36 replies to this topic

[Rand0m her0]

We'd be better off investing in things like LFTR reactors than cold fusion. Or straight up hot-fusion.

Or magic fairy dust. >_>

[onbekende]

Hot fusion is nice and all, but lets use the CNO cycle while we are at it, less heavy water purification idioticy.

[Shan Revan]

Hot fusion is nice and all, but lets use the CNO cycle while we are at it, less heavy water purification idioticy.

Haha works for me.

[onbekende]

cause all the theory aside, I remember 10y ago there being a bacteria capable of splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen, never heared of it again, kinda sad

[Ivan V]

cause all the theory aside, I remember 10y ago there being a bacteria capable of splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen, never heared of it again, kinda sad

They still exist, it is just that it is too impractical (scale is too small to be of any industrial importance).

IIRC the moon has plenty of hydrogen and helium-3 in its rock mass, so that could be a source of fuel for fusion in the future.

Edited by Ivan V, 15 July 2012 - 07:11 AM.

[Shan Revan]

Yeah but if we can work out fusion then we can just breed our own He-3 without needing to mine the moon.

[DevastationStation]

Yeah but if we can work out fusion then we can just breed our own He-3 without needing to mine the moon.

What is this sorcery!?!? (Good, all bases covered. )

[onbekende]

They still exist, it is just that it is too impractical (scale is too small to be of any industrial importance).

I have yet heared any theory to be found impractical after they thruw a considerable amount of money at it, it rather seems like they sidetracked it completely :/

Alot of stuff now gets made via a biochemical way with bacteria in large fermentors, heck I even found articles while browsing for a rapport on making a polymer via bacteria that spoke of using a bacteria that not only made the polymer but also H₂!

[sap3179]

All well and good, but I will hope it does not end up as the following:

Milk production at a dairy farm was low, so the farmer wrote to the local university, asking for help from academia. A multidisciplinary team of professors was assembled, headed by a theoretical physicist, and two weeks of intensive on-site investigation took place. The scholars then returned to the university, notebooks crammed with data, where the task of writing the report was left to the team leader. Shortly thereafter the physicist returned to the farm, saying to the farmer "I have the solution, but it only works in the case of spherical cows in a vacuum."

The joke was Invented in the sixties I think, the last era of romancing the theoretical physics.

[ccabal86]

They should have sent a Biologist

[sap3179]

...

Edited by sap3179, 20 July 2012 - 08:29 PM.

[sap3179]

They should have sent a Biologist

Yes, but it may be less funny, or there may not be a joke at all! (on a second thought though it also gives us the phenomenon called Sex, so there you have it)

Theoretical Physics is a weird subject. the thing you are describing the Boson, and difference of it with Fermion, when it was first described to me, I did not understood it. Studying, and more studying did not make it better. There are subjects inside it, like the GTR(general theory of relativity) or quantum mechanics which are still weirder. This is apparently a true story. It took place just outside of Munich, Germany. Heisenberg went for a drive and got stopped by a traffic cop. The cop asked, "Do you know how fast you were going?" Heisenberg replied, "No, but I know where I am." This, of course refers to the famous uncertainty principle.

However, let me not be pessimistic for the 13 year old children who may be reading this. This is a well known rhyme on STR(the special one), done to death but still funny,


There was a young lady called Bright
who could travel much faster than light.
She departed one day
in a relative way
and returned on the previous night

[onbekende]

^^hence my rant

[Ivan V]

I have yet heared any theory to be found impractical after they thruw a considerable amount of money at it, it rather seems like they sidetracked it completely :/

Maybe the whole "mining hydrogen on the moon from its hydrogen flux" idea took over from the hydrogen-producing algae.

But it doesn't matter, Shan is right. We have to master fusion first and actually make it a feasible energy source rather than the huge Megawatt hour-squandering reactors we have now.

Oh, and biohydrogen production is inefficient in its current development. These algae and bacteria would need plentiful feedstock and land area at the current rates of production that are currently unfeasible.

From Wikipedia, via a 2004 US Department of Energy estimate:

It would take about 25,000 square kilometres to be sufficient to displace gasoline use in the US. To put this in perspective, this area represents approximately 10% of the area devoted to growing soya in the US.

The US Department of Energy has targeted a selling price of $2.60 / kg as a goal for making renewable hydrogen economically viable. 1 kg is approximately the energy equivalent to a gallon of gasoline. To achieve this, the efficiency of light-to-hydrogen conversion must reach 10% while current efficiency is only 1% and selling price is estimated at $13.53 / kg.

According to a 2004 DOE cost estimate, for a refueling station to supply 100 cars per day, it would need 300 kg. With current technology, a 300 kg per day stand-alone system will require 110,000 m2 of pond area, 0.2 g/l cell concentration, a truncated antennae mutant and 10 cm pond depth.

Last year, however, a bioengineered enzyme was developed, and, in trials, it has been shown to increase the efficiency of hydrogen production in that particular algal species by up to 400 percent. There's still a lot of bioengineering to go, however, to make bioreactors more cost-effective. The algae species, C. reinhardtii, might have to be re-engineered in order to continue to photosynthesize regardless of high extracellular proton gradients, for example.

Edited by Ivan V, 22 July 2012 - 06:04 AM.

[onbekende]

They can partially have it as by-product, and you would also be scared when you find howmuch bio-fuel we actually waste imo.

That said, I wish to shoot the fellows who came up with He-3 on the moon and H in cars, seriously idiotic...

[Ardus]

Yeah but if we can work out fusion then we can just breed our own He-3 without needing to mine the moon.

yes, but then we'll never have good cause to send up Sam Rockwell

[onbekende]

good movie