$1.50 gas with no carbon emissions?

Electricity is notoriously inefficient for creating heat, but extremely efficient for creating movement. Gas is the other way around.

We want to use combustion for heat, and electrical (directly) for movement. Even if we didn't change where the energy comes from, we'd still be a lot better off.

'course, in my mind, we're better off with more nuclear power, but the whole waste issue is still a concern.

Basically, electric cars are a net win due to the fact that you can turn the friction from the car's brakes into energy, rather than just wasting it, even if nothing else.

Then all you have to be concerned about is whether the necessary batteries and capacitors are heavier than a full tank of gas (because the more weight you're carrying around, the more stuff you're moving that doesn't need to be moved). Of course, people want heavy vehicles because then, in the case of an impact, their particular vehicle is affected less than the other guy's-that is, someone gets whiplash/experiences more Gs than the other person. Now, that always turns into a vehicular arms race, which creates problems of its own...

edited 28th Jan '11 4:51:25 PM by TheyCallMeTomu

For that matter, cooling towers presumably produce a fair bit of water vapour already.

Pure electric is fine in my book, too.

I'm just saying that people should stop trying to hold these ideas up as "Catch all solve everything" solutions.

It's a major step in the right direction.

No, it's fine because we can not significantly add water to the sky. There is no hockey stick for water. There is no way for us to have a hydrogen fuel based system that isn't overall water neutral.

Hey and big news- hundreds of millions of cars already are water vapor spewing vehicles.

"in my mind, we're better off with more nuclear power, but the whole waste issue is still a concern." - Tomu

Well, we already have a fair bit of nuclear waste. Using more nuclear power would add more waste to what we already have, but it's a matter of amount, not of causing a problem that wasn't already there before.

Couldn't they just send nuclear waste to the moon so it'd be outside Earth's atmosphere?

The amount of nuclear power it would take to propel a rocket to the moon would be more than the amount of nuclear waste generated from said nuclear power :D

(That's a blatant lie, but it would be expensive...)

Wondering if dropping it into a volcano would work. Or at least, sealing it up in molten rock so it can't go anywhere for a very long time.

A volcano is not nearly hot enough to strip control rods. All you'd end up with is nuclear waste floating on a sea of radioactive lava spewing radioactive ash.

As if regular lava and ash flows weren't bad enough. It's basically the worst ecological disaster you could ever think of.

Most nuclear waste is recyclable anyways.

edited 28th Jan '11 11:13:35 PM by CommandoDude

Water vapor is the leading greenhouse gas. So...no it doesn't tend to go away. I don't know what kind of impact water vapor spewing cars might have though.

Water vapor is the leading greenhouse gas, but it's got a very short cycle time through the atmosphere. The total amount of water vapor in the atmosphere worldwide is overwhelmingly dependent on the temperature, not how much hydrogen combustion is occuring. It creates positive feedback when the temperature is raised by other greenhouse gases, but industry putting more water directly into the air is not a meaningful concern.

I'm still not convinced this means anything significant. It sounds like more "oh look, scientists are doing things you're supposed to think is important" journalism.

"'''The amount of nuclear power it would take to propel a rocket to the moon would be more than the amount of nuclear waste generated from said nuclear power :D

(That's a blatant lie, but it would be expensive...)'''" - Tomu

How expensive, though? Let's say that instead of putting the barrels themselves into the rocket, they were to just empty the nuclear waste FROM the barrels into the rocket, and use a big enough rocket that the mass of the rocket itself is considerably less than that of the nuclear waste... would it still be inefficient?

Using nuclear to power rockets isn't even viable. The entire point of rockets is to be as light as possible, the fuel alone would be enormously heavy, especially the radiation casing, and the systems to convert that into any kind of usable thrust? I can't even imagine how that would work.

Edit: Unless you're talking about the Daedalus type fusion powered nuclear pulse thruster concept. But that's just on the drawing board as I understand.

edited 29th Jan '11 12:08:55 AM by CommandoDude

Well, they've made nuclear powered space "ships" before. I think the probes that have been flung into the outer realms of the solar system all have a nuclear battery.

It would be expensive to send stuff to the moon, because getting to the moon is really expensive. It would be cheaper than the moon landings though, since we've got the tech and it's both a one way trip, and one where we don't really care that much about the landing.

The real solution isn't better rocket technology though. It's developing the requisite tech for a static ground to orbit structure.

Eh, not a big fan of orbital elevators. They scare the hell out of me. I'm almost positive you'd need rocket technology to get the other end started.

I see stuff like the OP's link all the time.

Some startup wants to generate hype and get some more Venture Capital coming in, they demo some technology that'll supposedly revolutionise the energy economy. The press release is full of weasel words and general BS and there's scarce little talk about whether the technology is capable of scaling up to a level where it makes any sort of difference in the big picture.

If something really important happens in the biofuel area, we'll know eventually. Paying attention to every single startup in the area is just gradually going to lave you jaded.

"Using nuclear to power rockets isn't even viable. The entire point of rockets is to be as light as possible, the fuel alone would be enormously heavy, especially the radiation casing, and the systems to convert that into any kind of usable thrust?" - Commando Dude

I was thinking more along the lines of "indirect" nuclear power, as in, using nuclear power to generate hydrogen gas using water electrolysis, and then using the hydrogen gas to fuel the rockets.

That's how it's done now I think. Wait, they use coal.

Wouldn't work. Honestly, it's first of all, needlessly complex, and second of all, wouldn't even work in an environment without gravity. I did discuss that a system like that is just too heavy for rockets.

Regardless, water electrolysis is not very quick, if you used it on a rocket there's no way it could create enough fuel for the rockets to burn. Since they burn hundreds of pounds of liquid hydrogen per second I'd imagine. Plus, it would all be gas and you'd need to add in a compression system.

It's all just needlessly complex and inefficient.

A railgun is needed, obviously.

Ala Mass Driver!

Commando Dude, I said that's already how they do that. How did you think they got all that hydrogen?

Using nuclear to power rockets isn't even viable.

Science disagrees with you.