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The Something Awful Forums > Main > General Bullshit > THATS HOT -- USING THE SUN FOR ENERGY!! SOLAR POWER MEGATHREAD MOD APPROVED
 
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Smugworth
Apr 18, 2003

 I have a tree in my yard that would probably block all my solar energy and I like trees more than not burning coal, which is in fact dead trees, crazy huh

* # ¿ Dec 3, 2022 01:43
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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 04:32
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Smugworth
Apr 18, 2003

 My poo poo posts will blot out the sun

* # ¿ Dec 14, 2022 22:36
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Smugworth
Apr 18, 2003

Internetjack posted:

I had a professor that worked at Lawrence Livermore in the '60s and '70s. He worked on the early fusion research and materials development. I'm sure its been upgraded and changed since his day, but he described the laser cannons to us.

Imagine a laser cannon the size of your living room; perhaps your whole house. Now take 6 of those and target them onto a single microscopic point. It takes a couple of hours to charge them all up, and even then there will be a huge pull on the local electric grid when fired. They had to fire at 2 AM to avoid causing a blackout. Even then though, it caused brown-outs on occasion.

The achievement in successful fusion is monumental. Its like inventing the wheel, penacillan, TV, walking on the moon, etc. It just takes a poo poo-ton of energy, and would need to be done many times per day to reap the benefits and make it a viable source of power for society. But they did proof of concept. We'll probably not see it in our lifetime, but after 100 years of refining the tech, it'll be one of the new and greatest advancements of human kind.

Also, on the advice of my professor, "You do not want to live anywhere near that lab."

I'll just keep using gasoline in my lawnmower thanks

* # ¿ Dec 16, 2022 19:23
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Smugworth
Apr 18, 2003

roomtone posted:

i've been watching a few videos about wind and solar power and now i'm starting to get pissed off that these things aren't having all the money thrown at them as fast as possible to completely get rid of fossil fuels except as an emergency resource because all i'm hearing is there's enough wind and solar potential to fill the world's energy needs many times over if we'd get our poo poo together

like a week ago my attitude on climate change was eh, probably gonna be horrendous but what're you gonna do. now it seems like the problem is purely political. i'm probably being just as simplistic on the other side of it now.

is there a good, short book which covers this sort of stuff written in the last few years i could read to get a better idea of what the hold up is and what the potential actually is?


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snakes_in_Suits

* # ¿ Dec 17, 2022 01:55
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The Something Awful Forums > Main > General Bullshit > THATS HOT -- USING THE SUN FOR ENERGY!! SOLAR POWER MEGATHREAD MOD APPROVED