65 replies to this topic

[RaiDK]

Far as I'm concerned, wireless power sending is the way of the future. I reckon in the future you'll have 'power coverage' for devices similar to how we have 3G coverage now.

[Destiny]

I can foresee wireless rechargers then. But then they'll have to find a way to stop things from disrupting/getting in the way of the wireless energy-thingy-whatever-this-is-called.

[BeefJeRKy]

RaiDK, on 14 Sep 2009, 6:17, said:

Far as I'm concerned, wireless power sending is the way of the future. I reckon in the future you'll have 'power coverage' for devices similar to how we have 3G coverage now.

I think that will be highly inefficient. I think in the future, miniaturized power cell/battery hybrids will lead the way for devices. Power distribution = inefficiency the way I see it because you lose energy while transporting AND transforming it. Right now battery technology is far behind and we really need to find the next breakthrough for energy storage.

[Golan]

Sargeant Rho, on 14 Sep 2009, 1:32, said:

After reading a bit into Helium 3, I figured out why the NASA suddently wants to go to the moon again.
The Moon is basically one huge ressource depot, and we can use whatever ressources there, as it is dead rock, no-one, not even the enviromentalists will have a reason to be mad. Moon dust is full of 3He, and the moon surface is probably meters thick covered in dust. And guess what: 3HE can efficiently fuel a fusion reactor. Yes, I know that it needs 30% more heat to fire it up, but did you know that it has a 60-70% more power output than a Deuterium/Tritium fusion reaction?

The transport from moon to Earth will certainly not be a problem, you can get all the fuel you would ever need on the moon to power a rocket to fly the stuff back to Earth.

Edit: Oh, and the materials to build it too, btw.

We don't have any infrastructure to mine and process the stuff up there though. Just take a look at how long and how many resources it took us to get the ISS up and running, which is still nothing but a tiny speck compared to most industrial hardware. Our spacecrafts are still relatively primitive, making precise processing of everything related to them very important unless you want some Hollywood-grade stuff blowin' up. It's a bit like trying to fill up your car on an oil field.

[Sgt. Rho]

Destiny, on 14 Sep 2009, 7:46, said:

I can foresee wireless rechargers then. But then they'll have to find a way to stop things from disrupting/getting in the way of the wireless energy-thingy-whatever-this-is-called.

Oh sure, build a miles high tesla coil on the moon

[Destiny]

There's not enough air there But right now, as the others have said we're really primitive and launching something like a casket into space can potentially cost billions, and the ISS is gonna get decommissioned in what, 2015! I do hope we can achieve commercial Nuclear Fusion soon, it seems the most plausible out of all energy sources...

[Ixonoclast]

When extrapolating future technology, keep in mind we are close to singularity, the point where we create an intelligence that surpasses the intelligence of the normal unchanged Homo Sapiens Sapiens.

At that point anything is possible... from the tame fantasy of a personal computer in every African home that can run 8 Crysis windows at the same time, to nuclear death by a rogue AI, all the way to complete transcendence among the stars, abandoning our humanity for something better...

[Sgt. Rho]

Destiny, on 14 Sep 2009, 14:47, said:

There's not enough air there But right now, as the others have said we're really primitive and launching something like a casket into space can potentially cost billions, and the ISS is gonna get decommissioned in what, 2015! I do hope we can achieve commercial Nuclear Fusion soon, it seems the most plausible out of all energy sources...

So what about no air, get the air there in pressure tanks then
The Helium is contained in the moon dust anyway

[partyzanpaulzy]

today: around 84% of all energy comes from fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas), 8% atomic energy, 8% renewable resources.

But future ones will be more ecological, it's a must.

1. primary sources (mostly electricity):
Fission reactors - there are attempts to create a reactor which doesn't leave any radioactive waste,
however if these attempts fail, it will be necessary to store the waste in distant areas,
in former uranium or thorium mines with stable ground or other special stable locations.

The problem is that radioactive waste is pretty scary matter, because we all know what radiation does...

Incinerator powerplants - kind of thermal power plant, with modern filtering systems these don't release almost nothing else than CO2 and water into the air, however there is problem with chemicals.
Biomass powerplant - kind of thermal power plant, leaves CO2 which was stored in trees, plants and so... problem is inefficiency and the biomass is sometimes contaminated with chemical polution (like cow turds in India).

methane dihydrate - if someone solves problem with mining of this fossil fuel, we can get new temporary source of energy.
"Bio-methane" - it's being released from agriculture waste.
Methane can be burned in thermal power plants, it's used in Ukrainian cars (better don't try your matches there), you can cook a food on methane.
CO2 can be filtered from exhaust and stored in algaes (for further use - like food for cattle or ethanol production) or minerals.

Fussion reactor - laser-based or TOKAMAK-based, it doesn't matter if it's gainful which is "still sci-fi". Fussion reactor leaves minimal radioactive waste,
but there isn't any of them with sufficient power although scientists in 1950's promised that first of these powerplants will be finished till year 2000.
He3 isotope from moon dust can be used in fussion reactors.

Space power plant - Nikola Tesla wanted electricity generated directly from the solar wind, however future visions contain giant satellites supplying Earth with clean energy from solar light. Connection with Earth usually consists of cable on the Space Elevator or microwave beam... "Burn baby, burn!"

And I almost forgot on so popular (or rather trendy) alternative sources:
Water or tidal power plant - there isn't many rivers without big water power plants, so don't expect much more of them, just modernization, smaller power plants, some new tidal PP and pumped storage hydro plants.
Geothermal power plants - they can't be built everywhere... just in tectonically active areas.
efficient wind power plant - only in some specific areas like in the North Sea which is windy enough, otherwise they aren't efficient enough.
efficient solar power plant - Some of the are efficient, like solar furnaces with water circuit - turbine in water circuit generates electricity.
Some of them are less efficient - silicon panels. However today solar power plants should be located just in (sub)tropical areas, otherwise they work just like the acumulator (they don't produce more energy than energy which was inserted to produce them).

Solar heating - some people use sun to warm water for their shower, their house or even to cook something.

2.secondary sources
hydrogen - automobile fuel, aircraft fuel, rocket fuel,
H can be produced in nuclear powerplants, hydrogen burns into water.
compressed air - exotic automobile fuel
sunflower oil - it's cheaper than oil, so don't wonder why "That car smells like a toast!"

Heat from nuclear or thermal powerplants - supports many towns, cities and crocodile farms on the world in cold days, so they will do in the future.
Heat from servers ? - why not? What do you think I use to heat up...

Heat from... you - if you have cold winters (over 2 months under -10°C), if you don't have 60cm thick outer walls from bricks (45cm porotherm bricks), then think about getting some thermal insulation (unless you already have or you have other solution).

Quote

jets and airplanes will be powered by fusion......

soviets almost made jets and airplanes powered by fission (and tanks and were about to create atomic wheeled trains)
It depends how radioactive the reactor will be.

EDIT: sorry for bump, but I thought I could say something to this topic

Edited by partyzanpaulzy, 30 September 2009 - 18:43.

[Zero]

*Sigh* If only Tesla were still alive...the smart fucker could probably solve ALL our problems! Hell, I bet he could even figure out a cold fusion reactor!!!

Anyways, on a more serious note...I actually came up with a rather...unique power generating plant I call an "Archimedes Screw Generator", or simply, a "Screw Generator." If it works we'll have unlimited power foreva! And yes, I'm being serious, I need to get a life.

Hmmm, anyhow, I say nuclear fusion for the foreseeable future. Fusion makes VERY little radioactive waste, if any (sorry, but I'm not 100% sure) so it actually CLEAN energy unlike fission. Furthermore, a few atoms=a load of power.

For vehicles, I see Hydrogen Power Cells. For jets I see an efficient liquid-hydrogen jet engine (don't know how to do it efficiently though, I'm working on it myself, I'm thinking I might need to do a little more work to improve it before testing just to not blow myself up) and for rockets....well ask bloody NASA! They can just use the Hydrogen-Oxygen mix the space-babies do, OR a Mass Driver, as a fan of Gundam Seed, I must correspond to the last one!!

Antimatter I give 200, maybe 300 years. All I can say for certain is that any technology we CAN imagine at the moment is most likely not more than 500 years away at the moment! Like stated before, look at the progress made in the last 100 years, with COMPUTERS now, we can do at LEAST 1,000x more work in the same amount of time, so....yeah, I'm hoping I see an antimatter power plant before I dies!

[BeefJeRKy]

Actually with improving nanotechnology such as the use of Carbon nanotubes in the solar cell arrays, it is said their efficiency should double possibly triple and that the biggest problem will as usual be storage. Some genius needs to devise a breakthrough in battery/fuel cell technology.

[Zero]

Viseur, on 30 Sep 2009, 23:02, said:

Actually with improving nanotechnology such as the use of Carbon nanotubes in the solar cell arrays, it is said their efficiency should double possibly triple and that the biggest problem will as usual be storage. Some genius needs to devise a breakthrough in battery/fuel cell technology.

AND I HAVE IT! THE TESLA CIRCUIT!! And yes, I'm being serious, not a battery, but the best way of storing live electricity I can think of.

[partyzanpaulzy]

Uh, I forgot on big water demands of the solar PPs...

I've heard guys from Technical University in Liberec (they made nanospider) are about to create solar foil using nanofibres,
this foil should be much more efficient (around 50%) and cheaper than standard solar panels.
This foil could be used on laptops or mobile phones.

Also photon fusion could help.

And antimatter isn't possible to be used as primary energy source, rather some ZPM .

There are (will be) some solutions to store the electricity:
1. pumped storage hydro plants

Dlouhé Stráně - picture from ČEZ
- useful capacity: 2 580 000 m³
- max depth: 48 m
- isolation: 18cm of natural asphalt from Albania which can resist −30 to +60 °C
- turbines: 2 × 325 MW Francis reverse turbines (the biggest reverse water turbines in Europe, 2x 312 MW in pumping mode)
- efficiency of the reverse: 98% (usually PSHP have around 80% efficiency, not every PSHP uses same turbines for pumping water and generating electricity)
- If all electricity was produced in solar PP then 10 million people would need around 30-40 PSHP like this one...

2. ultracapacitors
-like this one from the Maxwell:

- nanotechnologies are crucial to produce efficient ultracapacitors

3. energy-accumulating flywheel
- hi-tech flywheel with hi-tech alternator
- NASA has been developing them

4. superconductive inductive akumulator
- one of first prototypes consisted of superconductive coil (connected to wires) in liquid helium and whole set was in the "vacuum flask"

5. global synchronization of electricity production

[Zero]

Hey that number four is cheap version of my idea for the Tesla Circuit!!

[partyzanpaulzy]

It's like when I was thinking why scientists don't create fission reactor which fissions the fuel till it's non-radioactive (then I found they are already doing such research).

But cheap?
It depends if you have superconductive materials which don't need more than normal fridge to operate or not... (Helium is liquid bellow -268,93 °C (4,22 K))
BTW, it's almost century old invention (first prototype invented in 1911).

Edited by partyzanpaulzy, 03 October 2009 - 11:03.

[Zero]

partyzanpaulzy, on 3 Oct 2009, 10:59, said:

It's like when I was thinking why scientists don't create fission reactor which fissions the fuel till it's non-radioactive (then I found they are already doing such research).

But cheap?
It depends if you have superconductive materials which don't need more than normal fridge to operate or not... (Helium is liquid bellow -268,93 °C (4,22 K))
BTW, it's almost century old invention (first prototype invented in 1911).

Sorry, you misunderstood, I meant that its just a spinoff of my own tesla circuit. Not that hard, expensive, or tough an idea to implement......