The Slow Death of the Internal Combustion Engine

[oil pan 4]

What would we call it of we had a 1,000 year supply of some kind of fuel?

[redpoint5]

We'd call it an inaccurate and useless way to measure fuel. What if I told you I had a lifetime supply of cigarettes for myself? How many cigarettes is that? (zero in my case).

More useful is the quantity of fuel available at a certain price point. What we do with it at that price point is up to us, as consumption can be wildly modified.

In 1000 years, who knows where we'll be. Certain types of fuel might be nearly worthless then.

[sendler]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

What would we call it of we had a 1,000 year supply of some kind of fuel?

Thorium

[JSH]

Originally Posted by freebeard

I could have cut that part off, but chose not to. 'Generally not well accepted' sounds acceptable to me.

To some, the electric universe is 'generally not well accepted'.

I was waiting at the bus stop and this guy told me he gotten a second opinion that he doesn't have cancer. I was reminded of Scott Adam's saying people believe the last thing they heard. Wouldn't you need a third opinion as a tie-breaker?

The problem with the 3rd opinion analogy is that opinion isn't evenly split on whether oil is formed via abiotic or biotic methods. It is more like 1:99 ratio.

[redpoint5]

... and the fact that reality isn't determined by opinion.

[oil pan 4]

Well not just thorium. But natural uranium, depleted uranium bread into fissile fuel, recycled materials, ect.
There is supposed to be a 1,000 year supply of thorium and about a 700 year supply of uranium already sitting above ground in storage in Iowa left over from the cold war.
So I think we can safely round that way down to a 1,000 year supply.
Long before it runs out, fission power will probably be obsolete.

[freebeard]

The problem with the 3rd opinion analogy is that opinion isn't evenly split on whether oil is formed via abiotic or biotic methods. It is more like 1:99 ratio.

... and the fact that reality isn't determined by opinion.

Perhaps that wasn't the time to relate that story. It was on my mind at the time.

My point is more that there is a planetary budget of hydrocarbons, whether (ad argumentum) it's carbonaceous chondrite asteroids or plankton, and that we are wildly overspending it.

[Taylor95]

Originally Posted by freebeard

Perhaps that wasn't the time to relate that story. It was on my mind at the time.

My point is more that there is a planetary budget of hydrocarbons, whether (ad argumentum) it's carbonaceous chondrite asteroids or plankton, and that we are wildly overspending it.

You just gave me an interesting thought. Perhaps there are some energy resources on the moon or asteroids that might be worth harvesting. If SpaceX perfects their rockets then it might be economical. For instance helium-3 is abundant on the moon.

[redpoint5]

There's an excellent movie called Moon. Check it out. Not really about energy, but it's a background concept.

[freebeard]

Helium-3 comes from the solar wind. 'Real' helium is helium-4.

https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/nuclear-...um3_fusion.pdf

Without a repulsive atmosphere, the moon has accumulated large amounts of helium-3 on its surface. An interesting statistic is that the amount of energy stored in lunar helium is 10 times the amount of energy stored in all of the fossil fuels on earth. Because the lunar helium-3 exists in concentrations of 13 parts per billion in the lunar soil, a significant amount of refining would need to occur on the moon in order to extract the helium-3 and maximize the amount that could be returned to earth on each trip.
[snip]
Helium-3 fusion is definitely a far distance away and should best be considered as a second generation fuel, something that may be exploited after current methods for confinement have been refined to the commercial reactor level. Nevertheless, helium-3's benefits in terms of energy conversion and radioactivity are significant, and should be further explored. Clearly mining the moon is a crazy idea; however, the technology could be is a crazy idea; however, the technology could be developed to make it a possibility.