Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Yeah, you're right about all that. In my defense, I tend to eat cheese the way one should probably eat meat: a small amt of high-quality stuff for flavor rather than a large amt for an entre. It is probably from better-treated critters since the higher-priced stuff is often less industrial.

I just cooked up a nice big pot of soup after saying goodbye to a couple of roosters that were waking us at 2AM....good life, fast death, local meat, free range (NO fences...). The soup included AP celery, AP onions, rosemary from the bush by the house, wine my dad helped make... Things are not so bad.

There is... the moon.... the moon’s surface is full of the energy source helium-3....

John Santarius, a professor at the Fusion Technology Institute, said helium-3 provides one million times more energy per pound than a ton of coal.

Fusion of helium-3 does not produce greenhouse emissions... it is estimated that the moon probably holds more than 1 million metric tons of helium-3 on its surface, more than enough energy to provide the earth with more than 1,000 years of electricity.

Just 40 tons of this stuff has enough potential energy to meet the total U.S. electricity demand for a year

Now, an argument as expensive as mine! Getting to and from the moon in order to mine/process/return He-3 is beyond solar farming. Primarily because there isn't self-sustaining fusion, only a few "break-even" projects. My previous condemnation of fusion was harsh, I admit, but I think solar power should parallel fusion research with as much momentum.

Geothermal.

I was hoping to overlook this for the time being, since my goal of this topic was to aggressively support SBSP. Since it has been injected, it will be digested. The geothermal activity under Yosemite would be another Mega Project for power production, especially since there's a possibility that it could destroy a good part of the U.S. if there is a catastrophic caldera waiting to happen. Using geothermal could cool the area enough to stabilize it--or cool the surface enough to compress the underlying gas/magma for a grand explosion.

In short, we should force all higher education institutions to teach ONLY engineering and physics for the next decade. This would finally give us the ability to first terraform the planet for sustainability, then migrate into the rest of the solar system. When this is done, then perhaps we will have the resources to build a light drive and harvest the energy from distant suns.

Damn. Damn. Damn. So, you people have forced me to take me less seriously and spend the next few years writing realistic fiction.

But seriously, the sun. It's our local fusion reactor. Why bother with anything else?

Prefer to teach them to be organic farmers that used less energy and demanded less crap

Apparently solar heat + salt is the way of the future:

http://inhabitat.com/worlds-first-molte ... -at-night/
http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... y-at-night

Allows you to generate solar energy at night (because the salt retains the heat over night, and does it better than oils!)

Nice link Gemmell!

Extra cool because it's not pie in the sky - actually working now!

First, any sort of power source that is sustainable at the Gigawatt (Jiggawatt), Terawattat, and so on, can be weaponized, especially in the readily available form of lasers.

Second, the Chinese probably already have this. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703808704576061674166905408.html This is another topic altogether, something I am researching/writing about now.



No: Use less energy.
Yes: Be more efficient.

As a civilization that should be continually focused on advancement, improvement, and continual economic and social success, then using less energy is not the way to go. Advanced civilizations use more energy. Computers. Production (for stuff other than clothes or toys or other junk that gets shipped around the world to be produced). Unless you're planning to become monks, using less is not beneficial to our ultimate survival. Using the same amount, while being more efficient with that use, is the better option.

Global warming, if it plays out to the worse pessimism, promises to be a windfall.

A hotter planet = More energy.

More wind energy, more rain, more storms, more power. We're not going to have any realistic effect on the climate (atmospheric CO2 reached 390 ppm the other day) for some time--unless fusion falls into place. On the other hand, fusion will still face the same corporate/government bureaucracies, corruption, and incompetence? So would SBSP. The changing climate is promising, provided the Sun doesn't really go into a time of cooling in its life cycle.

All civilizations use more energy... right until the moment they run out & collapse. Lots of peak oilers here. The link Gemmel posted make me hopeful (so much better than nukes). I'm not sure if we can transition smoothly if we continue on the free market economy. Planned economies didn't work out too great either.

Global warming as an energy windfall is assuming an awful lot. Even if we get extra energy out of it, we may have to "spend" it putting out GW disasters. Russia thought GW would be a boon to them too, till the drought & fires of this year. I think they've changed their minds.

AP is the best example I can think of re: more power, more efficiency. But if you cut efficiency too close it's the straightest path to hell.

The word of the decade (maybe century) will not be efficiency. It will be resilience. Plan your AP & life in general accordingly.

If we accept that many of our resources are finite... and that the population continues to increase.... then even if used energy more effciently.... how can we possibly use the same amount as currently.... and still "grow"....

The need to produce more for a larger population... simply requires more energy.. and resources...

If we're overstretched now... and over-polluting the planet.... then being more efficient about doing it... really doesn't mean diddly squat...

I see no evidence that our resources are finite. Sun (several billions years of energy left), Mercury (iron/metals), Venus (carbon, sulfur, future processing plants, etc.), Moon (gravity/solar collection), Earth (geothermal/oil/AP/people/labor/ingenuity), Jupiter (hydrogen/helium), asteroid belt (iron).



No, I agree that free market economies are horrendous for long-term survival. Enron, AIG, Bernie Madoff, 2008 Housing Crash, Afghanistan, Iraq... to name U.S. failures. Planned economies: China is doing pretty good. 1 Billion Strong.

More, more, more. If we don't think big, we'll be a bunch of quiet AP hermits. I don't have a problem with that, but it would be much more exciting to move forward. Including biological evolution, another inevitability (humans will likely be outpaced by our own genetic engineering... hopefully... otherwise, we'll go extinct with nothing to show for our time) And yes, I might be a little crazy, but crazy keeps me going.

Other then perhaps the law of conservation of energy...



Now that is just an opinion....

What planet are you on...

I'm talking the earths resources... in the context that you propossed... that we could use those resources "more efficiently"...

You're talking propping up the whole system... by exploitation of other... in this case, off planet resources....

In other words... additional resources... not maintaining the level of current usage "more efficiently" as you stated...

And sorry... but oil,water,land, food... and possibly even air... are not only finite, but some would say... already over-utilised to the point of "collapse".... unless we change the way of doing things...

Or perhaps even... halt the population growth...

Sure, we might be able to "buy some time"... with technology and ingenuity... and we could always reduce some of the pressures.. by reducing the demands of the population... and subjugation of labour is an old (and often postulated) method of doing so... make them so poor that they can't afford to consume...


China is merely another "emerging" "free market" economy... cloaked in a disquise of alternate ideology.... but inherently cut from the same cloth...

And will embark on the same "empirical" path that the US has taken for many years... for the same reason.... fininacial and strategic self interest.... and probably with both internal and external, possibly brutal force...


Biological evolution.. and even the "off planet" technological exploitations you allude to... take time, and money... and the planet just might not have the time to acheive them...

Or at least... a large proportion of the planet... might not have the opprtunity, or the time... to benefit from them...

The current model of ramppant consumerism and greed ... is just not environmentally sustainable IMO...

1) It is fairly simple to imagine doubling the efficiency of our power use. How about a generator (fuel cell or turbine) close to point-of-use that produces most electricity you need as needed. The high-temperature waste heat can go to a chiller and handle your refrigeration. Lower-temperature waste heat from that can go on to heat (or preheat) your hot water or living space. And you avoid most of the transmission losses involved. There are engineering questions, of course...
2) I don't see that there is a necessary correspondence between quality of life and power use, although there is one between power price and PU. I believe that if the price of power were higher, perhaps with a tax and dividend scheme, then people would move their money in other directions that might make a better contribution to advancing civilization. This deserves deeper thought.


1) how would fusion effect climate? Confused...
2) "windfall": one could take that as a play on words. Stronger winds, if steady, would help wind generation. On the other hand higher temperatures could lead to many energy problems: more need for air conditioning, more variable weather conditions, unforeseen consequences...

Ok. There's some craziness going on.

Efficiency covers the recycling of currently utilized resources, i.e. landfill = recycling grounds. I agree that the current systems in place are not working, but not necessarily "unsustainable".

Oil, land, air, water, food: All sustainable

Oil --> CO2 + Photosynthesis --> CH2O --> Oil

Land: Create more; Japan (floating cities) and the Netherlands (fast growing, landwise, in the world) are doing a good job of this...

Air: O2 is not in short supply, only a little tinged. But that doesn't kill anybody, just increases cancers, etc... Cancer doesn't kill a society, only makes it shorter lived.

Water: Ocean, desalination

Food: CO2 + Photosynthesis --> CH2O --> Food

The trace metals that accompany photosynthesis are not running out. Precious metals that are in circulation or being mined are constantly being optimized through R&D.

Off planet mineral/energy capture is to expand, not overtax the current system.

China does have a growing economy, much of which takes after the Free Economy, but the Party still calls the shots. They may not be the best example, but a free economy is definitely the enemy. Sorry, but Malthus was way off.

Fusion would be the alternative to higher energy climate cycles. Moreover, if fusion does come to fruition, then we could really change our climate through CO2/H2O control with "unlimited" power.

More air conditioning? Short answer, suck it up.

More variable weather conditions: this isn't the norm already? Before the political fiasco of "climate change"/"global warming"....