TechSpot - PC Technology News and Analysis

We Need the Tropical Rain Forest if we want oxygen and we dont pay brazil for it. What we want is oil and we dont need it and we do pay for it



so we pay for stuff we want and dont pay for stuff we need to breath u know

That is an absurd comparison. The world would just about shut down for everyone except the 3rd world countries without oil. Sure it wouldn't be as bad as having no Oxygen, but the 2 things are not comparable.

Did you know that majority of the oxygen is produced by by algae in water, not trees? Read up before going around chanting meaningless stuff.

There ya go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_cycle

Now go and do something useful like telling people about the greenhouse effect and stop this "running out of oxygen" rubbish.

I have to agree though. We have to stop using oil. It is killing the environment, sure, but the main reason is that at the rate we use it, we only have about 45 years left before we run out totally.

So most of the world is going to shut down in 45 years, because everyone knows that humanity as a whole never REALLY SERIOUSLY tries to fix something until something really bad happens.

Look at any human history. It's everywhere.

Yes, it is completely inevitable and goes like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

That's why we need to transition to biofuels. http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html

Maybe this article is a little far out, but hey, it's still better than hydrogen IMO.

Better than hydrogen?!? Hydrogen powered cars (not fuel cells) have 0 emissions. Only pure water comes out the exhaust.

And if we did use biofuels, not only would we still be polluting, but the amount of bio-oil that we would need would mean that a vast amount of farming space worldwide that would normally be used for growing food, would be growing biofuel instead. So then we'd have a solution to the lack of oil, but the world would starve before we really got to use that solution.

Whereas with hydrogen, it is A) the most plentiful substance in the universe, B) lets out 0 emissions, and C) would pretty much last us forever, since it can also be fused into helium in fusion power plants (scientists are trying to get them to actually work).

Heh.. Hydrogen is not that easy. It may be the most plentiful in the universe, but we are not actually going to space to fetch it, are we?

We get hydrogen from water. Also, when hydrogen "burns", it turns to water.
According to laws of nature, we therefore have to put in more energy to produce hydrogen than we will ever get from burning it.

So where do we get the energy to produce hydrogen?
Fossil fuels mostly..

And the cycle continues...

Seems we just keep using things with no regard to the outcome.

Windmills, the sun.

Why not just produce biofuels? According to the link I posted before, they shouldn't take away much, if any, farmland.

Of course it would. If you are a farmer, and you have a choice of growing potatoes,to sell for consumption, and get paid $10,000, or to grow corn, to sell to make fuel, and make $50,000, which one are you going to choose?

I personally think hydrogen and solar energy is the way to go. Another interesting thing is antimatter. It was something like 1/1000 of a gram of antimatter could power a car for its lifetime. Unfortunately it currently costs billions to produce.

I don't think the sun is going to "run out" anytime soon, unlike other sources of energy; That is why it would be great to figure out how to use it efficiently.

Solar energy is good, I agree, but the equipment is fairly expensive. Then again, however, I guess it would cost pretty much to establish a system described here.

Try reading that link. It may be a little far out, but it kind of makes sense.

Not only that, anti-matter is very difficult (and costly) to isolate completely from matter, since any contact with matter produces a very violent elimination reaction of sorts. The reaction of a kilogram of antimatter with the same amount of matter produces energy equal to burning about 5 and a half billion liters of gasoline.

The United States military is looking into because of that feature. It could potentially be an alternative to nuclear weapons (not sure if that is good or bad)

Nasa has also done a lot of research on the potential of using it as a fuel for a spaceship, that could take us to the "unreachable" parts of are universe.

As you said, it is very hard to isolate, and very hard to turn into energy..well in apportioned amounts at least.

Yet again.. Unless we find a huge chunk of antimatter somewhere (unlikely), we would have to produce it from "normal" matter. And, according to laws of nature, we would have to put in more energy than we would ever gain from antimatter.

Both antimatter and hydrogen are realy good to reduce pollution and make a great power source for moving things, but they are not a solution to the energy problem.

The only real solutions are "green" power sources (wind, sun, waves, bio* etc), traditional nuclear power, fusion power.

Yeh, it's called the universe, it think that is a pretty large chunk.

Same thing applies here. Plus how are you going to capture it, or even find it?
Solar, Wind, Hydro are the only really clean ways. If we have to go hydrogen, then the only logical source of energy for mass production is nuclear, we are still a long ways away from having solar panels being good enough for serious consideration. Wind requires special locations and vast fields, hydro is also pretty limited. Wind will piss off PETA because it kills birds, and hydro will piss off lots of people because you either have to flood areas, or make unsightly coastlines and also destroy some wildlife habitats.