The Mosquito Coast reference deserves some discussion...

 

The Mosquito Coast reference is mentioned on the main blog here.

The idea for this post began with the basic idea from this link: "There's no such things as clean energy".

There's no comment upon the clean energy assertion, because there may well be an almost totally clean energy solution being developed right under our noses. It's called Focus Fusion. Focus Fusion is aneutronic, which mean that no neutrons are emitted. This is clean because there's no destabilizing neutrons that will cause succeptible atoms to go radioactive. This means virtually no waste. There may be SOME, but hardly enough for anybody to worry about, but purists undoubtedly will complain about ANYTHING.

It may be true that there's no totally clean energy source, but this one is about as close as it gets in the real world. All radioactive emissions are put to use, and there's no waste. Only helium molecules will be produced. The results will be limitless "clean" energy for millenia or even into perpetuity.

Of course, the technology is still under development and may not pan out. But the latest results are quite promising. We'll see.

With respect to the The Mosquito Coast scenario, we've already had refrigeration since before widespread usage of electricity. An energy source applied to a Stirling Engine will produce cryogenically cooling power. A Stirling Engine only requires energy. It could use sunlight, fire, or basic animal power to drive the device. Stirling Engines have been around longer than steam engines. They can be used without any "greenhouse" emissions whatever.

Or they could be power with an aneutronic fusion device like Focus Fusion. It would be very, very clean; and very, very efficient. Better than solar, but that would be faint praise.

Focus Fusion has a fundraiser going... If you want to invest, remember this: this could be a trillion dollar invention if it works. Disclosure: I own 1 share.

What resource does Greenland have that we could use?

7:23 AM:

Water

The climate doomers say that if Greenland were to melt, it would raise the level of the oceans. Why not put all of that melted ice ( aka "water") to good use? It sure seems like it could come in handy in some places, like Collyfornia.

How to do all that? Well, if you can mine the North Slope of Alaska for oil, then you can move a crap load of ice off that giant ice sheet. Melt it down, or just load it up on tankers and cruise on down to the good ol' US of A. By the time the tanker got there, the ice should be melted. Pump it out, and send it to those empty reservoirs in Collyfornia. Maybe they could put out a few fires, or something.

You can move a lot of mass with supertankers. It says that each of those things can move 550k tons at a time. That's mucho agua, senor. The cost? To move it about 2 or 3 cents per gallon. You could bottle it and sell it for a profit at that price.

8:52 AM: A supertanker can hold 500k tons, which is enough to fill the empty reservoir near the Palisades fire near L.A.

Self-driving cars: A solution in search of a problem

This puts the cart before the horse.   Identify the problem first.    Then you can find the solution to that problem.

Here is a problem to solve.  Drunk driving is responsible for half of the fatalities on the highways.  Can self-driving cars solve that problem?

Let's imagine what technology could do for the drunk behind the wheel.

The kind of technology that enables self-driving cars could be used to enhance driving skills.   It could correct errors that could result in accidents.  Indeed, this kind of technology could help anyone become a better driver.   Why not use this technology this way, as opposed to replacing humans altogether?

Environmental OK for laser enrichment plant

world-nuclear-news

quote:

There are no major environmental reasons why a uranium enrichment facility based on laser technology should not be constructed by Global Laser Enrichment (GLE) in Wilmington, North Carolina, the US nuclear regulator has concluded. 

Comment:

A bit of speculation here:  could this be used for U233 as well?  This post will serve as a reminder to look into the problems with U233 and whether or not its handling issues can be solved.  If so, that would make setting up a Thorium cycle reactor which would breed U233 off world-- on Mars and the moon.  The significance of this is that it would end the necessity of launch fuel from Earth.

Update:

After spending some time looking into this, it appears that making U233 from Thorium and using it in fuel rods is a difficult, if not totally impractical idea.  But that is right up my alley.  lol

I got some interesting links out of it, though.

Solve for X: Rob McGinnis on global water scarcity

h/t Next Big Future

Absolutely amazing.

Basically he uses a more saline solution to get the water ( from seawater) to go into it, but the more saline solution has salts in it that are more easily removed from the water in order to purify it.  The water is heated, but not to boiling point, which means less energy is necessary.  The salts are easily recovered and recycled.

If you have the time, it is worth watching this carefully.