Forums → WEPR → Your view on renewable energy

But the thing is they arnt very efficient, which is why we should worry about developing better technologies instead of worrying about putting them into use.

Biomass would not be good for New York, because it requires lots of space, and it smells horrible...

Wind would actually be better near Colorado, because it is mountainous and therefore windy.

Solar would be better in Nevada (it already is) where it is constantly sunny due to the mountain barrier (rockies)

Not technically renewable but I think nuclear fussion (not fission) is our best bet if we can get it working efficiently. Loads of energy output and we have loads of hydrogen (once we process it of course I know how pedantic you lot can be)

Out of the renewable they all gave pros and cons. Once we develop them abit more Solar could be very useful if they can make it work well i places that aren't really sunny. I quite like tidal since it is more dependable than something like wind.

I spent my entire summer working in the NEFP (new energy for people) lab in florida as an attempt to bolster my resume for college

Spreading all of these across the country just to power a few homes is unnecessarily inefficient. Currently the only semi efficient source of alternative energy is solar power.

I'm more inclined to agree with Kirby998 on this one. I think that although some forms of renewable energy are 'better' than others, they should be invested in where appropriate. Ie, no point building solar panels in regions which barely get any Sunlight or hydro electric facilites in slow flowing rivers.

The best course would be to keep investing in the technology, and implement it where appropriate, so hopefully fitire generations can reap the benefits.

Coldfusion.

Fusion is more deadly, as it produces energy greater than it consumed,
A note here:
Hydrogen bombs = 100 atomic bombs
The reason being hydrogen bombs are powered by fission to induce fusion.

Cold fusion currently is only possible near the swiss LHC facility.

To understand how we attempt to do cold fusion you have to understand that there are 4 phases of matter (not 3...), they are: solid, liquid, gas, plasma. As temperature increases the matter changes from solid to liquid to gas and finally to plasma. Plasma is an ionized gas which attained its nature through super heating it. The electrons are not bound to the individual atoms like they are regularly. This is important because the high heat can induce fusion, the importance of flowing electrons is so that it can be contained. This reaction is surrounded by high powered magnets that make the gas flow in a donut shape

Then scientists inject deuterium and tritium which then fuse under the hot temperatures.

I think more research is neded for it because at the moment it isn't efficient but once we crack it we can forget about solar power etc. we won't need them. But we are at least 15-20 years from making cold fussion a viable energy source.

I am going to continue using fossil fuels until they are illegal.

Amen brother!

Fossil Fuels Forever!

Because they provide the most efficient energy (not unnecessarily clean)

Down with Smart cars!! BOOO

Drill up the coast! come on, we don't live forever!

Fossil Fuels Forever!

Down with Smart cars!! BOOO
Drill up the coast! come on, we don't live forever!

...except not, because they won't last forever! XD Right now, the most plausible options are solar and wind power. An amazing idea would be if we made a space station orbiting around earth halfway from the earth to the moon, simply for the purpose of collecting solar power.

Kirby, you forget only one type of the two atoms are available everywhere, deuterium is what you are talking about.

According to IEER's 1996 report about the United States Department of Energy, only 225 kg of tritium has been produced in the US since 1955. Since it is continuously decaying into helium-3, the stockpile was approximately 75 kg at the time of the report.[3]

Tritium for American nuclear weapons was produced in special heavy water reactors at the Savannah River Site until their shutdown in 1988; with the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty after the end of the Cold War, existing supplies were sufficient for the new, smaller number of nuclear weapons for some time. Production was resumed with irradiation of lithium-containing rods (replacing the usual boron-containing control rods) at the commercial Watts Bar Nuclear Generating Station in 2003-2005 followed by extraction of tritium from the rods at the new Tritium Extraction Facility at SRS starting in November 2006.[9]

Also how the eff would you transfer that solar power to earth... It would probably take more energy transporting it than harnessing it.

Also, cold fusion is an option, but what happens when you run out of the right materials? You could try fissioning, but then you'd run out of the right materials too. You'd end up with iron in both cases, which gives no energy from fission nor from fusion.