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Elon Musk discusses making Mars more habitable by nuking the poles



 
 
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  #1  
Old September 25th 15, 05:35 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Rick Jones
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Posts: 685
Default Elon Musk discusses making Mars more habitable by nuking the poles

Alain Fournier wrote:
You can transform a coal fired power plant into a wood fired power
plant. You then capture and store the CO2 from that wood fired power
plant. You plant new trees where you harvested the trees for the
power plant. Young trees are efficient for extracting CO2 from the
atmosphere. That way you extract CO2 from the atmosphere and produce
electricity.


I don't have figures for the energy density of wood versus coal, nor
the growth-rates of the trees one might use for this, but at merely an
intuitive, peanut-gallery level it sounds like you would have to be
going through a *lot* of trees from a very large area per-power-plant
for the same net power generation.

rick jones
--
a wide gulf separates "what if" from "if only"
these opinions are mine, all mine; HP might not want them anyway...
feel free to post, OR email to rick.jones2 in hp.com but NOT BOTH...
  #2  
Old September 29th 15, 01:27 AM posted to sci.space.policy
Alain Fournier[_3_]
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Posts: 548
Default Elon Musk discusses making Mars more habitable by nuking thepoles

On 9/25/15 12:35 PM, Rick Jones wrote :
Alain Fournier wrote:
You can transform a coal fired power plant into a wood fired power
plant. You then capture and store the CO2 from that wood fired power
plant. You plant new trees where you harvested the trees for the
power plant. Young trees are efficient for extracting CO2 from the
atmosphere. That way you extract CO2 from the atmosphere and produce
electricity.


I don't have figures for the energy density of wood versus coal, nor
the growth-rates of the trees one might use for this, but at merely an
intuitive, peanut-gallery level it sounds like you would have to be
going through a *lot* of trees from a very large area per-power-plant
for the same net power generation.



Agreed. It might make sense to build smaller power plants.


Alain Fournier

  #3  
Old September 29th 15, 05:55 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Rick Jones
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Posts: 685
Default Elon Musk discusses making Mars more habitable by nuking the poles

Alain Fournier wrote:
On 9/25/15 12:35 PM, Rick Jones wrote :
I don't have figures for the energy density of wood versus coal,
nor the growth-rates of the trees one might use for this, but at
merely an intuitive, peanut-gallery level it sounds like you would
have to be going through a *lot* of trees from a very large area
per-power-plant for the same net power generation.



Agreed. It might make sense to build smaller power plants.


In so far as it might enable them to be put in more places, sure, but
that doesn't change how many cords of wood per KWh or kg of
sequestered carbon. At least I don't see offhand where it would.

rick jones
--
No need to believe in either side, or any side. There is no cause.
There's only yourself. The belief is in your own precision. - Joubert
these opinions are mine, all mine; HP might not want them anyway...
feel free to post, OR email to rick.jones2 in hp.com but NOT BOTH...
  #4  
Old September 30th 15, 12:13 AM posted to sci.space.policy
Alain Fournier[_3_]
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Posts: 548
Default Elon Musk discusses making Mars more habitable by nuking thepoles

Le 9/29/15 12:55 PM, Rick Jones a écrit :
Alain Fournier wrote:
On 9/25/15 12:35 PM, Rick Jones wrote :
I don't have figures for the energy density of wood versus coal,
nor the growth-rates of the trees one might use for this, but at
merely an intuitive, peanut-gallery level it sounds like you would
have to be going through a *lot* of trees from a very large area
per-power-plant for the same net power generation.



Agreed. It might make sense to build smaller power plants.


In so far as it might enable them to be put in more places, sure, but
that doesn't change how many cords of wood per KWh or kg of
sequestered carbon. At least I don't see offhand where it would.


Yes. You would want smaller power plants only to avoid totally
deforesting an area and/or having to carry would over hundreds of
kilometres.


Alain Fournier

  #5  
Old October 4th 15, 12:51 AM posted to sci.space.policy
David Spain
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Posts: 2,901
Default Elon Musk discusses making Mars more habitable by nuking thepoles

On 9/29/2015 7:13 PM, Alain Fournier wrote

Yes. You would want smaller power plants only to avoid totally
deforesting an area and/or having to carry would over hundreds of
kilometres.


Exactly as Edison originally planned. Many many many to supply the much
safer direct current to subscribers within a radius of about 20 miles of
service of every power station. Edison was planning on making $$$ on
light bulbs AND power stations!

Oops, except George Westinghouse's economies of scale using central
generation with power distribution via an alternating current
distribution network that replaced massive network current losses with
more efficient voltage step-up/step-down won out in the marketplace of
the real world. Bummer when the real-world gets in the way....

Besides why screw around with hard-to-renew trees vs the easy-to-renew
solar and wind? Won't those solve all our energy problems w/o deforestation?

Or how about sequestering all that CO2 back in the coal mines we
excavated for power?

Or hey, let's just go back to burning wood in stoves and forgo
electricity altoge **connection terminated**

*snicker*

Dave
  #6  
Old October 4th 15, 02:07 AM posted to sci.space.policy
Alain Fournier[_3_]
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Posts: 548
Default Elon Musk discusses making Mars more habitable by nuking thepoles

On 10/3/15 7:51 PM, David Spain wrote :
On 9/29/2015 7:13 PM, Alain Fournier wrote

Yes. You would want smaller power plants only to avoid totally
deforesting an area and/or having to carry would over hundreds of
kilometres.


Exactly as Edison originally planned. Many many many to supply the much
safer direct current to subscribers within a radius of about 20 miles of
service of every power station. Edison was planning on making $$$ on
light bulbs AND power stations!

Oops, except George Westinghouse's economies of scale using central
generation with power distribution via an alternating current
distribution network that replaced massive network current losses with
more efficient voltage step-up/step-down won out in the marketplace of
the real world. Bummer when the real-world gets in the way....

Besides why screw around with hard-to-renew trees vs the easy-to-renew
solar and wind? Won't those solve all our energy problems w/o
deforestation?

Or how about sequestering all that CO2 back in the coal mines we
excavated for power?

Or hey, let's just go back to burning wood in stoves and forgo
electricity altoge **connection terminated**

*snicker*


Just to be clear here. My suggestion wasn't for a better way to
produce electricity. Someone asked how we could remove CO2 from
the atmosphere. I suggested one method for doing so. I'm not
even saying that is a very good way to do so. Just that it is
possible to remove large quantities of CO2 from the atmosphere.
Though it would take a lot of time to do so, my proposal would
remove large amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere.


Alain Fournier

  #7  
Old October 4th 15, 03:48 AM posted to sci.space.policy
Greg \(Strider\) Moore
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Posts: 752
Default Elon Musk discusses making Mars more habitable by nuking the poles

"Alain Fournier" wrote in message ...

On 10/3/15 7:51 PM, David Spain wrote :
On 9/29/2015 7:13 PM, Alain Fournier wrote

Yes. You would want smaller power plants only to avoid totally
deforesting an area and/or having to carry would over hundreds of
kilometres.


Exactly as Edison originally planned. Many many many to supply the much
safer direct current to subscribers within a radius of about 20 miles of
service of every power station. Edison was planning on making $$$ on
light bulbs AND power stations!

Oops, except George Westinghouse's economies of scale using central
generation with power distribution via an alternating current
distribution network that replaced massive network current losses with
more efficient voltage step-up/step-down won out in the marketplace of
the real world. Bummer when the real-world gets in the way....

Besides why screw around with hard-to-renew trees vs the easy-to-renew
solar and wind? Won't those solve all our energy problems w/o
deforestation?

Or how about sequestering all that CO2 back in the coal mines we
excavated for power?

Or hey, let's just go back to burning wood in stoves and forgo
electricity altoge **connection terminated**

*snicker*


Just to be clear here. My suggestion wasn't for a better way to
produce electricity. Someone asked how we could remove CO2 from
the atmosphere. I suggested one method for doing so. I'm not
even saying that is a very good way to do so. Just that it is
possible to remove large quantities of CO2 from the atmosphere.
Though it would take a lot of time to do so, my proposal would
remove large amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere.


Then why even bother burning the trees. Just let them grow and sequester the
CO2.

Use other non carbon forms to replace your coal plants.



Alain Fournier


--
Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/
CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net

  #8  
Old October 4th 15, 04:26 AM posted to sci.space.policy
David Spain
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Posts: 2,901
Default Elon Musk discusses making Mars more habitable by nuking thepoles

On 10/3/2015 9:07 PM, Alain Fournier wrote:

Just to be clear here. My suggestion wasn't for a better way to
produce electricity. Someone asked how we could remove CO2 from
the atmosphere. I suggested one method for doing so. I'm not
even saying that is a very good way to do so. Just that it is
possible to remove large quantities of CO2 from the atmosphere.
Though it would take a lot of time to do so, my proposal would
remove large amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere.


Alain,

I realize your argument and it was drifting away from Mars and back into
the Global Warming "Settled Science"(tm) of Climate Catastrophe.

If the Earth heats up enough maybe in place of Arctic Sea Ice we will
instead have huge areas of algae blooms. That ought to be a great source
of CO2 mitigation, esp. up in the Arctic during the summer months of
near continuous daylight. And just to keep the control freak alarmists
happy, let just concede now that they will, a-priori ALL be toxic
blooms, "naturally". :-)

But rather than just post humorous invective as a provocation, let's
pretend I'll concede the point of ruinous climate change from the use of
"non-renewable" carbon-based fuels (I don't, but irrelevant to what
follows). It would be interesting from a planetary science perspective
to determine just exactly how to provide a combustible fuel source that
was by its nature "in balance" with the planetary geophysics, so that
the use of that fuel were of net zero effect in a presumed closed cycle.
Bio-fuels certainly come to mind as a potential there.

Of course if a terraform is the long-term goal on a place like Mars,
obviously climate change via global warming is a desirable outcome, no?
So a "balanced-solution" might not be the most desirable? An interesting
juxtaposition, IMO...

Dave


  #9  
Old October 4th 15, 06:57 PM posted to sci.space.policy
David Spain
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Posts: 2,901
Default Elon Musk discusses making Mars more habitable by nuking thepoles

On 10/4/2015 1:15 PM, JF Mezei wrote:
On 2015-10-03 19:51, David Spain wrote:

Oops, except George Westinghouse's economies of scale using central
generation with power distribution via an alternating current
distribution network that replaced massive network current losses with
more efficient voltage step-up/step-down won out in the marketplace of
the real world.



Hydro Québec has a DC power line from Jamnes Bay QC to soemwhere near
Boston. (it also splits off in Nicolet QC to feed local industries).

Instead of 735kv 3 phase, they found they could reduce losses by
boosting voltage to 900kv. The trick: it is -450 and +450 relative to
ground (so they call it a 450kv line).

They have a building in Radisson's power distribution hub that converts
the AC power from the generating stations to DC. And in Mass, they do
the opposite.

The AC-DC-AC is required for exports of power from Québec as Québec does
not sync its power to the north east 60hz. So doing it at source and
destination allowed the use of what is now a more efficient way to carry
power (higher voltage = less current).


It's great to see that 100 years after Westinghouse cornered the market
in power distribution there are in fact ways to boost voltage on high
power DC transmission lines for long distance transmission.

Your point as I take it, is that now, in 2015, it is quite feasible to
distribute EHV DC power long distances thanks to the technology we have
available to us in the late 20th, early 21st century. No dispute from
me. And it's a great way to distribute power between countries that
might be on different AC standards, no doubt...

Now my point...

/sarc-on
Too bad none of this existed when Edison was trying to distribute DC.
What was his problem? Some genius. He must have really screwed up not
going to 900kvDC right from the get go, eh? And why the hell was he
screwing around with incandescent light bulbs when we all *know* LED
light bulbs are way more energy efficient!
/sarc-off

Dave
  #10  
Old October 6th 15, 07:16 AM posted to sci.space.policy
snidely
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,303
Default Elon Musk discusses making Mars more habitable by nuking the poles

Just this Sunday, David Spain explained that ...
On 10/4/2015 1:15 PM, JF Mezei wrote:
On 2015-10-03 19:51, David Spain wrote:

Oops, except George Westinghouse's economies of scale using central
generation with power distribution via an alternating current
distribution network that replaced massive network current losses with
more efficient voltage step-up/step-down won out in the marketplace of
the real world.



Hydro Québec has a DC power line from Jamnes Bay QC to soemwhere near
Boston. (it also splits off in Nicolet QC to feed local industries).

Instead of 735kv 3 phase, they found they could reduce losses by
boosting voltage to 900kv. The trick: it is -450 and +450 relative to
ground (so they call it a 450kv line).

They have a building in Radisson's power distribution hub that converts
the AC power from the generating stations to DC. And in Mass, they do
the opposite.

The AC-DC-AC is required for exports of power from Québec as Québec does
not sync its power to the north east 60hz. So doing it at source and
destination allowed the use of what is now a more efficient way to carry
power (higher voltage = less current).


It's great to see that 100 years after Westinghouse cornered the market in
power distribution there are in fact ways to boost voltage on high power DC
transmission lines for long distance transmission.

Your point as I take it, is that now, in 2015, it is quite feasible to
distribute EHV DC power long distances thanks to the technology we have
available to us in the late 20th, early 21st century. No dispute from me. And
it's a great way to distribute power between countries that might be on
different AC standards, no doubt...

Now my point...

/sarc-on
Too bad none of this existed when Edison was trying to distribute DC. What
was his problem? Some genius. He must have really screwed up not going to
900kvDC right from the get go, eh? And why the hell was he screwing around
with incandescent light bulbs when we all *know* LED light bulbs are way more
energy efficient!
/sarc-off


Perhaps he forgot to take his thyristor design to the patent office.

/dps

--
Maybe C282Y is simply one of the hangers-on, a groupie following a
future guitar god of the human genome: an allele with undiscovered
virtuosity, currently soloing in obscurity in Mom's garage.
Bradley Wertheim, theAtlantic.com, Jan 10 2013
 




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