Best energy alternatives to stop global warming

[Nibb31]

We are in 2014, so this is mean 7 or 8 years.. Not very different from my 10 years estimation for the first commercial mission.

Please have a quick look at the other threads about Skylon in this forum.

They have no industrial base or support, no infrastructure, no logistics, no facilities, and most of all no funding. I've demonstrated in various other threads that the whole project is not viable economically because the demand is simply not there and their budget estimates are bogus. As for the technology, all REL's promises are based on the most optimistic figures for each of the components, none of which have been developed into engineering prototypes, let alone tested to see if those figures make any sense. There is zero margin in their design and they are practically reinventing the wheel in just about every area of aerospace design. If any single one of those unproven components ends up being too heavy or underperforms in any way (which they always do when you get to real-world engineering), then payload capacity is reduced and the whole project is no longer viable.

If major EU governments suddenly had a revelation tomorrow that SSTO spaceplanes are a major industrial priority, if ESA magically provides funding for billions of euros, if Airbus or BAE Systems got on board if all the unproven technology was properly developed and performs exactly as planned, if there are no budget overruns or performance loss (which is impossible), and if someone invents a new application that actually requires frequent unmanned launches to LEO, then maybe it could fly in 10 to 15 years. But none of that is happening. Skylon is not happening. Period.

Edited June 25, 2014 by Nibb31

[Seret]

most of all no funding.

They actually do have funding so far, including from the UK government. There doesn't seem to be any reason to think that SABRE development is short of funds. AFAIK they've also got enough to cover the early work on Skylon they've been doing.

Personally I'm still sceptical that Skylon will ever come to be, but there's interest and investment in SABRE so far, so who knows.

[Nibb31]

They actually do have funding so far, including from the UK government. There doesn't seem to be any reason to think that SABRE development is short of funds.

The headline of that article says exactly the opposite: they need "at least" four times more to develop SABRE. That's an estimated development cost of $400 million. Where is the rest of the money coming from? Where are the other investors? There are none, because there is no viable business case for a reusable SSTO spaceplane.

And seriously, only $400 million? The cost of development a conventional civilian jet engine by P&W or GE is around $1 billion dollars, yet 4 blokes in a shed claim they can industrialize SABRE, which is based on completely new and unproven solutions, for less than half of that budget? Their estimates are completely unrealistic. Just buying a factory to build and test those SABRE engines would cost twice that UK government grant.

I apologize for bringing this thread off-topic again. We should be having this discussion in one of the numerous Skylon threads...

Edited June 25, 2014 by Nibb31

[Seret]

The headline of that article says exactly the opposite: they need "at least" four times more to develop SABRE. That's an estimated development cost of $400 million. Where is the rest of the money coming from? Where are the other investors? There are none, because there is no viable business case for a reusable SSTO spaceplane.

Sure, but for the phase of development they're at currently they are fully funded. You can't say whether or not they'll get ongoing funding. SABRE is viable technology without Skylon, they've already monetised some of the patents (they're selling precoolers to industrial users) and there could be a market for SABRE engines to other customers.

I agree with you that Skylon is probably vapourware like HOTOL before it, but it's not accurate to say that REL currently aren't managing to attract investors.

[AngelLestat]

Is good to be skeptical, help us to think rationally.

But you said something like:

whole project is not viable economically because the demand is simply not there

Why you mean? Are you saying that we do not have a lot to send into space?

[Elthy]

Even if Skylon meets the requirements and flies it would take thousands of flights to get a sigificant amount of power. It would be way, way cheaper to build the solarpanels and the required storage technology on earth...

[shynung]

Why you mean? Are you saying that we do not have a lot to send into space?

Most likely, yes. Other than the occasional communication satellites, spaceflight is of interest primarily for research purposes.

Not only that, the market for space launch vehicles is already quite saturated: SpaceX, ULA, and Arianespace are only a few out of many organizations that offers launch services. All that, fighting for a relatively small market for communication satellites (the most common payload), and a few government/military space projects.

Edited June 25, 2014 by shynung

[Nibb31]

Why you mean? Are you saying that we do not have a lot to send into space?

Yes.

Or more precisely, not enough organizations are willing to pay to what it costs to send stuff into space. There simply aren't enough commercially viable applications for space and the launch market is already saturated and highly competitive.

Most likely, yes. Other than the occasional communication satellites, spaceflight is of interest primarily for research purposes.

Actually, it's the other way round. The biggest market is for GEO comsats. Scientific payloads represent a much smaller market.

Edited June 25, 2014 by Nibb31

[shynung]

Actually, it's the other way round. The biggest market is for GEO comsats. Scientific payloads represent a much smaller market.

Whoops.

[AngelLestat]

Even if Skylon meets the requirements and flies it would take thousands of flights to get a sigificant amount of power. It would be way, way cheaper to build the solarpanels and the required storage technology on earth...

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/83102-Best-energy-alternatives-to-stop-global-warming?p=1230053&viewfull=1#post1230053

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/83102-Best-energy-alternatives-to-stop-global-warming?p=1230289&viewfull=1#post1230289

Most likely, yes. Other than the occasional communication satellites, spaceflight is of interest primarily for research purposes.

Not only that, the market for space launch vehicles is already quite saturated: SpaceX, ULA, and Arianespace are only a few out of many organizations that offers launch services. All that, fighting for a relatively small market for communication satellites (the most common payload), and a few government/military space projects.

Yes.

Or more precisely, not enough organizations are willing to pay to what it costs to send stuff into space. There simply aren't enough commercially viable applications for space and the launch market is already saturated and highly competitive.

With all respect, but you two dont have any idea of what are you saying XD

Demand depends on cost/service. Right now the cost is too high! For that reason, the demand is limited.

But there are billions of new bussiness or oportunities which would arise if the launching cost drop.

[shynung]

With all respect, but you two dont have any idea of what are you saying XD

Demand depends on cost/service. Right now the cost is too high! For that reason, the demand is limited.

But there are billions of new bussiness or oportunities which would arise if the launching cost drop.

Demand is limited because the profit is limited as well, and only useful to a few kinds of people(space research agencies, communications companies, and intelligence agencies, and there aren't many of either). Unlike transoceanic flight, spaceflight isn't very profitable; there isn't much in space to make money out of, as of now. Not to mention that a spaceflight journey takes a massive amount of energy, and therefore cost, to ever happen in the first place.

[Nibb31]

Demand depends on cost/service. Right now the cost is too high! For that reason, the demand is limited.

No. Demand depends on actual use, on reasons to go to space. For the foreseeable future, there is no commercial use for space other than the ones that already exists, and that is not only because of launch costs.

But there are billions of new bussiness or oportunities which would arise if the launching cost drop.

In the total project cost of operating a satellite, launch cost is only a small part. Operators also have to pay for the payload development, testing, integration, ground equipment, transport and actual operating costs.

Even if you reduce the launch costs by 50%, it hardly makes a dent in the total operational cost of space hardware.

New business opportunities are not going to magically appear out of thin air just because you reduce the cost to orbit. Even if a bridge to nowhere is cheap, it's still a bridge to nowhere. It doesn't magically provide worthwhile reasons to cross it if there is nothing on the other side.

[Red Iron Crown]

Or by analogy: If you halved the price to get dropped in the middle of the Gobi desert, demand to go to the Gobi wouldn't double and would likely barely increase at all.

[RuBisCO]

Wait how is switching to another energy source going to stop global warming? How is it going to suck up all the CO2 that there, at best we would simply stop adding more but the ice caps are in runway meltdown mode already, sea level will rise by at least a meter by the end of the century no matter what we do! Switching to a non-fossil fuel energy source will simply free us from peak-fossil fuels, that is the the ever increasing price and falling energy return of these fuels as we mine all the good stuff up and keep resorting to harder to mine, dirtier crap.

Anyways we need to consider ways of "geoforming": controling earth's climate, not simply our energy sources. We need ways of sucking up CO2, controling sunlight levels, turning the sahara green, farming the ocean, etc, etc.

[SargeRho]

It isn't, but Earth can handle a certain ammount of CO2 emission. We have far exeeded that, by releasing more CO2 than plants can absorb, raising the concentration. If we reduce CO2 emissions, and even use sources that capture carbon (algae based solar power anyone?), the CO2 content in the air will go back down to pre-industrial revolution levels.

[RuBisCO]

I'm all for algal seqestration, just dump a few million tons of iron phosphate in the ocean.. in theory, we need to test this out first of course. There is the sulfate idea of reflecting back sunlight, but I think that one is harder to prove, increase cloud cover, etc, gigantic solar shade in sun earth L1... yeah that going to happen.

Anyways all that has nothing to do with generating energy.

[SargeRho]

Dumping iron in the ocean has been tested actually, caused a massive algae growth. Reducing Earth's irradiance or its albedo isn't neccesary, since it is entirely possible to cut CO2 emissions down to sustainable levels, it'll take some time though.

[RuBisCO]

Dumping iron in the ocean has been tested actually, caused a massive algae growth. Reducing Earth's irradiance or its albedo isn't neccesary, since it is entirely possible to cut CO2 emissions down to sustainable levels, it'll take some time though.

Yes but does the CO2 stay seqestered on the sea floor and for how long? How much precissely and how many runs do we need to do, those kind of testing. The advantage though is unlikes sulfating the upwer atmosphere, iron fertilization is not likely to cause any harm, just be a huge dump of money, literally.

[rtxoff]

I'm all for algal seqestration, just dump a few million tons of iron phosphate in the ocean.. in theory, we need to test this out first of course. There is the sulfate idea of reflecting back sunlight, but I think that one is harder to prove, increase cloud cover, etc, gigantic solar shade in sun earth L1... yeah that going to happen.

Anyways all that has nothing to do with generating energy.

Are you serious? You can't heal cancer by creating another cancer.

The only reasonable way to fight CO2 is to prevent releasing it into atmosphere. Also collecting CO2 out of atmosphere and pumping it deep into the earth may be some temporarily solution. Nobody can guarantee that it will stay down there forever.

[AngelLestat]

Demand is limited because the profit is limited as well, and only useful to a few kinds of people(space research agencies, communications companies, and intelligence agencies, and there aren't many of either). Unlike transoceanic flight, spaceflight isn't very profitable; there isn't much in space to make money out of, as of now. Not to mention that a spaceflight journey takes a massive amount of energy, and therefore cost, to ever happen in the first place.

No. Demand depends on actual use, on reasons to go to space. For the foreseeable future, there is no commercial use for space other than the ones that already exists, and that is not only because of launch costs.

LOL.. You are really discussing this?

This is so wrong.

There is no comercial use for space? Space is not usefull?

Space turism, more bandwidth for communications, scientific missions (millons of this), energy PV collector as I mention, small private satellites (from universities, small companies, radiactive waste dispossal, space manufacturing and biopharmaceuticals, asteroid mining, etc, etc etc.

In the total project cost of operating a satellite, launch cost is only a small part. Operators also have to pay for the payload development, testing, integration, ground equipment, transport and actual operating costs.

You have an idea how much this development cost would decrease if the launch cost also decrease?

Now each sattelite has as hundreds of different test which cost tons of money just becouse they need to be sure than nothing fail, becouse the launch cost is too much. Make a satellite vibration-proof when you use a rocket is one thing, and another when you use an spaceplane.

Operator cost? I can launch a cube satellite or a big one, and control it with an small antenne dish and my notebook without any problem.

I can develope a new satellite that it would provide a service to people in the ground. And make profit with that.

New business opportunities are not going to magically appear out of thin air just because you reduce the cost to orbit. Even if a bridge to nowhere is cheap, it's still a bridge to nowhere. It doesn't magically provide worthwhile reasons to cross it if there is nothing on the other side.

Or by analogy: If you halved the price to get dropped in the middle of the Gobi desert, demand to go to the Gobi wouldn't double and would likely barely increase at all.

These two examples are totally nonsense.

This is not a bridge to nowhere or a ticket to be kill it. How can you make such comparisons?

Why people are paying millions just to sent astronauts or stuff into space right now if it has not use or profit???

Or now you will tell me that people paid millons to build a bridge in the middle of nowhere or to die in a dessert?

Come on.. said something clever.

Read if you wanna learn.

http://issues.org/29-1/jonathan/

And please read something about cost/demand and business opportunity using your head. I will not spent time explaining something so basic.

Wait how is switching to another energy source going to stop global warming? How is it going to suck up all the CO2 that there, at best we would simply stop adding more but the ice caps are in runway meltdown mode already, sea level will rise by at least a meter by the end of the century no matter what we do! Switching to a non-fossil fuel energy source will simply free us from peak-fossil fuels, that is the the ever increasing price and falling energy return of these fuels as we mine all the good stuff up and keep resorting to harder to mine, dirtier crap.

When we said stop, we wanna said slow down the process, until we reach the point of stop it and maybe in the future revert it.

Edited June 25, 2014 by AngelLestat

[PakledHostage]

This is so wrong.

There is no comercial use for space? Space is not usefull?

I am not sure of the details, but Nibb is a professional in the Aerospace industry. He's one of the more reputable sources on these forums on the subject you're challenging him on. That doesn't mean he's always right, but on the balance of probability I'd take his word for it. The state of the art in the real world isn't sci-fi. The type of future you envision is a long way off. If ventures in space are to be viable, they need to be able to make money now, not in some indeterminate time in the future.

[shynung]

Space turism, more bandwidth for communications, scientific missions (millons of this), energy PV collector as I mention, small private satellites (from universities, small companies, radiactive waste dispossal, space manufacturing and biopharmaceuticals, asteroid mining, etc, etc etc.

Space is useful, but only to a very few groups of people. There's the GEO communications satellite, and the occasional research satellites/space telescopes/ISS missions (all of which are rare in comparison to GEO comsat), but nothing more. Also, space tourism is a very small market; only a very small number of living humans would actually be willing to pay for a short flight to space.

And no, we have no space-worthy manufacturing technology that is proven profitable, not enough PV panel production to justify solar power satellites(if we do, we would build it on the ground first), no reliable nuclear waste storage facility that won't suddenly and randomly deorbit itself, and no proven technology to mine asteroids profitably (not to mention the asteroid itself).

[Red Iron Crown]

AngelLestat: Before you go insulting people's understanding of a subject, perhaps you should be sure you understand it yourself. Supply and demand have a property called elasticity; currently the demand for space is relatively inelastic. The parties that need it really need it, those that don't likely wouldn't even at lower costs.

[RuBisCO]

Are you serious? You can't heal cancer by creating another cancer.

The only reasonable way to fight CO2 is to prevent releasing it into atmosphere. Also collecting CO2 out of atmosphere and pumping it deep into the earth may be some temporarily solution. Nobody can guarantee that it will stay down there forever.

I think you lost my point: there is already an over abundance of CO2 in the air, polar caps are already in runaway melting, switching to carbon free energy sources is great and all but it won't stop global warming. So again "preventing release" does nothing for the hundreds of billions of tons of CO2 already emitted. If you want a goal appropriate for switching energy how about the fact that there is not enough oil, fuel and natural gas to supply our "growing" economy past the 21 century. All the good stuff has already been mined and depleted, the tar sands and fracking simply can't supply our every growing energy needs.

[AngelLestat]

I am not sure of the details, but Nibb is a professional in the Aerospace industry. He's one of the more reputable sources on these forums on the subject you're challenging him on. That doesn't mean he's always right, but on the balance of probability I'd take his word for it. The state of the art in the real world isn't sci-fi. The type of future you envision is a long way off. If ventures in space are to be viable, they need to be able to make money now, not in some indeterminate time in the future.

He can be GOD, but it will not matter. Its clear that he is wrong about this.

Maybe he is an aerospace enginner and I congratulate him, it will be very usefull if some day I need his knowledge to learn about rocket physsic. But now evidence only point that his business or market idea is very wrong.

I would defend my position becouse I am right. Becouse if I dont do it, all you will end with the wrong idea. And this is so basic.

We are all here to discuss and learn things that we dont know. But in this case.. I can not lose.

Space is useful, but only to a very few groups of people. There's the GEO communications satellite, and the occasional research satellites/space telescopes/ISS missions (all of which are rare in comparison to GEO comsat), but nothing more. Also, space tourism is a very small market; only a very small number of living humans would actually be willing to pay for a short flight to space.

Only to few group of people BECOUSE the launch cost is very high!

If the cost low, then millions of business oportunities arise.

Imagine that you want to make money with space turism. You need to build the orbit hotel first, how much it would cost with to day launch cost?

Then you need to carry people there. How much it would cost each trip? Then you fix your seat prize that it would depend in how much you invest in your hotel construction and how much it cost carry people there.

So the ticket prize would worth 100 millions at least!! How many people is willing to pay that? 1? 3? So you have no market.

But if the launch cost is reduced 1/10 only (skylon would reduce even more), then your hotel construction cost is reduced by a factor of 1/50, plus that is more cheap to carry people, then your ticket prize would be close to 300000$. Then you have a market!

Now use the same example with all possible business that you can imagine and with all thousands of business that you can not imagine.

And no, we have no space-worthy manufacturing technology that is proven profitable, not enough PV panel production to justify solar power satellites(if we do, we would build it on the ground first), no reliable nuclear waste storage facility that won't suddenly and randomly deorbit itself, and no proven technology to mine asteroids profitably (not to mention the asteroid itself).

I already explain this, in 10 years with all the advances in graphene, is almost certain that we end with a composite graphene based PV that it would weight almost nothing, thin as paper which can be delivery as rolls.

AngelLestat: Before you go insulting people's understanding of a subject, perhaps you should be sure you understand it yourself. Supply and demand have a property called elasticity; currently the demand for space is relatively inelastic. The parties that need it really need it, those that don't likely wouldn't even at lower costs.

I dint insult nobody, why you said that? I just point that the desert and bridge example was wrong. How I need to explain something if I can not said if its wrong or it has not sense?

I am sure of the thing that we are discussing.

When he said all about our skylon estimations and how wrong can be.. I dint said nothing.. He can be right. I dont know for sure.

But said that space demand is not related to launch cost, that is something that I can not let go. sorry.

If my words are not very polite, is just becouse my english lv is very limited.

Now read my space turims example and think about it. Just try to reason what I am saying.

Edited June 25, 2014 by AngelLestat