Energy thread

[mr_genius]

gas is $10 a gallon in Europe. good luck convincing the US public that is the way to go.

[Balta1701]

gas is $10 a gallon in Europe. good luck convincing the US public that is the way to go.

Good luck keeping it from going there on its own if we don't majorly cut back on usage, globally.

[mr_genius]

Good luck keeping it from going there on its own if we don't majorly cut back on usage, globally.

 

i have already predicted $10 a gallon gas

 

i'm just saying there is no way the dems go the 'extra tax' route on gasoline. it would be political suicide if they juiced taxes up and gas was suddenly $10 a gallon.

 

i wouldn't be surprised if Obama breaks with the Dems and supports some more offshore drilling. i definitely don't see him coming out with a big plan to raise energy prices with taxes.

[lostfan]

Open-ended question: for spent nuclear fuel, what's preventing us from just putting this stuff on a rocket and sending it to the sun? The sun is basically a giant ball of nuclear fusion and whatever is sent there would burn up/disintegrate/whatever before it even gets there.

[HuskyCaucasian]

Open-ended question: for spent nuclear fuel, what's preventing us from just putting this stuff on a rocket and sending it to the sun? The sun is basically a giant ball of nuclear fusion and whatever is sent there would burn up/disintegrate/whatever before it even gets there.

I thought of this when I was 9, and it took 16 years to hear it from another person! lol It seems so simple, but what if that rocket blows up? Nuclear waste all over the place. Good idea.... no way to safely implement it.

[BigSqwert]

Open-ended question: for spent nuclear fuel, what's preventing us from just putting this stuff on a rocket and sending it to the sun? The sun is basically a giant ball of nuclear fusion and whatever is sent there would burn up/disintegrate/whatever before it even gets there.

What would happen if the shuttle used to launch it into orbit exploded over a large land mass?

[NorthSideSox72]

What would happen if the shuttle used to launch it into orbit exploded over a large land mass?

Also, I am fairly certain that its no cheap thing to put a rocket into the sun. That's a huge project, I'd have to guess, and the costs could be enormous.

 

[lostfan]

What would happen if the shuttle used to launch it into orbit exploded over a large land mass?

It would suck, obviously.

[BigSqwert]

It would suck, obviously.

[lostfan]

Also, I am fairly certain that its no cheap thing to put a rocket into the sun. That's a huge project, I'd have to guess, and the costs could be enormous.

I don't know all that much about rockets, but I do know that objects don't ever stop moving once they get into space. Plus once it's on a collison course for the Sun, its gravitational pull is orders of magnitude larger as you get closer so it takes less energy.

 

Hell, we could just toss it out into space away from the Earth to float out in space indefinitely, who cares where it ends up.

[BigSqwert]

Hell, we could just toss it out into space away from the Earth to float out in space indefinitely, who cares where it ends up.

The Klingons care!

[lostfan]

I thought of this when I was 9, and it took 16 years to hear it from another person! lol It seems so simple, but what if that rocket blows up? Nuclear waste all over the place. Good idea.... no way to safely implement it.

You're probably right... and I don't know how much nuclear waste we're talking either.

[BigSqwert]

You're probably right... and I don't know how much nuclear waste we're talking either.

I'd imagine it would have to be quite a bit if we are going to build a multi-billion dollar rocket to ship it out.

[lostfan]

The Klingons care!

Yeah we'd probably feel like assholes if we found out a couple million years from now one of our nuclear trash cans randomly collided with some alien planet that we happened to be in contact with and we killed a bunch of them. Intergalactic warfare FTL.

[lostfan]

I'd imagine it would have to be quite a bit if we are going to build a multi-billion dollar rocket to ship it out.

What I mean is I don't know how much nuclear waste is produced by a couple of nuclear plants, in terms of volume/size.

[StrangeSox]

It's about $10,000 per pound to get something into orbit. To break orbit would require more energy ($$$).

 

According to wikipedia, the average nuclear reactor produces 25-30 tonnes (3 m^3) per year of solid waste. That's about 55,000 lbs, or $550,000,000 per year per reactor just to get it into orbit. And we're still not addressing the potential environmental disaster.

Edited August 5, 2008 by StrangeSox

[HuskyCaucasian]

The only "safe" way may be a Space Elevator, but that is a LONG way off.

I pray that by the time a space elevator is feasible we are well beyond nuclear.

[Balta1701]

It's about $10,000 per pound to get something into orbit. To break orbit would require more energy ($$$).

 

According to wikipedia, the average nuclear reactor produces 25-30 tonnes (3 m^3) per year of solid waste. That's about 55,000 lbs, or $550,000,000 per year per reactor just to get it into orbit. And we're still not addressing the potential environmental disaster.

Not to mention the 2500 metric tonnes of spent fuel rods and 100 million gallons of liquid that we've already generated.

[lostfan]

Seriously though ridiculous logistics aside, what does happen when something collides with the sun? Basically nothing right?

[BigSqwert]

Seriously though ridiculous logistics aside, what does happen when something collides with the sun? Basically nothing right?

[NorthSideSox72]

Seriously though ridiculous logistics aside, what does happen when something collides with the sun? Basically nothing right?

Well, how did it go when Stoney and Hawk were in the booth together?

[lostfan]

lol @ you guys

[Balta1701]

Seriously though ridiculous logistics aside, what does happen when something collides with the sun? Basically nothing right?

The sun is so large it wouldn't even notice. The containers would burn up, everything would react with something, and it would mix in and dilute if you had the trajectory right. Just make sure it doesn't bounce off of some layer.

[lostfan]

The sun is so large it wouldn't even notice. The containers would burn up, everything would react with something, and it would mix in and dilute if you had the trajectory right. Just make sure it doesn't bounce off of some layer.

All this would basically happen long before the object actually reached the sun right? Like it would get locked into the gravitational pull when it got really close, and it would be so hot it would turn into plasma or whatever. I would have to imagine there have been other objects that hit the sun before though.

[Balta1701]

All this would basically happen long before the object actually reached the sun right? Like it would get locked into the gravitational pull when it got really close, and it would be so hot it would turn into plasma or whatever. I would have to imagine there have been other objects that hit the sun before though.

Comets, asteroids, etc, those sorts of things probably pretty commonly hit the sun once their orbit is disturbed enough.

 

Right now, we have no container that would not melt before it actually reached the surface of the sun. If you sent something in with enough momentum, it would start entering the sun's corona and then melt/vaporize depending on exactly the phase, and then the material would wind up dispersed around through thermal diffusion (The sun's corona sits at somewhere around a million degrees) and the magnetic fields/winds that move through that region.

 

Basically, if you take a planet and slam it in to the sun, or an asteroid, etc., it will have enough thermal inertia to make it through and actually hit the sun's surface. But something small, like a rocket ship filled with a couple thousand tons of waste...that'd probably just burn up on entry and get scattered pretty easily.