The biggest problem we have on this planet is creating usable power in a clean way. Once we do so the world will change for the better. Although there are many clean power generating methods being tried or in theoretical testing none are available or appear to be coming available in the near future. So at the moment none available that are both practical and clean. Practical ones are basically nuclear, coal, gas and hydro. Clean ones are wind, tidal and solar where hydro is the nearest thing to clean and practical we can get but suffers from environmental and location issues. Solar is the next best but doesn’t generate the power we need. So of course our governments chose wind as its power generation method.
The problem with the clean ones is that they just don’t generate enough power due to sunlight requirements, are too variable or cause other environmental issues. The methods that are more popular seem to create too much CO2 or radioactive waste and unfortunatly neither is something we want. If it was fresh water that was created or artificial diamonds we wouldn’t have a problem but it is boring old CO2 or nuclear waste and we need to get rid of it.
Nuclear waste is a problem in its own right. It will last for tens of thousands of years. Can’t just leave it lying around on the planet. Nor can we take it into space and send it into the sun because the transporting it is so dangerous. Imagine the disaster if a rocket with radioactive waste blew up in the upper atmosphere. So currently it is a no no. Personally, I think we should bury it in Afghanistan or somewhere similar. It seems of little use other than growing poppies but that doesn’t seem to be an acceptable way to progress.
But CO2 is a different matter. It can be extracted and stored but there are issues with storage. There are various options but mainly revolve around sticking them in tanks or holes in the ground neither of which will be a long term solution. We really need a use for CO2. So, what is it used for?
Well as far as I can tell the only use for CO2 is to grow plants. Pretty important I would have thought. But as part of the cycle of life we end up with the CO2 stored into the plants which is then released on the plants demise. Ouch. It appears that we need only a certain amount of CO2 before we overbalance.
However, I seem to remember from my science days, when they actually taught it at schools, that CO2 was heavily involved in changing Earth into a planet we could life on. It helped create a greenhouse environment that allowed life to thrive. Now consider that the *cough* consensus is that the CO2 we are generating is changing, terraforming, Earth. If we could capture this and send it to Mars we could terraform Mars. Bear in mind that Mars is about half the diameter of earth which makes it significantly smaller in surface area. Thus the CO2 that would terraform Earth will have a much greater effect on Mars.
Now we can launch CO2 into space without significant risk. If it crashes or the gas is released we just capture it again. Whoo Hoo. We don’t even have to use rockets to launch the containers we can use a launch ramp like Fireball XL5, remember that? as there will be no humans on board G forces are less critical. We could put the CO2 into large bladders, like we do fuel and water, freeze them and launch into space where they will remain frozen. We can then use robot arms to throw them to Mars for release into the atmosphere. We could even automate the whole process and if some go missing there won’t be a big issue.
Now I think about it would a large bladder full of frozen CO2 be of any use as a radiation shield fora Mars trip? Water does so why not liquefied CO2?
The best bit is the energy used to freeze and orbit the CO2 can be created using coal or gas because no longer will have an issue with the surplus CO2.
I still think we would be better off with fusion and personally I think we should create giant solar panel farms in wasted space like deserts but just thinking about how we could continue with what we have considering that because our government has done nothing to resolve this issue we will start running out of power within a decade. Not enough time to build clean plants but enough to build quick and dirty ones like coal, gas or nuclear if we keep our existing dirty plants going.
Handling the looming power crisis
The biggest problem we have on this planet is creating usable power in a clean way. Once we do so the world will change for the better. Although there are many clean power generating methods being tried or in theoretical testing none are available or appear to be coming available in the near future. So at the moment none available that are both practical and clean. Practical ones are basically nuclear, coal, gas and hydro. Clean ones are wind, tidal and solar where hydro is the nearest thing to clean and practical we can get but suffers from environmental and location issues. Solar is the next best but doesn’t generate the power we need. So of course our governments chose wind as its power generation method.
The problem with the clean ones is that they just don’t generate enough power due to sunlight requirements, are too variable or cause other environmental issues. The methods that are more popular seem to create too much CO2 or radioactive waste and unfortunatly neither is something we want. If it was fresh water that was created or artificial diamonds we wouldn’t have a problem but it is boring old CO2 or nuclear waste and we need to get rid of it.
Nuclear waste is a problem in its own right. It will last for tens of thousands of years. Can’t just leave it lying around on the planet. Nor can we take it into space and send it into the sun because the transporting it is so dangerous. Imagine the disaster if a rocket with radioactive waste blew up in the upper atmosphere. So currently it is a no no. Personally, I think we should bury it in Afghanistan or somewhere similar. It seems of little use other than growing poppies but that doesn’t seem to be an acceptable way to progress.
But CO2 is a different matter. It can be extracted and stored but there are issues with storage. There are various options but mainly revolve around sticking them in tanks or holes in the ground neither of which will be a long term solution. We really need a use for CO2. So, what is it used for?
Well as far as I can tell the only use for CO2 is to grow plants. Pretty important I would have thought. But as part of the cycle of life we end up with the CO2 stored into the plants which is then released on the plants demise. Ouch. It appears that we need only a certain amount of CO2 before we overbalance.
However, I seem to remember from my science days, when they actually taught it at schools, that CO2 was heavily involved in changing Earth into a planet we could life on. It helped create a greenhouse environment that allowed life to thrive. Now consider that the *cough* consensus is that the CO2 we are generating is changing, terraforming, Earth. If we could capture this and send it to Mars we could terraform Mars. Bear in mind that Mars is about half the diameter of earth which makes it significantly smaller in surface area. Thus the CO2 that would terraform Earth will have a much greater effect on Mars.
Now we can launch CO2 into space without significant risk. If it crashes or the gas is released we just capture it again. Whoo Hoo. We don’t even have to use rockets to launch the containers we can use a launch ramp like Fireball XL5, remember that? as there will be no humans on board G forces are less critical. We could put the CO2 into large bladders, like we do fuel and water, freeze them and launch into space where they will remain frozen. We can then use robot arms to throw them to Mars for release into the atmosphere. We could even automate the whole process and if some go missing there won’t be a big issue.
Now I think about it would a large bladder full of frozen CO2 be of any use as a radiation shield fora Mars trip? Water does so why not liquefied CO2?
The best bit is the energy used to freeze and orbit the CO2 can be created using coal or gas because no longer will have an issue with the surplus CO2.
I still think we would be better off with fusion and personally I think we should create giant solar panel farms in wasted space like deserts but just thinking about how we could continue with what we have considering that because our government has done nothing to resolve this issue we will start running out of power within a decade. Not enough time to build clean plants but enough to build quick and dirty ones like coal, gas or nuclear if we keep our existing dirty plants going.