Boffins produce plasma at two billion kelvins

Borris · 21 Mar 2006 at 15:03

Pickers said:
Energy conservation is only valid/required for non-renewable and/or damaging methods of generation.

In the immediate future.

Visage · 21 Mar 2006 at 15:06

Pickers said:
Energy conservation is only valid/required for non-renewable and/or damaging methods of generation.

Completely wrong. All energy produced, whatever its source, ends up as heat.

What will happen when there is effectively no incentive to conserve energy. Where will the heat generated by society go?

Pickers · 21 Mar 2006 at 15:06

Borris said:
In the immediate future.

Can you elaborate? My initial perception is if energy is produced cleanly and vastly in no danger of "running out of fuel", then it needn't be conserved. Otherwise it would be like standing in the outside and rationing your breathing ?!

Pickers · 21 Mar 2006 at 15:07

Visage said:
Completely wrong. All energy produced, whatever its source, ends up as heat.

What will happen when there is effectively no incentive to conserve energy. Where will the heat generated by society go?

Ok then thats not energy conservation per se is it. Its awareness of lossage/leakage/efficiency of its use.

Bah ok call it conservation if you will, but in the non-conventional sense.

Borris · 21 Mar 2006 at 15:11

Pickers said:
Can you elaborate? My initial perception is if energy is produced cleanly and vastly in no danger of "running out of fuel", then it needn't be conserved. Otherwise it would be like standing in the outside and rationing your breathing ?!

In the current scope of fuel and energy, that particular conventional wisdom might prevail.

However, if there is one thing that history has taught us, it's that we have no idea what lies around the corner. When we used carts and horses and burned coal in our homes, nobody could have foreseen a scarcity.

In relation to Visage's point, intuition suggests that hotter, faster, brighter, longer is not necessarily the best path.

Visage · 21 Mar 2006 at 15:12

Pickers said:
Can you elaborate? My initial perception is if energy is produced cleanly and vastly in no danger of "running out of fuel", then it needn't be conserved. Otherwise it would be like standing in the outside and rationing your breathing ?!

Yes, but when the industrial revolution stared the prevailing attitude was 'What does it matter if we pump the exhaust from these machines into the air? The atmosphere is huge, and can easily accomodate any waste gasses from burning fuels........

There's no reason to beleive that waste heat from a 'perpetually fuelled' society would be any different.....

Pickers · 21 Mar 2006 at 15:15

Borris said:
However, if there is one thing that history has taught us, it's that we have no idea what lies around the corner. When we used carts and horses and burned coal in our homes, nobody could have foreseen a scarcity.

True, but thinking along the lines of electricity which cannot really be stored and hence cannot be stockpiled "in case of the unknown", it would be in the national grid to use - so why not use it? Lest it just goes to waste.
However, like visage has said - the wider implications of widespread energy use could result in some limitation of the amount we use.

I'm just logically trying to think through the possibility of heat generated at the surface of the Earth. Presumably it would radiate at IR wavelengths - where there is low attenuation in the atmosphere, and thus it would linger in greenhouse gases. But, if greenhouse gases are already saturated by the solar radiaiton budget, then would the heat escape from the Earth's atmosphere and therefore NOT heat the Earths surface? I think I digress too much

brocksta · 21 Mar 2006 at 16:03

is anyone else completely confused from that picture??

what hell is going on in it? (apart from the plasma thingys) :confused:

Le_Petit_Lapin · 21 Mar 2006 at 17:03

Visage said:
Completely wrong. All energy produced, whatever its source, ends up as heat.

What will happen when there is effectively no incentive to conserve energy. Where will the heat generated by society go?

I dunno, I guess we could watercool the whole planet, and place the radiator on the far side of the moon, where the sun dont shine and it'd be nice and cool.

Visage · 21 Mar 2006 at 17:05

Le_Petit_Lapin said:
I dunno, I guess we could watercool the whole planet, and place the radiator on the far side of the moon, where the sun dont shine and it'd be nice and cool.

Phase change, surely?

Messiah Khan · 21 Mar 2006 at 17:20

brocksta said:
is anyone else completely confused from that picture??

what hell is going on in it? (apart from the plasma thingys)

AFAIK, the Zmachine(The one pictured) is based around a TOKAMAK reactor. So underneath all that mass of glowing electricity should be one of these;

Which is basically a torus shaped electo magnet that allows super heated plasma to be contained and controlled. Once the plasma has been crushed enough, it should start to fuse together, releasing vast amounts of energy.