MortalWombat

How does it add excess heat into the environment? It's not creating heat, but focussing the already existing solar energy into a smaller area. No excess heat produced that I can see, unless I'm missing something.

The Other Michael

I was thinking that the oil that is produced might be more likely to find itself going to the plastics industry instead of being used a fuel. Wouldn't it be of more value as a raw material rather than fuel?

I've got no knowledge of the plastics and fuel industries that would let me evaluate that, so it's just a WAG on my part.

It would be nice if this would help cut down on the need for garbage landfills. But if the first commercial plant pays off I'd suspect we're still looking at 10 years before the new technology starts having much of a broad impact.

cheers,
Michael

ps418

Another thing to keep in mind is that at the same improvements are being made in the efficiency of renewable energy sources, the petroleum industry will be improving its ability to extract oil. One day when the big resevoirs of easily extractable oil start to wane, the industry will start extracting it elsewhere, for instance from low-grade oil shales, which contain hundreds of billions of barrels worth, and may well still be able to provide energy cheaper and more easily than any alternatives. The oil shale/tar sands oil can probably be extracted now for about 30% more per barrel.

I'm not saying that continuing dependence on fossil fuels is a desirable future, only that the alternatives will face extremely stiff competition from fossil fuels, certainly as long as people do not want to pay more for energy or reduce their consumption of energy.

Patrick

Corwin

One does try one's best.

I'm not saying it wouldn't be a workable idea, in fact there are a few facilities like that. (I don't remember if they produce actual power or if they're just experimental...) I wouldn't mind seeing us come up with something better tho, especially given my bias against the power grid. (I strongly favor decentralized power production.... unfortunately we have yet to come up with a workable turnkey solution.)

Want to stand next to the reciever?

I should have clarified.... it produces an increase in localized environmental heat. It wouldn't damage the overall global climate much... but it could wreak havoc with the local ecosystem.

Majestyk

Depending on the value of products produced in realtion to the engery required by the process, it could someday be worthwhile to "mine" existing landfills for material to depolymerize.

Nataraja

Two points

Okay, so a solar collector thingimubob needs nasty chemicals for production. However, that article says that the depolymerizer can eat such things (possibly not the kind currently used in solar collector whatsits) and turn them into useful and relatively environmentally friendly products. I don't know if the machine is designed with this sort of thing in mind, but it seems that our technology is really starting to catch up with our waste.

The other type of collector would certainly not necessarily create more heat in the area. You have just as much heat coming down in that area anyway, and a lot of it is absorbed. I don't really know much about how these things work, but if the gathered heat energy could be kept contained then I don't really see how there is a problem. There's my two cents; spend it as you wish.

Corwin

Yes but that heat is much more concentrated. There's enough energy in your backyard on a sunny day to vaporize a glass of water.... IF you concentrate the whole thing into one small point. Because we're in an atmosphere, that concentrated heat radiates off.

Look at it this way.... put a blowtorch against a large sheet of steel and part of that sheet will become hot, the rest will be warm, but still cool enough to touch. Do the same thing to a nail and it will become red hot. The fact that all that energy is in the regional environment isn't the problem. The fact that that regional energy is now concentrated into an extremely local area can cause problems. (Such as a substantial local increase in temperature.)

Desert environments are frequently extremely fragile.... doesn't take much to seriously screw them up.

Nataraja

I still say just use many different resources. The ones that are less effective or more environmentally damaging will eventually lose favor unless something such as the thermal depolymerizer comes along to help fix some of the related problems.

punta

The right tool for the right job aproach. A subtle, creeping energy revolution manifesting itself rather than waiting for the one dramatic shift. Sounds good.

About this move to Antartica thing you mentioned...

has anyone proposed tapping into Mt Erebus for geothermal energy. Maybe I can squat there and claim my own nation. Investors?

punta

Originally posted by Yggdrasill

punta:Would our using only the carbon "existing above the surface" really prevent buildup of atmospheric carbon?

Yes, because we would stop adding more carbon to the equation. When we pump oil out of the ground, we are taking carbon that isn't a environmental hazard and turning into such a hazard. If we stopped doing this, the total amount of environmentally hazardous carbon in the environment would stop increasing. So if the carbon in the atmosphere were to increase, we would have less carbon on the surface. If we reduce the amounts of carbon on the surface we would run out of construction materials, forests and the like. So, unless we burn all the forests and stuff like that, the levels of atmospheric carbon would remain stable.

Isn't the problem one of putting carbon into the atmosphere faster than sinks can remove it? According to the link on the bottom of Nataraja's article a smaller yet significant increase in atmospheric carbon was from surface carbon. Here:

So stability would come from removing carbon through sinks at the same rate it is pumped into the atmosphere. No?

punta:and wouldn't converting "buildings", "artificial objects of all kinds, and " industrial raw materials " into oil, really mean you are using belowground carbon as well?



No, because the carbon that would be reprocessed is primarily carbon that has at some point been taken from the atmosphere. Meaning that the total amount of carbon aboveground would not increase.

Primarily?

Of course, this technology would not prevent oil companies to still pump up the oil reserves, and I'm sure it is cheaper to pump it up instead of making it. So, it is probable that this technology would not slow down global warming or save the environment. But this technology would make life easier after the world's supply of fossil fuels has been consumed.

This was the latenite infomercial routine I was speaking of. If they are exagerating this much, that we know of, what else are they exagerating about; how clean their waste water is?