Elon Musk discusses making Mars more habitable by nuking the poles

"Alain Fournier" wrote in message ...

On 9/24/15 9:00 PM, Greg (Strider) Moore wrote :
"Alain Fournier" wrote in message ...

On 9/24/15 9:33 AM, Greg (Strider) Moore wrote :
"Fred J. McCall" wrote in message
...

JF Mezei wrote:
The ability to efficiently process CO2 into C and O2 (or other) may
be
politically interesting because R&D for a Mars project would benefit
Earth by developping tech to remove CO2 from air/ or polluting
plants.


CO2 is a very tiny component of Earth's atmosphere.

And more so, how do you remove it w/o adding more. i.e. you need an
energy source and if it's a carbon based source you're not necessarily
gaining ground.

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.


And you pay for this how?

By selling electricity.

But you're using the electricity you're making to store CO2. You can't sell
it AND use it.

If you can, make my cake chocolate so I can have it and eat it too.



Alain Fournier

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

Le 9/26/15 7:21 PM, Greg (Strider) Moore a écrit :
"Alain Fournier" wrote in message ...

On 9/24/15 9:00 PM, Greg (Strider) Moore wrote :
"Alain Fournier" wrote in message ...

On 9/24/15 9:33 AM, Greg (Strider) Moore wrote :
"Fred J. McCall" wrote in message
...

JF Mezei wrote:
The ability to efficiently process CO2 into C and O2 (or other)
may be
politically interesting because R&D for a Mars project would benefit
Earth by developping tech to remove CO2 from air/ or polluting
plants.


CO2 is a very tiny component of Earth's atmosphere.

And more so, how do you remove it w/o adding more. i.e. you need an
energy source and if it's a carbon based source you're not necessarily
gaining ground.

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.


And you pay for this how?

By selling electricity.

But you're using the electricity you're making to store CO2. You can't
sell it AND use it.

No. You store the CO2 in geological formations that can hold CO2 for
very long periods of time. By long periods of time I mean hundreds of
millions of years. Like the formations that have held natural gas for
such periods of time. Once the CO2 is there you don't need
electricity to store it. I don't think anyone has done it the way
I described it (using wood) but it has been done with some coal
fired power plants. See for example:
saskpowerccs.com/ccs-projects/boundary-dam-carbon-capture-project/
The boundary dam coal fired power plant sells electricity for profit.
There are some better technologies than that now available to do so
more effectively. See for instance:
http://co2solutions.com/en/technology-platform

If you can, make my cake chocolate so I can have it and eat it too.

Sorry for about that. It doesn't work for chocolate cake.


Alain Fournier

"Alain Fournier" wrote in message ...

Le 9/26/15 7:21 PM, Greg (Strider) Moore a écrit :
"Alain Fournier" wrote in message ...

On 9/24/15 9:00 PM, Greg (Strider) Moore wrote :
"Alain Fournier" wrote in message ...

On 9/24/15 9:33 AM, Greg (Strider) Moore wrote :
"Fred J. McCall" wrote in message
...

JF Mezei wrote:
The ability to efficiently process CO2 into C and O2 (or other)
may be
politically interesting because R&D for a Mars project would
benefit
Earth by developping tech to remove CO2 from air/ or polluting
plants.


CO2 is a very tiny component of Earth's atmosphere.

And more so, how do you remove it w/o adding more. i.e. you need an
energy source and if it's a carbon based source you're not
necessarily
gaining ground.

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.


And you pay for this how?

By selling electricity.

But you're using the electricity you're making to store CO2. You can't
sell it AND use it.

No. You store the CO2 in geological formations that can hold CO2 for
very long periods of time. By long periods of time I mean hundreds of
millions of years. Like the formations that have held natural gas for
such periods of time. Once the CO2 is there you don't need
electricity to store it. I don't think anyone has done it the way
I described it (using wood) but it has been done with some coal
fired power plants. See for example:
saskpowerccs.com/ccs-projects/boundary-dam-carbon-capture-project/
The boundary dam coal fired power plant sells electricity for profit.
There are some better technologies than that now available to do so
more effectively. See for instance:
http://co2solutions.com/en/technology-platform


Ok, sounds like either I misunderstood your original solution or you changed
it partway through.

It sounded like you wanted to use a wood burning plant to basically power a
Sabatier Reactor to capture CO2 directly from the atmosphere.

It sounds more like you're proposing a clean coal type solution, but really
a clean wood, where the wood captures atmosphere CO2, and then when it's
burned the C02 is injected into deep underground?

That makes sense from a thermodynamics POV, but not sure if it's really
economical in the long run.


If you can, make my cake chocolate so I can have it and eat it too.

Sorry for about that. It doesn't work for chocolate cake.


Alain Fournier

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

Le 9/28/15 11:17 PM, Greg (Strider) Moore a écrit :
"Alain Fournier" wrote in message ...

Le 9/26/15 7:21 PM, Greg (Strider) Moore a écrit :
"Alain Fournier" wrote in message ...

On 9/24/15 9:00 PM, Greg (Strider) Moore wrote :
"Alain Fournier" wrote in message ...

On 9/24/15 9:33 AM, Greg (Strider) Moore wrote :
"Fred J. McCall" wrote in message
...

JF Mezei wrote:
The ability to efficiently process CO2 into C and O2 (or other)
may be
politically interesting because R&D for a Mars project would
benefit
Earth by developping tech to remove CO2 from air/ or polluting
plants.


CO2 is a very tiny component of Earth's atmosphere.

And more so, how do you remove it w/o adding more. i.e. you need an
energy source and if it's a carbon based source you're not
necessarily
gaining ground.

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.


And you pay for this how?

By selling electricity.

But you're using the electricity you're making to store CO2. You can't
sell it AND use it.

No. You store the CO2 in geological formations that can hold CO2 for
very long periods of time. By long periods of time I mean hundreds of
millions of years. Like the formations that have held natural gas for
such periods of time. Once the CO2 is there you don't need
electricity to store it. I don't think anyone has done it the way
I described it (using wood) but it has been done with some coal
fired power plants. See for example:
saskpowerccs.com/ccs-projects/boundary-dam-carbon-capture-project/
The boundary dam coal fired power plant sells electricity for profit.
There are some better technologies than that now available to do so
more effectively. See for instance:
http://co2solutions.com/en/technology-platform


Ok, sounds like either I misunderstood your original solution or you
changed it partway through.

It sounded like you wanted to use a wood burning plant to basically
power a Sabatier Reactor to capture CO2 directly from the atmosphere.

It sounds more like you're proposing a clean coal type solution, but
really a clean wood, where the wood captures atmosphere CO2, and then
when it's burned the C02 is injected into deep underground?

Yes. Maybe I didn't express myself clearly but that was my idea all
along.

That makes sense from a thermodynamics POV, but not sure if it's really
economical in the long run.

It can make sense economically if the price of carbon credits become
high enough. It isn't obvious to me whether or not that will ever be
the case.


Alain Fournier

On 9/29/2015 7:17 PM, Alain Fournier wrote:
It can make sense economically if the price of carbon credits become
high enough. It isn't obvious to me whether or not that will ever be
the case.


Any idea what that would cost me on my electric bill?
I'm at $0.0898/kWh. Last month by electric consumption was 452 kWhr.
What was yours?

Can you promise me that "carbon credits" will keep my electric bill at
or better than this? No? Not interested. Unless you'd like to pick up
the tab for me....

Dave

On 10/3/15 7:31 PM, David Spain wrote :
On 9/29/2015 7:17 PM, Alain Fournier wrote:
It can make sense economically if the price of carbon credits become
high enough. It isn't obvious to me whether or not that will ever be
the case.


Any idea what that would cost me on my electric bill?
I'm at $0.0898/kWh. Last month by electric consumption was 452 kWhr.
What was yours?

My last electricity bill was 460 kWhrs for 50 days, that would be
about 280 kWhrs for a month. Note that none of that electricity
is from fossil fuels. I don't know why you want to know this.

Can you promise me that "carbon credits" will keep my electric bill at
or better than this? No? Not interested. Unless you'd like to pick up
the tab for me....

The problem is that your electricity bill doesn't cover the cost of
producing the electricity you consume. The CO2 rejected into the
atmosphere has a cost and you don't see that cost on your bill.

Just as a thought experiment. Imagine I could produce electricity
for half the price but my production method would reject pollutants
in the ocean that would kill every fish. Do you think I should be
allowed to do so without paying for the damage I do in the ocean?

Producing electricity with fossil fuels is no where as bad as that.
But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't pay for the damage done
by the CO2 rejected in the atmosphere to produce your electricity.
So you see, I am picking up the tab for you, as is everyone that is
affected by the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere. If you did pay
for the damage done by the CO2 you would probably be asking your
electricity provider to switch to cleaner production methods so
your bill could go down.


Alain Fournier

On 10/3/2015 9:28 PM, Alain Fournier wrote:
On 10/3/15 7:31 PM, David Spain wrote :
On 9/29/2015 7:17 PM, Alain Fournier wrote:
It can make sense economically if the price of carbon credits become
high enough. It isn't obvious to me whether or not that will ever be
the case.


Any idea what that would cost me on my electric bill?
I'm at $0.0898/kWh. Last month by electric consumption was 452 kWhr.
What was yours?

My last electricity bill was 460 kWhrs for 50 days, that would be
about 280 kWhrs for a month. Note that none of that electricity
is from fossil fuels. I don't know why you want to know this.


Because you and I are both way below the average "American" home (I'll
throw in Canada as being "American", you're welcome ;-) of 909 kWh per
month.

http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=97&t=3

Can you promise me that "carbon credits" will keep my electric bill at
or better than this? No? Not interested. Unless you'd like to pick up
the tab for me....

The problem is that your electricity bill doesn't cover the cost of
producing the electricity you consume. The CO2 rejected into the
atmosphere has a cost and you don't see that cost on your bill.


Oh but I beg to differ. You see I am being a bit unfair. A goodly
percentage of my electricity is being generated by a nuke. And I do pay
a decommissioning charge for that nuke, I didn't tell you that because I
wanted you to take the CO2 bait so I could pull that switch on you.
;-) Also my bill is specifically broken down to separately showing how
much cost was due to generation vs delivery. Now being on a grid, there
is a small likely-hood that some percentage of the electricity may have
come from a carbon source. My bill does not show that, however, the
economics of my utility providing nuclear power, would tend to prefer to
keep that to a minimum...

Just as a thought experiment. Imagine I could produce electricity
for half the price but my production method would reject pollutants
in the ocean that would kill every fish. Do you think I should be
allowed to do so without paying for the damage I do in the ocean?


Producing electricity with fossil fuels is no where as bad as that.

Well producing electricity from a nuke is actually worse than that in
terms of waste. Not CO2, but radioactive by-products that are lethal if
let loose in the environment. But not a significant contributor to
so-called man-made climate change. And I'm paying a part of my bill
today to fund essentially what amounts to an annuity that will house
that waste on-site, until the Federal government is eventually forced to
step up to the plate and do something about it.


But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't pay for the damage done
by the CO2 rejected in the atmosphere to produce your electricity.
So you see, I am picking up the tab for you, as is everyone that is
affected by the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere. If you did pay
for the damage done by the CO2 you would probably be asking your
electricity provider to switch to cleaner production methods so
your bill could go down.


Damages that are nearly impossible to quantify let alone monetize.
It's a shell game of a tax on the developed world, dressed up in the
guise of a market. At least I know what my nuke decommissioning fee is
going to be spent on and how it will work.


Alain Fournier


Dave

Damages that are nearly impossible to quantify let alone monetize.
It's a shell game of a tax on the developed world, dressed up in the
guise of a market. At least I know what my nuke decommissioning fee is
going to be spent on and how it will work.


Alain Fournier


Dave


so what will the cost be if your unlucky enough to have a fukashima like meltdown caused by anything?

certinally not only has the power company taken a hit in japan, but so has the government.

at last report defueling clean up etc, is going to take 60 years and no one really knows the costs.

worse anyone who gets cancer anywhere near there will blame it on that failed power plant and get damage money.

just imagine for a moment what the total costs will be........

On 10/4/15 12:18 AM, David Spain wrote :
On 10/3/2015 9:28 PM, Alain Fournier wrote:
On 10/3/15 7:31 PM, David Spain wrote :
On 9/29/2015 7:17 PM, Alain Fournier wrote:
It can make sense economically if the price of carbon credits become
high enough. It isn't obvious to me whether or not that will ever be
the case.


Any idea what that would cost me on my electric bill?
I'm at $0.0898/kWh. Last month by electric consumption was 452 kWhr.
What was yours?

My last electricity bill was 460 kWhrs for 50 days, that would be
about 280 kWhrs for a month. Note that none of that electricity
is from fossil fuels. I don't know why you want to know this.

Because you and I are both way below the average "American" home (I'll
throw in Canada as being "American", you're welcome ;-) of 909 kWh per
month.

Well my electricity consumption on my last electricity bill is a very
crude measure for that. Here in Quebec City we don't need much
electricity in the summer. The Sun rises early and sets late so we
don't need to turn on the lights much. Air conditioning is not really
necessary. And my hot water tank is natural gas fired. I use much
more electricity in the winter months. But still on average I'm
much below 909kWh per month.

Where I really stand out on the greenhouse gas emission is by me
not owning a car. I ride my bicycle to work 7 months a year and
take the city buses the other 5 months.

But even if my greenhouse gas emissions were much higher it would
not make any difference on the discussion.

http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=97&t=3

Can you promise me that "carbon credits" will keep my electric bill at
or better than this? No? Not interested. Unless you'd like to pick up
the tab for me....

The problem is that your electricity bill doesn't cover the cost of
producing the electricity you consume. The CO2 rejected into the
atmosphere has a cost and you don't see that cost on your bill.


Oh but I beg to differ. You see I am being a bit unfair. A goodly
percentage of my electricity is being generated by a nuke. And I do pay
a decommissioning charge for that nuke, I didn't tell you that because I
wanted you to take the CO2 bait so I could pull that switch on you.
;-) Also my bill is specifically broken down to separately showing how
much cost was due to generation vs delivery. Now being on a grid, there
is a small likely-hood that some percentage of the electricity may have
come from a carbon source. My bill does not show that, however, the
economics of my utility providing nuclear power, would tend to prefer to
keep that to a minimum...

Just as a thought experiment. Imagine I could produce electricity
for half the price but my production method would reject pollutants
in the ocean that would kill every fish. Do you think I should be
allowed to do so without paying for the damage I do in the ocean?


Producing electricity with fossil fuels is no where as bad as that.

Well producing electricity from a nuke is actually worse than that in
terms of waste. Not CO2, but radioactive by-products that are lethal if
let loose in the environment. But not a significant contributor to
so-called man-made climate change. And I'm paying a part of my bill
today to fund essentially what amounts to an annuity that will house
that waste on-site, until the Federal government is eventually forced to
step up to the plate and do something about it.


But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't pay for the damage done
by the CO2 rejected in the atmosphere to produce your electricity.
So you see, I am picking up the tab for you, as is everyone that is
affected by the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere. If you did pay
for the damage done by the CO2 you would probably be asking your
electricity provider to switch to cleaner production methods so
your bill could go down.


Damages that are nearly impossible to quantify let alone monetize.
It's a shell game of a tax on the developed world, dressed up in the
guise of a market. At least I know what my nuke decommissioning fee is
going to be spent on and how it will work.

Why would you need to quantify the damages? I would be nice to be able
to do it, but hardly necessary. I don't know how taxation works where
you live, but here I get taxed for earning wages, no one is claiming
that my wages are causing damages let alone trying to quantify those
hypothetical damages yet I do pay income tax. We also have taxes on
tobacco and alcohol, yet again without anyone quantifying the damages
done by those. Etc. Why would the damages by greenhouse gas emissions
need to be quantified in order to tax them? I think it makes more
sense to tax greenhouse gas emissions than wages. You don't want people
to emit more greenhouse gases, but you don't mind people earning
more wages.


Alain Fournier

On 10/4/2015 11:32 AM, bob haller wrote:


Damages that are nearly impossible to quantify let alone monetize.
It's a shell game of a tax on the developed world, dressed up in the
guise of a market. At least I know what my nuke decommissioning fee is
going to be spent on and how it will work.


Alain Fournier


Dave


so what will the cost be if your unlucky enough to have a fukashima like meltdown caused by anything?

What will be the cost of me getting injured by a meteor strike? I'd say
the odds are about the same....

certinally not only has the power company taken a hit in japan, but so has the government.

at last report defueling clean up etc, is going to take 60 years and no one really knows the costs.

worse anyone who gets cancer anywhere near there will blame it on that failed power plant and get damage money.

just imagine for a moment what the total costs will be........


9 trillion dollars! How's that for imagination? And that's all that is.
I can't speak to the gross incompetence of Fukushima/Daiichi both in
design and operation. So I won't. I won't speak of the tort system in
Japan because I don't understand it. It could be those displaced get a
new home somewhere else paid for by the government or maybe not. Maybe
they won't get a dime for their losses or health issues. I don't know.
Anything else would be baseless speculation on my part...

Yeah nuclear is dangerous, so is LNG (liquified natural gas) in a *lot*
more spectacular way if mishandled. Your point?

Do you know how carbon credits will be assessed and on what basis? Darts
thrown at a dart board? Emails exchanged in secret? Data that was
massaged over and over by politicians and "scientists" beholding to same
for their lively-hood? And when the raw data the results were derived
from, asked to be released to the public, only to be told it was
considered irrelevant and erased? Do you know how big the costs will be
to the US economy over 100 years of carbon debits? Do you know long term
how a rise in our electric costs will effect our economy vs those of
others who, because they are late to the game, earn credits? My state
legislature recently rid itself of membership in a carbon-trade market
last year after they wised up to just how badly state energy consumers
we were going to get scammed.

Some people think we can innovate around physical law. I think those
people are largely living in fairy-land. But then I was trained as an
Electrical Engineer, my first circuit course taught by an expert in the
power engineering profession. But what do I know? I'm biased and
therefore "not credible"... Or maybe I just have a "thing" about all my
skylines being etched in windmills, with dead migratory birds piled all
around, or all my free space covered by solar cells, whose mfg. waste
byproducts I hope was outsourced overseas and energy used to manufacture
them produced by pixie dust. Or hell maybe that's my "carbon debit" at
work! I get to pay someone else to make them and then pay a premium back
to them again to help pay the cost of their clean-up. Beautiful plan!
I'll just use all the wonderful "Green Money" to pay for it all from my
money tree I planted in the backyard that is flourishing from foreign
produced CO2.

Unless Bob you'd like to sign up to pay my electric bill? Then hell,
debit away, what do I care then?

Dave