" don't need the SLS right now, that production, launching, managing, servicing abilities and what not... be saved in someway... So if we ever "need it" (asteroid deflection) or "want it" (definately have will and money for big space ambitions), don't have to reinvent a heavy lift capability for a 3rd time (4-5th time if we count russian attempts). PS and more back on the topic: What I'm also hoping is that the SLS will allow for... Is a new range of large space born observatories, that can be placed and serviced and thus have even longer lifetimes, even further from the earth. PPS: As a european I don't expect the US to undertake mega projects by themselves, but I do hope for increased cooperation in the future (going both ways offcourse). I know alot of americans, sometimes, have quite a bit of the "buy american" thing going... but even with some presumably very good deals... I don't think I can count how much ie. weapons technology european countries have bought over the years.

Not to mention the ethical dilemma of keeping a sapient being (if we're talking AI) in more or less isolation for hundreds potentially thousands of years. AFAIK, isolation can be viewed as a form of torture. Then again it might not have to be a true artificial intelligence, just complex enough.

Hiya, uhm I'm somewhat of a noob, when it comes to interstellar and thus looking for a little help. I'm trying to put a combined science lab and refinery to Minmus and I've gotten a little lost in how to... route the different refinery products around or perhaps that is only possible with LFO? Basically what I want to do is extract water in one refinery, fill up water tanks and then electrolyze in a 2nd refinery and then store the final product in fuel tanks. Or use an refinery to mine UF4 and fill up tanks. Is it at all possible to route the products from "mining" -> temporary storage -> "refining" -> final storage through pipes and thus automatically or do I have to manually move it from tank to tank? Thank you in advance

Ewrgh -..- ... I don't watch other people's "stories", so I can tell my own story. I can imagine those just fine on my own. I distinctly want someone elses storytelling, when I watch a movie.

Whaa...? How is that any different from any person spending god knows how many years on a job they don't like, but have to take? You mention "pay" yourself. Now if we forced people to do it, sure bad, but picking volunteers is bad?

True, but you might be underestimating what kind of global seismic shock, structures like that would have to resist.

Hmm, I do believe that either a large mars-base or terraforming mars is technically feasible. It would be the greatest undertakings we have ever done, but... feasible... ... During world war 2, we could afford to have around 100 million people out of 2 billion, fighting. In todays numbers that's about 350.000.000 people we could, theoretically, dedicate to a project. I think we underestimate, what we could potentially do, if everyone worked together, that dedicatedly.

I live in a ten-story building so, pass.

I think there is also multiple levels to the debate. One is offcourse, how the brain works, but the other is also about how we arrange ourself in our societies, to guarantee individuals free will, without letting them negatively impact others people's freedom. Even if we find out that our brains (as unique as they are from individual to individual) are completely predictable biological machines, that does not necessarily or should not undermine, that a person wanting to be ie. mechanic in ohio, can't... because ie. society believes we have too many mechanics and that person should instead be a farmer in nigeria. Or in another way, that the brain is just a biological machine, does not mean we can neglect it's impact on an individuals life and quality of life.

Well, I'm still enjoying games like l4d1/2 and state of decay and even the occassional doodling of a zombie proof compound. *lol*

Well, one thing that allways annoyed me about "world war Z", the book... was the battle of Yonkers? ... Where a million plus zombies are drawn out of new york (or entirety of newyork zombiefied) and the US army LOOOSES ?!?!? Because they used cold war tactics and foxholes and barb wire... Uhhhh... huuuhhh... So they didn't bomb the .... out of the concentration of zombies? (explosions crack heads as good as a bullet to the head if close enough). And/or .... Just line up some 70 ton tanks, and just drive up and down, crushing everything (human or formerly human, including skulls and brains)? ... Ok, it was one thing, if the disease or whatever just spread so quickly, that the military never got to gather up or react, but the above? The level of stupidity implied just made me unable to suspend my disbelief.

Well, those neurons are "you" too... And if I remember correctly, you can choose how those neurons react, over time, even if what you "learn" is mostly... well whatever .... happens to you in life.

True... But I don't think we work quite like that. Instincts and emotions are our programming, with some randomness to thought patterns for good measure, allowing us, when needed, to exceed the basic programming. Not that it works equally well for everyone every time. Offcourse the "randomness" is built in, but it's not guaranteed what it will lead to. It can and does turn out bad in some situations.

Well, I'm personally of the oppinion that we do have the capacity for free will. That the classical idea of "god" precludes free will. That most of our decisions though are of a sort of pre-programmed instinctually/emotionally based kind, but that we exercise free will most clearly, when make a rational decision, that goes against our instincts (not that they all turn out to be good decisions), but not necessarily only then. So, yeah we are preprogrammed, but sometimes we rise above it. PS: Not that there is something wrong with instincts or emotions in general, they can't be too bad since they've gotten us this far.

Well, I'm just wondering, how that is any different from humans and our feelings, which is more or less animal instinct given a nicer terminology. I'm not even sure we humans exercise free will in more than ie. 5 percent of the time.

Well, I think you can't say global warming / change doesn't exist, with a chart that shows global warming / change. *lol* In any case I don't think we know the full story yet, there is or obviously have been a correlation between co2 concentrations and temperature in the past. How this is gonna affect the world is quite hard to predict. We won't know, if any of the prediction models are accurate, til after the fact, sooo ... Still we know enough that we should be very weary of emitting that much co2 and other greenhouse gases. IMHO.

Hehe, true... the winner writes the storybooks as they say... While it's true that slavery is today negative term for human beings... Let's acknowledge that slavery was once commonplace, not negative (unless you were one) and we didn't quite agree on what constituted a human being (some people still don't)... As a society, we could choose to redefine it to encompass human level intelligences, rather than use the term as a loophole to bring back defacto slavery. Otherwise I agree with, that we don't necessarily need true intelligent AI for a helluva lot of tasks.

As amazing as the sun is, I find it even more amazing that there are stars out there, that can have a radius up to a 1.000 times larger than the sun, stars that weigh more than a 100 times as much as the sun and stars that shines millions of times more powerfull than the sun. Like Eta Carinae: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eta_Carinae Or R136a1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R136a1