Sunday, July 22, 2012

Global Exergy Resource Chart


Global Exergy Resource Chart

6 comments:

Trixie said...

Seriously??? I really did look for 'flux capacitor' though.

ANYWAY. Tom, what are your thoughts on the upcoming fiscal cliff (specifically expiration of Bust tax cuts and payroll taxes)? Academy Award-winning thriller or a real threat to the economy?

Tom Hickey said...

Trixie, nothing significant happens in governing in the lead up to a general election. It's all going to depend on how the election turns out, and that is impossible to get a handle on at this point.

It's not as much a fiscal cliff and a political cliff. This reminds me the race to the cliff in Rebel Without A Cause (1957), and some people have put that clip up on their blogs recently. Each party thinks that their car is the one driven by Jimmie Dean and the other party is going over the cliff, never to rise again from the debacle.

But I think that a US is technical recession is baked in, as well as a worsening of the EZ situation. China's growth is slowing, too, and MENA is dangerous.

My general impression is that the wheels are coming off socially, politically and economically and in inner sentinel is waving a big red flag.

jeg3 said...

The nuclear is off, there is about 3x the concentration of thorium as compared to uranium in the earth's crust.
http://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/1336/pdf/C1336.pdf

As compared to light water reactors (LWR), a thorium reactor (U233 is the actual fuel) will mostly be used up with very little waste that only needs centuries to get to background levels. As compared to a LWR that has about 99% waste and 100k's years to get below background.

Excellent video that reviews using thorium and a comparison to uranium. You may need to watch it several times to get it all.
http://energyfromthorium.com/2012/07/20/3-years-ago/

I consider LFTR a "bird in hand" since they actually built a demonstration reactor, and amazingly were able to shut it off over the weekend by hitting a switch. And "two in the bush" may be an independent fusion reactor:
http://focusfusion.org/

jeg3 said...

Hi Tom,

The confluence of the environment & economics (hopefully the new book doesn't use neoclassic economics):

"Reuniting Economics and Ecology for a Sustainable Future"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-reese-halter/reuniting-economics-and-e_b_1690436.html?utm_hp_ref=business&ir=Business

miller B said...

no need to fear, plenty of energy that can be extracted now. But it might take something besides the "free market" to make it happen. Of course financial cost is no real constraint as we all know, unless we leave it to the private sector.More money in derivatives and resource scarcity than abundance for humanity

Geothermal has enough alone

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6-_UTU_bJ0

Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS)
The U.S. presently requires a total electricity capacity of about 1,000 gigawatts. Deep EGS has a potential capacity of 15 times that.

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/blog/post/2010/04/latest-estimates-of-u-s-geothermal-potential

a safer more efficient nuclear option.
http://www.terrapower.com/home.aspx

peak energy theorists stink of Malthusian incompetence.Hell the sun alone produces 174 petawatts a day a mere fraction of a percentage would provide the earth with abundant power. We have plenty of underutilized minds in the world. Time to put them to work.

Tom Hickey said...

The confluence of the environment & economics

From the side of economics it's about externality, rent, and manufactured demand to force "growth." As long as "growth" is the objective, the economic process will continue to be negatively biased by externality, rent, and manufactured demand aka "consumerism" in which price is divorced from value.

A fundamental problem in economics arises from conflating price with value. This allows extraction and exploitation of people and the environment under the guise of liberalism.