Comments by "mpetersen6" (@mpetersen6) on "New Mind" channel.

  1. When it comes to putting radiation into your body I always get a kick out the banana as the perfect food commercials. Some of the potassium atoms in the banana are naturally radioactive.
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  2. Digital_Jedi, fusion is closer today than it was 20 years ago. I'm sure ITER will run at a +Q reaction cycle but I have serious doubts that ITER will pave the way for commercial reactors. The MIT proposal is a better bet IMO as far as Tokamak type reactors go. For several reason. It's designed to test maintenance issues for one. Second it is taking advantage of material sciences work that has led to the commercial production of higher temperature superconductors that can be used in the magnets that generate the containment fields. Plus the MIT design is reasonably small. But at the same time I would like to see some of my tax dollars used to fund some of the start-ups looking at more unconventional designs. Given the size of the US budget two or three billion is small change. Maybe they wouldn't work. But if they did the payoff is huge.
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  3.  @MrMartinSchou  I know I'm not opposed to Solar. But I do recognize that for baseload power there needs to be serious overcapacity built in order to accommodate the day night cycle. So far the only two Solar based power generation methods I know of are hydro and Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion. Hydro depends on rain and snow that originates as solar driven evaporation. OTEC and it's related OTMEC depend on the temperature differential between cold deep water and warm surface water. For solar (whatever type) and wind* we need ways of storing the required power needed for those times when one or the other isn't producing any power. Fortunately there are storage systems out there. And some of them do not require the large investment in battery farms. The first is pumped hydro. This is currently in place in a few locations. Excess power is used to pump water to a reservoir and the water is released to spin turbines. Enclose the system and you can keep evaporation to a minimum. We should be able to do the same thing with heavy weight raised to a height and allowed to fall at a controlled rate. The cable system that raises the weights does double duty as a generator set. And no I'm thinking of the stupid proposal the uses large numbers of weights that need to be lowered to mate precisely with the previous one. Build a tower with x number of lifting shafts in its core. In the shafts have a large steel container. Fill the container with sand, rock, gravel whatever. But don't use concrete. The goal is cut CO2 production after all. The lifting/generator system is at ground level. This makes any servicing easier. Then around the outside wrap the tower with residential apartments, office space etc. The building does double duty. How much energy could be generated by 1 MT falling 1 meter. Of course it's not going to be 100% efficient. Nothing really is. Raising the weights are going to take more energy than the system can put out. But then so does pumped hydro. A third method for large Solar Thermal facilities is to concentrate the sunlight to melt a heat sink. Molten salt. The molten salt as it cools it heat is used to vaporize a working fluid or gas to spin a turbine. A forth type would use large flywheels spinning in a vacuum chamber supported in magnetic bearings. Musk likes to promote the battery solution. Small wonder. He's in the battery production business. When it comes to small scale energy storage hopefully the iron/air batteries will reach the market. One estimate I've seen is that one battery the size of an average washing machine could store enough juice to run the average home for up to three days. Longer if you cut power usage. But not everybody who owns a home can afford to install Solar. Also what about renters? You think that property owners are going to install solar out of the goodness of their hearts. They're in business to make a profit. In reality we do not have a shortage of energy. We have a shortage of public and political will. For large wind farms I think we should be looking harder at the vertical axis machines. For several reasons. I know they are not as efficient as the conventional machines. But 1) While not as efficient they can be spaced closer together. 2) By they're very nature they allow the generator set to be placed on ground level on a solid foundation. Not up at the top of tower. The only mechanical system you should really need at the top is the rotor bearing 3) Being at ground level and mounted to a foundation you eliminate the requirement to rotate the turbine into the best orientation. 4) The generator set being at ground level is easier to service. 5) Without the loads placed on the tower by mounting the generator set at the top of the tower the tower should be able to be built lighter. 6) The tower being lighter and needing to withstand less wind loading the foundation should be smaller. Just how big of a foundation does the average commercial wind turbine need?
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  4. Language beats them all.
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  5. Believe it or not but in the early 1900 the Ampco Corporation which specialized in Aluminum Bronze alloys introduced an alloy intended for making cutting tools for machining steel. The tools produced from the alloy were superior to the carbon steel cutting tools common at the time. Of course once HSS cutting tools became common the need went away.
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  6. Whether we choose to build new fision plants or not we still need to deal with the spent fuel and waste issue. Sometimes I think the reason that anti-nuclear activists seem to fight any proposed solution is to prevent nuclear from becoming an option.
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  7. One can produce a flat surface by hand. Only you have to produce three flat surfaces at the same time constantly checking the three surfac s against one another. This is how the tirst surface plates were made.
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  8. CNC machines controlled by punch tape can trace their origins to Jacquard Looms used in the textile industry for weaving complex repeating patterns.
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