A Prediction Regarding Fusion Power

If polywell fusion is developed, in what ways will the world change for better or worse? Discuss.

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alexjrgreen
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Post by alexjrgreen »

chrismb wrote:I have gone on to make the following 'challenging' speculation, just to crank the amusing debate; not all coal was formed by decomposition of trees, etc., it is also the remains of buried charcoal from attempted carbon capture from previous failed civilisations billions of years ago!
It's been suggested that once a civilisation learns to recycle its raw materials it would disappear from the archaeological record. Modern humans have been around for at least 40 thousand years, and probably 90, whereas our particular civilisation only stretches back to the end of the last ice age.

That leaves plenty of room for speculation. You see, the glaciers destroyed the evidence...
Ars artis est celare artem.

chrismb
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Post by chrismb »

KitemanSA wrote:
chrismb wrote:One of the simplest and obviously practical means for carbon capture has been proposed by James Lovelock. That is; reduce bio-mass to charcoal (viz. by combustion in a limited oxygen supply) then bury/store it.
And this has a secondary benefit that if your actually mix it with soil it vastly improves the productivity and carbon capture capability of the soil.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta
Thanks for the link. I will store it in my organic hard drive for future arguments involving carbon capture via charcoal burial.

flying_eagle
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Post by flying_eagle »

Ramesh Naik, a 35-year-old red gram farmer, told us that he had sold his last goats to buy rice for his family – they were existing now on that and mashed herbs. "When I was a child everywhere there was water, and rains. I suppose those were the golden days – now we're always looking to the sky, looking for the rain. It was eight or 10 years ago that things started changing. Every year since has become worse, and food problems have got worse. Before, if something was required people would share; now there's no support, no sharing of grain or anything. People can't afford to help any more. Everyone is in crisis." http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/ ... mine-india

Past cultures have faced upheavals and collapses due to drought conditions that seem to be final straw to other issues and problems: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/drought/drght_mayan.html

Worldwide 1 out 10 rivers no longer flow to the sea many months of the year. The mighty Colorado river no longer consistently reaches the sea. The volume of water in the basins are decreasing. Lake Powell once only took 17 years to fill, now is only 45% of that capacity. A factor of increasing water use, hotter weather, and decreasing rainfall since 1970. http://www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/west/fwest.pdf

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 152242.htm#
This latest research indicates CO2 hasn't been this high for at least 15 million years. That would be long before "lucy" ever lived and an experiment with climate that we should be careful to avoid.

chrismb
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Post by chrismb »

flying_eagle wrote: This latest research indicates CO2 hasn't been this high for at least 15 million years. That would be long before "lucy" ever lived and an experiment with climate that we should be careful to avoid.
But the climate has always changed. Large areas of the Sahara used to be fertile but it changed 10,000 years ago. Hardly could blame industry for that. Climates change, people need to move on. It's a tough life trying to hang on to survival on a distant planet.

flying_eagle
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Post by flying_eagle »

chrismb wrote:
flying_eagle wrote: This latest research indicates CO2 hasn't been this high for at least 15 million years. That would be long before "lucy" ever lived and an experiment with climate that we should be careful to avoid.
But the climate has always changed. Large areas of the Sahara used to be fertile but it changed 10,000 years ago. Hardly could blame industry for that. Climates change, people need to move on. It's a tough life trying to hang on to survival on a distant planet.
Not blaming industry before 1800AD. Yes, climates change by natural variability also. My point is that humans are historically sensitive to it. Almost 1/2 of the human population farms and 3/4 by hand. Climate change isn't the only problem, population, natural habitat destruction by industries either for meat production, or paper, or palm oil etc are taking a toll as well. 80 percent of the minerals are used by only 20 percent of the population. Do we want a repeat of something similar with regard to resource conservation and what the Rapa Nui may have done on Easter Island that caused them to meet their fate but of course now on a more larger scale? MY point is let's not make it harder than it needs to be to survive and willfully create chaos. Surely, you can agree to that, can't you?

Let's see 250million registered automobiles by roughly 250 million Americans and how often do we buy them?. Hmmm, I hope you're not thinking 6 billion cars for the rest of the world? I think we need to start to address something here, something has got to change as that is not sustainable.

chrismb
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Post by chrismb »

But such stories just don't matter.

"What!!!!! How can you say that!!!.... :o You horrible man!! :evil: "

Easy. People just stop having kids when life gets tough. The sight of a desert doesn't just kill you dead, it doesn't happen like that. No one suffers when climates change, only that living gets a bit tougher and eventually you move out to have a family elsewhere, or you end your days there as an old bachelor/spinster watching all the youung'uns move off.

Westerners have been brainwashed that images of starving kids in drought-stricken Africa is what it is about. This is nonsense. That is caused by African governance issues. Just look at Rhodesia! (Need I say more!!)

Climate change may mean some places become less suitable for habitation and some more so. So what! No-one is dying from it. No-one ever will, unless they bring it on themselves, like if they wander out into the Sahara with no water and no sun protection and say "So where are all the oases now! There were some here 10,000years ago and I want them here, now!!!" Such a person is an idiot, just as a person who stays in an area that is becoming consumed by an encroaching desert, or lives in flood planes, or lives on reclaimed low-lying land. Move on, stop whinging about the past and blaming our energy economy for something which is certain to happen anyway.

(Tough love, huh!?)

flying_eagle
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Post by flying_eagle »

Losing arctic ice is endangering polar bears. Forest destruction is killing off countless numbers of species. Commerical overfishing is seriously depleting fish stocks and net dragging is distrupting habitat. Ocean acidification and warmer seas may endanger shell species and corals.
In many cases, we are unware of how these interdependences will play out in terms of other collapses of food chain webs of biodiversity. It isn't just about us. Adaptation is one strategy, but, we have to be better stewards than that and responsible to all living beings as the apex creature. It is time to become aware of our responsibilities to future generations of life as well. No excuse to pollute and destroy. Curbing our industrial CO2 emissions is just one of many problems to solve. Fusion energy is a good step in the right direction.

chrismb
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Post by chrismb »

flying_eagle wrote: but, we have to be better stewards than that and responsible to all living beings as the apex creature.
Why?

What is so sanctified about future life, by scientific evidence?

Lovelock has the simple answer - it is not that the planet will suffer at our hands, but we will suffer at the planet's hands if we make ourselves unsustainable.

And, so, still I ask - so what? It is better to live short and gloriously, than live an impoverished existence without purpose. What is your purpose, what is life's purpose?

flying_eagle
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Post by flying_eagle »

chrismb wrote:
flying_eagle wrote: but, we have to be better stewards than that and responsible to all living beings as the apex creature.
Why?

What is so sanctified about future life, by scientific evidence?

Lovelock has the simple answer - it is not that the planet will suffer at our hands, but we will suffer at the planet's hands if we make ourselves unsustainable.

And, so, still I ask - so what? It is better to live short and gloriously, than live an impoverished existence without purpose. What is your purpose, what is life's purpose?
I will also agree with Lovelock that the planet being inanimate will not suffer but living creatures including us can suffer.

It is better to have an existence with purpose. That purpose is to learn to help others including other life to prosper as well. It is a spiritual understanding. A purpose that includes bettering oneself by recognizing all life has the right to live. That we should only take what is absolutely necessary to survive and no more. To give more than to take. Keep only what is necessary and give away the rest. If that means living a little more impoverished so that others may live a little more well off, then so be it. After all you quoted Lovelock that we need to be sustainable.

chrismb
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Post by chrismb »

flying_eagle wrote: It is better to have an existence with purpose.
I do. To do all that I can to help enable mankind to reach to the skies and mark the unverse with its intellect, for the rest of time.
flying_eagle wrote: That purpose is to learn to help others including other life to prosper as well. It is a spiritual understanding. A purpose that includes bettering oneself by recognizing all life has the right to live.
How very bhuddist of you. Go tell that to McDonald's shareholders (gee, poor old McDonalds, they always get the blame!)
flying_eagle wrote: That we should only take what is absolutely necessary to survive
cobblers. that's your vision, not mine.
flying_eagle wrote: After all you quoted Lovelock that we need to be sustainable.
I didn't say that, and I'm not sure Lovelock did either. Merely, that it is a choice. I choose the desire to excel, at the expense of shortening our time on this planet.

You seem to be choosing mediocrity. Yours is surely a mandate to head back to the middle ages.

flying_eagle
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Post by flying_eagle »

You asked what the purpose was, I gave it. Thank you for the buddhist complement! Of course you could always find a lower purpose or a compromise to a higher purpose. I believe you can move forward into a sustainable future with technology and also develop spiritually which might be a future with less wars, higher living standards for all, and a better quality of life for all including other lifeforms on earth.

Example: As a society evolves, it no longer needs animal skins for clothing. Cotton will do. Eventually even cotton wouldn't be needed as synthetics with technology to control heat are designed, and so we evolve with less need to take the life of others including plants as well. Food can be synthesized as well oneday or genetically altered humans may not need as much to obtain energy. Who knows what lies ahead in a sustainable world of more humans without resorting to using past problems like disease, famine, and war.

chrismb
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Post by chrismb »

flying_eagle wrote:You asked what the purpose was, I gave it.
Fair enough. I did ask "what is your purpose" and you gave it straight, and fairly. At least what we do share is a purpose with others in mind. Even if we might feel there are different objective to best serve others and mankind, at least our ambitions share the element of sacrifice for betterment, which, alas, i think by no means is a majority attitude to life.

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