Friday, February 03, 2012

Energy-disaster conversions by Arthur Smith

I don't have much value to add, just go read him convert between energy scales between earthquakes, nuclear bombs, power plants, and the sun.  What interests me is how large human energy uses are, that a 1 GW power plant produces more energy in a year than is released in fifteen Magnitude 7 earthquakes.

In the end, the sun wins.  Go solar!

9 comments:

David B. Benson said...

And the sun's energy comes from...

Anonymous said...

Most wise Bunny,

O/T, this, but I couldn't resist:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/03/sheep-herding-rabbit?newsfeed=true

I hope you enjoy!

Regards,
Taylor B

Nick Barnes said...

David B. Benson: The sun's energy comes from the proton-proton chain reaction. Which we have no chance of reproducing here on earth. What's your point? See also http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/01/nuclear-fusion/

Martin Vermeer said...

Actually the p-p reaction enables the much faster (strong-interaction) follow-up reactions producing helium and a lot of energy -- which we might be able to do down here.

But yes, p-p guards the pass.

David B. Benson said...

Nick Barnes --- Two points: (1) the nuclear fusion device in France has already produced a (small) net energy; (2) think nuclear, even if only fission, rather than havesting photons.

Anonymous said...

@Benson : it did ? I did not remember hearing that, could you please point me to the announcement ?

bratisla

Martin Vermeer said...

According to this article, Q = 0.7 is the best so far:

http://www.iter.org/sci/beyonditer

Pretty good actually. But note this is plasma energy break-even only. You need to also cool your superconducting magnets, keep the vacuum, reprocess the lithium blanket, etc. etc.

David B. Benson said...

bratisla --- That's what I remembered from a local conversation, but Martin Vermeer seems to be on top of it.

Anonymous said...

thanks for the answer !
I follow ITER from times to times, so I wondered if I missed something in this field (which is not my field, so I'm far from up to date)