Comments by "mpetersen6" (@mpetersen6) on "Undecided with Matt Ferrell" channel.

  1. The elephant in the room is still overall electrical generation capacity.
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  2. The VAWTs have a number of advantages IMO. Yes I know their overall efficiency is lower but they also can be sited more densely. Also because the mast only needs to support the loads of the top bearing assembly and its associated loads the overall mass of the foundation block can be lower. Another factor in their favor is the generator is pretty much at ground level easing servicing by maintenance personnel.
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  3. There'stwo easy ways to reduce thew environmental footprint (finprint? flukeprint?). The first is simply cut down the amount of consumer goods. The second is to do more local manufacturing of goods. There was a sail assisted tanker built and operated in Japan back in the 70s or 80s
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  4.  @keenheat3335  The machine tool manufacturer Deckel Maho has a 5 axis combined 3D printer machining center. Only the 3D printer is a CNC controlled MIG welder.
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  5. Achieving fusion isn't really that hard. People have built reactors in home work shops. Of course these fall far short of break even.
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  6. I think of it as the Popular Machanics/Science effect. The futurist GHarry Stine once said that you should never believe the cover of Popular Mechanics. Magazine writers hear about the potential usefulness of a new material and then give the impression it ready for prime time.
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  7. High Speed Rail is fine in higher density areas of the country. There's actually a certain point distance wise where High Speed Rail is faster than flying with all the hassle at the airport. Outside that range flying takes less time. Maybe 20 years ago Car and Driver had 6 sets of travelers going from NYC to DC. The fastest was the person who I assume exceeded the speed limit by a considerable margin. Second took the Acxela. Third drove keep pace with traffic. Fourth place to the one who drove at the speed limit. Fifth was the one who flew. Last took the Greyhound. The journey was from one address in midtown Manhattan to a hotel in DC. The problem is when you get out into what is disparagingly called flyover country. Depending on where you live it may take two or three hours or more to get to an airport. As for HSR the passenger density simply isn't there.
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  8. One look at the NS Savannah should tell you something. If nuclear powered ships become a thing I can see ports being closed to them. Of course if compact fusion reactors ever become available.........
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  9. People have been thinking outside the box for twenty years or more. Robert Bussard was trying for p+B-11 twenty years ago.
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  10. Unfortunately when commercial fusion finally becomes possible I fully expect the Luddites and Anti Nuclear Power activists to oppose it with all of the might.
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  11. I'm still of the opinion that short of graphene battery technology the better option for electric vehicles is mechanical or flywheel batteries. Flywheel systems sc should offer faster charging times
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  12. It's almost a certainty that as soon as a lunar mining or asteroid mining operation starts somebody will seek to stop it because we need to "preserve" space. In fact some individuals were violently opposed to this back in the 70s because it would destroy the history of the early Solar system. Jerry Pournelle used to say about resources extraction in space the "it's raining soup and they won't let us have buckets".
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  13.  @josefstalin4532  Even though 4th generation nucs should be orders of magnitude safer the odds of overcoming political and public opinion/pressure is probably impossible.
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  14.  @jommeissner  OK, but you still have to build enough capacity to replace the existing fossil fuel infrastructure plus the capacity needed to support a completely electrical transportation sector. This includes not only the generating capacity* but the transmission lines along with the storage capacity for when your renewables aren't generating power. Little things like that inconvienent period between dawn and sunset along with periods when the wind doesn't blow. Another factor is the NIMBY effect concerning large scale wind or solar farms. The people in say Chicago might not care but the ones in bumfuck Iowa probably will. *we can probably afford to build the generating capacity in the West but what about in the so called Third World. Nations with lower economic resources, growing populations and severely strained public services now. I personally dont care if the generating capacity comes from advanced nucs (thorium or pebble beds), rooftop solar, ocean thermal (there was a pilot generating station off of Hawaii), wind, solar thermal or dust bunnies. We as a global society need to make a decision. As to energy storage rather than huge banks of batteries that use resources that might be better used in devices for base line power I really like the idea of molten metal or salt thermal batteries. Use your excess generating capacity to heat the storage medium and then when needed use that hot medium to heat a working fluid (water, nitrogen, CO2 etc) to run a turbine generator set. It might not be as sexy as a large bank of lithium ion batteries but it's probably cheaper in the long run. I'm not saying all of this is cheap. Or easy. Plus while all this is going on I personally think we should be putting more funding into research on fusion reactors. The DOE seems wedded to the Tokamak type of reactor. The current one under construction in France might achieve break even or excess power potential but in no way would lead to a working reactor. MIT has a design that is much smaller than ITER in France but has a design spec of a Q ratio of 2. That means twice as much energy out as going in. Plus MIT is designing the test reactor to be serviceable in that elements can be replaced if needed. Even if MITs test reactor cost $1B it would still be only 5% or less than cost of ITER. Besides the MIT program we should also be investing smaller amounts of money in alternative reactor designs that while they have a higher chance of failure also have a huge potential payoff. Think of them as the PowerBall of fusion research. Also a successful small fusion reactor would hand the Human Race the Solar System on a platter.
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  15.  @rogerstarkey5390  That energy figure for one gallon (US, Imperial, metric equivilant) is available right at the refinery. For power on the grid you still need actual generating, transmission and storage capacity. Maybe the UK isn't worried but it will probably be an issue in say the US. And please do not go down the road of public transportation vs private vehicle ownership. That's another issue. Besides the UK is 250k square miles. That's smaller than Texas with a much higher population density.
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  16. I think there is one reason we do not have a plan in place for disposing of or eliminating nuclear waste. Because if we have a viable waste disposal/elimination process in place that makes nuclear more viable. And that is something opponents of nuclear do not want.
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  17. You missed one 3D printing technology that has largely fallen by the wayside. 3D printing using layers of paper that are bonded together and cut one layer at a time. This was fairly widespread 20 to 25 years ago in industry as it could be used to rapidly produce prototypes for cast products without going thru the requirement of making patterns to produce one of or short run castings. Such a printer could also be used to produce items using other sheet material such as thin plywood. The method can have a high waste to product rate. Maybe 4 years ago there was a company in Ireland that introduced a desktop printer that combined an inkjet with a 3D printer. And people have been using additive manufacturing in home offices for decades now. Only it is on sheet at a time using ink or toner.
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  18. Subtractive manufacturing (stamping, machining) really doesn't produce waste. The processes produce high value scrap materials with very high recovery rates. Plus the different materials are segregated to a large degree. Scrap steel from stamping operations typically will get run thru a compactor to reduce volume resulting denser scrap that gets sold on to steel plants. Steel is still one of the largest recycled items worldwide
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  19. I have thought for a long time this is a far better option for an electric vehicle than chemical batteries. Just make sure they operate in pairs that spin in opposite directions. But if solid state batteries come on line maybe not. To me the major advantage for flywheel systems has always been recharge time. If you could pull into a charging station and plug in then spinning up in about the same amount of time it takes to fill your fuel tank that would convince a lot of people right there
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  20. So the company is called WASP. Hopefully they founders cleared that with Lisbeth Salandar. 😁 While I think 3D printing will have a major impact on the building industry at this point its overhyped. The whole built in a day neglects interior fittings, electrical and HVAC if any.
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  21. Let's see. You've managed to get that week or two of vacation you wanted. You plan on taking the family to a destination that requires flying time wise. And now you have to take a slower method of travel that eats into the time you have.
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