I’m a firm believer in climate change. The climate changes. FULL STOP.
How much of the current change in climate is the direct result of human actions? That’s a different question. I remember reading about the changes in climate post 9/11. With so much air travel stopped and so many people just not driving there was a measurable change in temperatures/climate.
While the doomsayers claim the damage is not reversible, the measurements after 9/11 suggest that it is reversible and without much real effort. I don’t know.
I use to follow the science of “climate change” a bit more closely. I longer do. Part of the issue is that there is so much political capital invested in climate change that I do not believe that it is possible to get balanced answers.
When they say “follow the science” don’t forget to also “follow the money.”
Years ago I did some work for a part of NOAA. One of the things that we were doing was digitizing all of the old weather records. These were hand written records going back a hundred years. All of these were being manually entered into the system to be processed.
What we observed was that the temperatures were about the same a 100 years ago vs what we were seeing at that time, mid 1980s. We were looking because there was a huge concern that the next ice age was overdue and we should expect the glaciers to be advancing south from Canada in day.
In the 1970’s I read an article in Popular Science that said that scientist were considering shooting rockets over the poles in order to disburse a fine powder of carbon which would absorb heat from the sun in order to stop the ice age.
A few years later it was “global warming” which was the problem. The temperatures were rising and the world as we know it was going to end because the temperature was going up.
When it didn’t happen as predicted the words changed to “climate change”. This is sort of like talking about “carbon footprint” or “reducing carbon emissions”. The reason it is bad language is that “carbon emissions” they are talking about are actually CO2 emissions. People do remember the days of horrible air pollution.
They remember the filth of London from all the coal burning stoves that put real carbon into the air. Carbon that turned things black. People know that carbon is black and dirty and hard to clean up. Anybody that has ever had to clean a camp pot knows the black carbon film a campfire leaves behind.
So when people hear “carbon emissions” they don’t think of an odorless, tasteless, clear gas, they think of the smoke spewing chimmies of times gone past.
“Climate Change” is such a magical term. If you don’t agree that man is causing horrible changes to the climate of the earth you are a “climate denier”. If the summer is hotter than last year it is proof of climate change. If the summer is cooler than last year it is proof of climate change.
There is no way to disprove the climate change position which makes it pseudo science, at best.
Recently there was a breakthrough in nuclear fusion studies.
On Tuesday [Dec 6, 2022], the head of the Department of Energy and other federal scientific leaders announced that a fusion reaction they ran at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California achieved net energy, meaning the reaction generated more energy than was put in to initiate the reaction. It’s the first time humankind has achieved this landmark.
–CNBC
This is a huge breakthrough. They pumped in two megajoules of energy and three megajoules came out. While there have been a number of announcements in the past saying somebody had gotten fusion to work, most of the time the amount of measured energy was so small as to possibly (likely) be a measurement error rather than actual fusion.
To think of this we need to understand some units. A Joule is a measure of Energy. The average American household consumes around 29.5 kWh per day. This is around 106.3MJ
They dumped in a half hour worth of Energy use and got out 45 minutes worth of energy.
This is wonderful news. This is a true breakthrough. Yes, I’m repeating myself. Now that they have accomplished this, multiple times, and it looks like other groups should be able to reproduce, they can start work on making this all work in a smaller package.
This is a step towards large amounts of power available for much lower costs. My Grandkids will likely see the first nuclear fusion power generators dumping power into the grid. Depending on a number of things these fusion reactors might even become small enough to putt in a house or maybe power trains or trucks or at some point, even cars.
Absolutely amazing.
So the left is celebrating. If this works as it should this should end our dependence on fossil fuels for powering modern society.
[visual-link-preview encoded=”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”]
This article goes on to say that they have heard it all before and it is likely just the same old hype without any real path to success. Even if it did work it is years away from commercial power plants using fusion.
“Here, scientists are clear. Fusion power will not arrive in time to save the world.”
The only path that is ever possible for these cultist is to stop using fossil fuels right now and destroy our civilization. Because… reasons…
Comments
6 responses to “It is all about destroying western civilization”
The article is right about one thing: it will be a very long road to practical fusion, especially via this route.
.
I’m not 100% certain but I believe the Q value of 1.5 considered as input only the energy of the laser light, not the “wall plug” energy. Since the average laser only converts 10%-20% of input to laser light, they’re probably still far from what most people would consider useful breakeven. (I am not sure what the conversion efficiency of the NIF laser system is, but would be surprised if it were as high as 10% – it’s a very special laser.)
.
All other factors aside, though, this type of fusion produces lots of neutrons, which will require a lot of radiation shielding, and will generate a lot of nuclear waste. Not spent fuel, but simply parts of the plant that have been so irradiated their material properties have changed and need to be swapped out. (Think things like bolts and wall plates, versus fuel rods.) So it’s not “clean” any more than fission reactors are.
.
Don’t get me wrong – this is a tremendous breakthrough. But in terms of the development arc from Q>1 to nuclear power plant, this is the equivalent of Hahn, Meitner and Strassman demonstrating artificial fission.
Its like anything all the source you wish to choose as authoritative.
We should definitely pursue cleaner energy options, be good stewards of the environment, recycle, and not pollute. We should also not accept a lower quality of life to achieve that and we should not NIMBY all the nasty stuff off to some other countrys back yard.
Just remember the early to mid 2000s with all of the absolutely crap energy efficient appliances and fixtures. They all sucked so we got a decade of shitty appliances that had to to most things more than once to actually work until manufacturers figured out how make good energy efficient appliances or figured out ways to cheat the qualifying measurements. That should have never been foisted onto the public as consumers. The same crap is happening now with electric cars.
The fusion thing is interesting been plenty of video with well ackshually and it doesn’t mean what you think and not quite net energy titles lately.
Neat video here on a different reactor concept that is achieving fusion. The proceeding video about fusion was pretty good too.
https://youtu.be/_bDXXWQxK38
So, let’s see if I understand this;
They pumped in two megajoules of energy and three megajoules came out.
Okay, the laser sent in two, they got out three, great.
But how many did it take to power that laser? I think considerably more than five, result? No, they did not produce more than they used. I’ll start believing “scientists” as soon as the truth is told about ChinaFlu. What? Different “scientists”? May be different fields, but all telling stories to get more money,,,, I mean funding, truth be damned.
For that matter, making the Hohlraum isn’t free either; that deuterium and tritium has to be purified and frozen somehow, and that takes yet more energy. Given what isotope separation can cost, energy-wise…? Sigh.
.
Anyway, there are two good reasons for, at this stage, not including the drive efficiency in the gain equation. One, it helps to normalize against the type of system. Tokamak, magnetic mirror, ICF … this approach gives an apples-to-apples comparison no matter how you make fusion happen, and it lets you compare results in a normalized fashion in terms of energy output. That’s useful. (For instance, I’d be much more excited about a fusion test that had an output of one millijoule, if the Q value was 100, than I am about NIF finally getting to Q~1.5) Two, the assumption can be made, and is arguably justifiable, that the efficiency of the drive systems can be improved over time, but the fusion process itself represents a more fundamental limiting factor. The Q factor helps to differentiate the two parts of the equation.
.
So you shouldn’t use Q as an indicator of how close we are to Mr. Fusions. Getting Q>1 is a necessary, if insufficient, condition for getting to practical fusion, though.
There are very good reasons for using just the ratio of the output to drive energy, at this stage. It lets you normalize results across technologies (e.g. plasma vs. icf), and it lets you normalize over a wide range of energy outputs. I’d be a lot more excited by a system that generated a millijoule of output energy than I am by NIF’s megajoules, if that millijoule was made with a Q factor of 100, versus NIF’s ~1.5. It sounds a lot less impressive in raw numbers, but has much better implications for scalability in the longer term.
.
That said … there is a long history of NIF being oversold and -promised, and as I recall there were some shenanigans with the lab using internal R&D funds to try to resolve problem areas on the lowdown. So, yeah, I’m skeptical on that front also.
As soon as the climatenazis started bleating about “carbon” I knew the squirrel powered elevator was stuck in the basement.. fukkin lunatic fringe. Real scientists will tell you oil is NOT a “fossil” fuel, the earth makes it for us. We the People need to stop validating lunatics and bring back the American spirit so we can become America again. Liberals are 26% of population, start acting like they are.