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Re: Science - strawberry float YEAH
Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2012 1:06 am
by Oh Teh Noes
Jesus Christ.
Re: Science - strawberry float YEAH
Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2012 1:36 am
by SEP
So, Cal, you don't think that the finite amounts of fossil fuels are ever going to deplete?
I mean, I know you don#t have a science degree, but even that should be a simple enough concept for you to comprehend. They may not run out today, maybe not tomorrow. But one day they will, and surely it's best to be prepared for that?
Re: Science - strawberry float YEAH
Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2012 1:47 am
by Lagamorph
Fossil Fuels smell bad anyway.
Anyways,
Cockpit of a Space Shuttle,
The Cats eye Nebula
The Hourglass Nebula
Storm region of the Swan Nebula
Two merging galaxies 114 million Light Years away
Re: Science - strawberry float YEAH
Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2012 4:49 am
by Dig Dug
Moggy wrote:But that money could have cured cancer, fed the third world and given us all our own personal jetpacks.
Read somehwhere once that research like this is the reason why stuff like x-rays and chemotherapy exist. So yeah they got the cancer bit down.
Re: Science - strawberry float YEAH
Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2012 5:39 am
by That
Oh Teh Noes wrote:How is that a false dichotomy? He was merely making a comment about the fact that the LHC was very expensive.
Because as a part of that he was suggesting that our only two choices are
spend billions on the LHC and
spend billions elsewhere: this is clearly nonsense. If fundamental science was funded properly (perhaps we could spend just a
little less money on the noble endeavour of slaughtering brown people, for example) we could rather easily have both.
Unless you're of the belief that he was raising no point whatsoever, in which case fair enough I guess?
Re: Science - strawberry float YEAH
Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2012 11:01 am
by Moggy
Dig Dug wrote:Moggy wrote:But that money could have cured cancer, fed the third world and given us all our own personal jetpacks.
Read somehwhere once that research like this is the reason why stuff like x-rays and chemotherapy exist. So yeah they got the cancer bit down.
Doesn't help me when I am still waiting for my jetpack.
Re: Science - strawberry float YEAH
Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2012 11:42 am
by Fatal Exception
Cal wrote:Fatal Exception wrote:Why are you so against creating a better world Cal?
Regardless of whether man made climate change is real, renewable energy can only be a good thing.
Explain to me the how world's most abundant and readily-available energy sources - fossil fuels - haven't elevated mankind from his mud hut? How they haven't benefited mankind in ways too numerous to mention? How they are somehow a 'bad' thing for the very progress they have powered - and continue to power?
Windmills may have been good for grinding the corn but in the end they didn't build a modern society. It was coal that modernized farming and built empires.
There is no 'energy crisis' - there is only the wishful thinking of politically-motivated NGOs like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth who fervently pray for us all to abandon our 'wicked' fossil fuel ways and go live on a commune somewhere, no doubt worshipping Gaia three times a day.
Forcing 'renewables' on everyone will do f*ckall to protect the Earth. Quite the reverse. History shows us that forests, habitats and species the world over will remain in peril precisely because so many are denied basic rights such as cheap and reliable fossil fuels.
Fossil fuels build societies that can eventually afford to give a damn about saving the rainforests - because they don't need to clear the land any more; when that happens, when they have escaped a pitiful subsistence life of grinding poverty, perhaps then (like us) they can spend more time worrying about endangered species and precious habitats - because they'll have met their basic needs (just like you and me, with our always-on electricity and our centrally heated, double-glazed houses and our cars and all the other things that make our every-day lives - and work - so easy that we can find time (and money) to worry about all the other stuff).
There is no 'energy crisis'. There is no such thing as 'peak oil' - there never was. It was myth first put about as far back as the 50's, perhaps even sooner. When I was a boy in the early 70's all the talk was about how the oil was 'going to run out' by the year 2000. We never learn from such folly. The truth is - as vast new shale gas finds reveal - the world is abundant with fossil fuels which won't be running out any time soon.
The argument is not about using windmills and solar panels to solve a non-existent problem - no matter what 'green' alarmists would have you believe, but instead - in world rich with natural energy sources just waiting to be tapped - about how better to manage our fossil fuels to empower and elevate Least Developed Nations to a point where they, too, can afford to invest in their natural heritage and in genuine environmental protection.
No one is saying that fossil fuels haven't helped create a better world and 'fuelled' an insane (and possibly unsustainable) level of growth . They have been good for the world. But we are at a stage when we can can start to reduce out dependence on them. I will ignore man made climate change for the sake of this, but at the moment oil has the following problems that are unlikely to change:
- The price is controlled by powerful cartels, who pretty much have a stranglehold on the world's economy
- Governments are willing to wage wars over it (possibly) including false flag attacks to justify the wars
- If you break crude oil down into power from the sunshine (which it essentially is) we are using several days sunshine power per day. Even if we have lots of oil left, infinite growth is unsustainable.
Renewables may be just a way to sell us less oil at a higher price, or hobble developing nations, but what they will do in the long run is reduce the importance of oil, which is only a good thing in the long run.
Anyway, back to Science.
Re: Science - strawberry float YEAH
Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2012 12:11 pm
by Meep
If fossil fuels are finite (not technically finite, but they take so long to replenish they might as well be in human terms), then peak oil must exist. You can argue about when peak oil will be reached but so long as you keep using oil you will hit it sooner or later. It is inevitable and completely irrational to think otherwise.
Second of all, there is always an energy crisis. Always. As civilisation continues to grow and advanced it is in perpetual need of ever increasing supplies of energy. This means that no matter where you are in history there is always an energy crisis looming just ahead of you which requires a new and greater source of energy. When the time comes that one cannot be found civilisation stops and if the one we current depend on collapses then civilisation collapses also.
Re: Science - strawberry float YEAH
Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2012 12:48 pm
by Skarjo
Yay! A topic about how awesome science is! This will be an interesting rea-*Cal posts*- Oh that's a shame.
Re: Science - strawberry float YEAH
Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2012 1:04 pm
by Lagamorph
strawberry float all this climate change talk.
Here's a picture of a working Turing Machine made from Lego
And one not made from Lego,
It's amazing how far computers have come in the last 80 years based on the concepts of these things
Re: Science - strawberry float YEAH
Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2012 1:08 pm
by Moggy
Lego and science. Is there any more awesome combination?
Re: Science - strawberry float YEAH
Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2012 1:22 pm
by Slartibartfast
Fossil fuels being burnt in car engines,power stations and factories cause countless deaths and health problems. A move to renewable energy, grid level storage and electric vehicles will improve the quality of life for everyone.
Re: Science - strawberry float YEAH
Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2012 1:39 pm
by Meep
A lot of people have put forward hydrogen as a means of storing and transporting energy generated from renewable sources but I do not think this is realistic as the energy required to first extract and then pressurise the gas into cannisters means there is a lot of waste involved. I have heard of projects to create synthetic fuels using solar or electrical energy that can be captured in bonds and released later like with fossil fuels, which sounds pretty awesome if it can be pulled of successfully. You could just tank it around and pump it from tanks like we do with our current fuels.
Re: Science - strawberry float YEAH
Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2012 1:57 pm
by TheTurnipKing
Fatal Exception wrote:No one is saying that fossil fuels haven't helped create a better world and 'fuelled' an insane (and possibly unsustainable) level of growth.
I don't believe there's any "probably" about it. If it's not renewable, then it's unsustainable by definition.
Re: Science - strawberry float YEAH
Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2012 2:54 pm
by Fatal Exception
TheTurnipKing wrote:Fatal Exception wrote:No one is saying that fossil fuels haven't helped create a better world and 'fuelled' an insane (and possibly unsustainable) level of growth.
I don't believe there's any "probably" about it. If it's not renewable, then it's unsustainable by definition.
I meant the level of growth. High grade energy has accelerated human advancement at unsustainable levels.
Re: Science - strawberry float YEAH
Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2012 11:05 pm
by Oh Teh Noes
Karlprof wrote:Oh Teh Noes wrote:How is that a false dichotomy? He was merely making a comment about the fact that the LHC was very expensive.
Because as a part of that he was suggesting that our only two choices are
spend billions on the LHC and
spend billions elsewhere: this is clearly nonsense. If fundamental science was funded properly (perhaps we could spend just a
little less money on the noble endeavour of slaughtering brown people, for example) we could rather easily have both.
Unless you're of the belief that he was raising no point whatsoever, in which case fair enough I guess?
I am of that belief. The phrase "just a thought" led me to that conclusion
Re: Science - strawberry float YEAH
Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2012 11:09 pm
by Vermin
Mmm Danone.
Re: Science - strawberry float YEAH
Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2012 10:57 am
by Rax
Moggy wrote:Lego and science. Is there any more awesome combination?
Boobs and beer?
Re: Science - strawberry float YEAH
Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 2:18 am
by Lagamorph
You thought our Sun was big? Pfft.
Re: Science - strawberry float YEAH
Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 3:18 am
by Jax
That warp drive news is pretty big too. What a time we live in.