Global Warming w/o Tiggy

[Augustine2004]

Arthur C. Clarke wrote a novel that incorporated the idea of using a small black hole to drive a spaceship.

Actually Gravitiation has a section on how to harness the energy in a large black hole's neighborhood. And one could bask in Hawking radiation, at least for a while.

[FLovell]

Arthur C. Clarke wrote a novel that incorporated the idea of using a small black hole to drive a spaceship.

Actually Gravitation has a section on how to harness the energy in a large black hole's neighborhood. And one could bask in Hawking radiation, at least for a while.

Haha...yup -- bask to a crisp in Hawking radiation, though to get close enough to do that one would have to be deeply concerned about tidal forces ripping one's extremities from one's body and head (or vice-versa).

I've always greatly appreciated Clarke's faithfulness to in-principle theoretical possibilities, while at the same time I've greatly lamented his readership's often-expressed enthusiasm in which they've overlooked the (perhaps subtle but) VITAL distinction between theory (in-principle) and practice.

Bottom line, I STILL predict that SOME theoretically possible things which humans COULD in-principle do will NOT EVER actually be done by humans, and using black holes (of any size vast or teensy) to produce energy useful for sustaining human life/civilization is one of them.

In short, not only would I keep the cork tightly installed on the let's-celebrate-alternative-black-hole-gravity-tapping-energy-production-for-human-domestic-and-commercial-uses bottle of champagne, I wouldn't even put that bottle on ice yet.

And that bottle of let's-celebrate-alternative-ZPE-extraction-of-energy-production-for-human-domestic-and-commercial-uses champagne someone has squirreled away? Heck, the best way to serve humanity with THAT bottle is to just go ahead and give THAT bottle to the first homeless person who passes by the ally doorway, make his day at least!

[Challenger Grim]

ZPE may (or may not) be available to start a brand-spankin' new universe, but Zero-Point Energy is NOT available to do work in OUR universe. Period. End of THAT story.

Fusion? Maybe, or maybe not -- thus far sustained fusion lasting more than a few milliseconds and/or in a quantity useful for doing significant work has escaped us; it appears to be the single greatest engineering challenge we've yet tackled, thus far with little encouraging results.

Fission? Yessir, THAT we know how to do -- we even know how to do that safely (if only we will).

And yes, yes indeed I could be wrong with this next prediction (as I could be with any of my predictions), but here it is anyhow: The Sun will go nova and atomize Earth and the rest of the solar system before we succeed in harnessing black holes (of any size Large, small, or micro) in any way for producing useful, society-sustaining energy.

Ah, but we could produce a black hole to protect ourselves from the nova!

[franktalk]

[COLOR=black][B]ZPE may (or may not) be available to start a brand-spankin' new universe, but Zero-Point Energy is NOT available to do work in OUR universe. Period. End of THAT story.

I disagree and apparently NASA does as well. The Casimir effect can be harnessed but it requires microsized parts. I designed a crystal chip that produced electricity from the Casimir effect and piezoelectric crystals. There were of course huge technical barriers. And in the end a 3 horsepower device was the size of a small mountain. And of course the energy has to come from somewhere. So this universe loses mass to supply the system. But is this not the point? Converting mass to another form of energy we can use?

[franktalk]

I agree we should have a thousand nuclear plants running in the United States. It is a known source that we can break ground on immediately. The greens in this country are killing us. So when we are all dead the Chinese will come in and harvest all of our natural resources. I think people better start looking at the big picture.

[grmorton]

Maybe so but the parts are there, it is just seeing if the pieces can be placed in a environment to extract energy from mass. We do this with bombs and fission and we think we can do it with fusion. From a theoretical point of view there may be thousands of ways to burn mass. But I can tell that you would be a bad choice to join any team attempting this. Since you already know it is impossible. You have joined the ranks of many past experts. History has many naysayers. But history has many more that were right. But it is the few successes who pushed back against the naysayers that made progress.

Maybe I have joined the ranks of past naysayer experts who said such and such was impossible. I'll be dead before I am proven wrong and then I don't give a tinker's darn.

If you want a more realistic future energy source, try baryonic energy. Sphaeleron baryogenesis is poorly understood, but it is the process whereby conservation of baryon number can be violated. http://www.jrank.org/space/pages/2228/baryogenesis.html

Such a conversion process would allow humans to convert, not the 1% of matter to energy which is done in nuclear bombs, but 100% of the mass to energy. But to initiate this process requires energy levels we don't have available right now. It requires 10 Trillion electron volts of energy. So how do we do this? Quantum computation:

Frank J. Tipler, The Physics of Christianity, (New York: Doubleday,
2007), p. 72-73

Atoms have energy levels that differ by a few electron volts. Quantum
coherence among a trillion atoms would allow the atoms to concentrate
the energy differences of the levels on a single atom, and this would be
10 TeV, the amount of energy needed for the baryon-annihilation process
to go forward. So indeed the engineering insight needed to make a
practical quantum computer is exactly the same as that required to
annihilate baryons, to create the ultimate rocket and the ultimate
energy source in the universes-expanding phase. I therefore expect the
two problems to be solved about the same time, by the same technique."

© source where applicable

Tipler goes on to point out that small quantities of matter converted in this process could blow the world up and make a new asteroid belt in our solar system. Given the propensity for certain groups to strap bombs to their backsides and take others down with them, it is almost a certainty that if we get this power, someone will blow up the earth preferring their 70 virgins to existence of the race. If we ever get to have quantum computers which can control 10,000 particles, we can probably get quantum computers that can be scaled up to trillions of particles. At 1 ev per particle, one can concentrate that energy on one of the baryons and convert it 100% to energy. Since we will probably have this technology around 2030, it means that they Mayan calendar would be off by about 28 years!

Other downsides to this as a replacement for fossil fuels include the fact that it takes about 50 years from discovery of an energy source until it is incorporated fully into society. That was true of coal power, that was true of oil, and it was true of nuclear (discovered in 1896--first bomb 1945). Thus in practice, we are unlikely to have the bomb until 2080, meaning the Mayans would be off by about 78 years.

As for you, I think you should invest all your money in ZPE schemes since you believe in their viability. You can prove us all wrong and get very rich at the same time. If you really believed what you say, you would put your money where your mouth is.

[grmorton]

ZPE may (or may not) be available to start a brand-spankin' new universe, but Zero-Point Energy is NOT available to do work in OUR universe. Period. End of THAT story.

Fusion? Maybe, or maybe not -- thus far sustained fusion lasting more than a few milliseconds and/or in a quantity useful for doing significant work has escaped us; it appears to be the single greatest engineering challenge we've yet tackled, thus far with little encouraging results.

Fission? Yessir, THAT we know how to do -- we even know how to do that safely (if only we will).

And yes, yes indeed I could be wrong with this next prediction (as I could be with any of my predictions), but here it is anyhow: The Sun will go nova and atomize Earth and the rest of the solar system before we succeed in harnessing black holes (of any size Large, small, or micro) in any way for producing useful, society-sustaining energy.

You're such a negative individual. If only you would believe, and clap your hands, Tinkerbell would live!

[grmorton]

Arthur C. Clarke wrote a novel that incorporated the idea of using a small black hole to drive a spaceship.

Actually Gravitiation has a section on how to harness the energy in a large black hole's neighborhood. And one could bask in Hawking radiation, at least for a while.

Since the temperature is inversely proportional to the mass, in Hawking Radiation, the smaller the black hole, the hotter it is. Being bathed by gamma rays doesn't do much for your future children.

[grmorton]

I disagree and apparently NASA does as well. The Casimir effect can be harnessed but it requires microsized parts. I designed a crystal chip that produced electricity from the Casimir effect and piezoelectric crystals. There were of course huge technical barriers. And in the end a 3 horsepower device was the size of a small mountain. And of course the energy has to come from somewhere. So this universe loses mass to supply the system. But is this not the point? Converting mass to another form of energy we can use?

I could use a 3 hp device the size of a mountain on my ranch. But where would I put the cattle?

[grmorton]

I agree we should have a thousand nuclear plants running in the United States. It is a known source that we can break ground on immediately. The greens in this country are killing us. So when we are all dead the Chinese will come in and harvest all of our natural resources. I think people better start looking at the big picture.

On this we agree franktalk. The greens don't want any form of energy. They don't want us drilling in the Gulf (we have yet to have a permit for drilling in the GOM since April, 2010) They don't want us to have nuclear power, they don't want us to clear forests for growing bioenergy, they don't want coal, they are trying to stop drilling for natural gas. What the heck do they want us to live on?

Because of energy we get 6x more bushels per acre of corn today than we did in the 19th century. Most of us will starve to death as plentiful energy goes away.

[Raphael]

On this we agree franktalk. The greens don't want any form of energy. They don't want us drilling in the Gulf (we have yet to have a permit for drilling in the GOM since April, 2010) They don't want us to have nuclear power, they don't want us to clear forests for growing bioenergy, they don't want coal, they are trying to stop drilling for natural gas. What the heck do they want us to live on?

Because of energy we get 6x more bushels per acre of corn today than we did in the 19th century. Most of us will starve to death as plentiful energy goes away.

Glenn, that's the point. The hard core green wants an end to all human interference with nature. They want the west to immediately stop all economic growth

From here

The Telegraph

In one paper Professor Kevin Anderson, Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, said the only way to reduce global emissions enough, while allowing the poor nations to continue to grow, is to halt economic growth in the rich world over the next twenty years. This would mean a drastic change in lifestyles for many people in countries like Britain as everyone will have to buy less ‘carbon intensive’ goods and services such as long haul flights and fuel hungry cars. Prof Anderson admitted it “would not be easy” to persuade people to reduce their consumption of goods He said politicians should consider a rationing system similar to the one introduced during the last “time of crisis” in the 1930s and 40s.

© source where applicable

[franktalk]

As for you, I think you should invest all your money in ZPE schemes since you believe in their viability. You can prove us all wrong and get very rich at the same time. If you really believed what you say, you would put your money where your mouth is.

I wish I had the ability to work or invest in the new energy technologies. But I am four years from social security and this down turn has killed my business so I have no resources to invest. But if I had resources I would invest in nuclear first and not the ZPE. Energy from the ZPE is nice to think about but I would not use my money. That would be pure research where we have no idea if it will be fruitful or not. I wished we lived closer I think that you and I would enjoy a conversation over a beer or two. Microbreweries are my favorite.

[FLovell]

I disagree and apparently NASA does as well. The Casimir effect can be harnessed but it requires microsized parts. I designed a crystal chip that produced electricity from the Casimir effect and piezoelectric crystals. There were of course huge technical barriers. And in the end a 3 horsepower device was the size of a small mountain. And of course the energy has to come from somewhere. So this universe loses mass to supply the system. But is this not the point? Converting mass to another form of energy we can use?

Please direct me to where in the scientific literature or a NASA publication I can read where NASA thinks energy to accomplish work can be tapped and harnessed from ZPE, so I can see and catch-up on what I have missed, THANKS!!

-- Frank

[Challenger Grim]

I could use a 3 hp device the size of a mountain on my ranch. But where would I put the cattle?

On the mountain - duh.

Since the temperature is inversely proportional to the mass, in Hawking Radiation, the smaller the black hole, the hotter it is. Being bathed by gamma rays doesn't do much for your future children.

But it does wonder for strength even if you later have problems dealing with anger.

[FLovell]

You're such a negative individual. If only you would believe, and clap your hands, Tinkerbell would live!

Yes, I get that a lot -- nobody loves a realist!

-- Frank