/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.3859591]

the mining of rare earth elements for the development of solar panels is not actually sustainable

[Anonymous No.3859594]

True. But modern solar panels won't need rare elements.

[Anonymous No.3860115]

kawaii Saber :3

[Anonymous No.3860146]

>Solar-thermal
>STILL more efficient than modern photovoltaics
>No rare or expensive materials required

[Anonymous No.3860168]

>>3859591
Ok well arnt solar panels recycleable? What if we use thermal energy, hydroelectricity, solar, and wind power. Sounds like an abundance of power to me...

[Anonymous No.3860176]

With LFTR we can recover rare earth materials from the "waste" products of the otherwise-common (and otherwise somewhat useless) Thorium.

[Anonymous No.3860226]

Nuclear power >> all.

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.3860234]

The mining of rare earth elements in asteroids for the development of space-based solar is very sustainable (Warning:Mayrequiretechnologynotavailableuntil2020.)

[Anonymous No.3860248]

>>3860234
>Go to great expense to recover asteroid
>Recover minuscule scraps of the desired resource

[Anonymous No.3860254]

>>3860226
I heard that China has a hydroelectricity plant that produces 80x the electricity of the typical nuclear power plant.

[Anonymous No.3860269]

>>3860254

Three Gorges Dam

Provides power for all same-continental cities.

This wonder increases your city's likelihood of creating a Great Engineer

[Anonymous No.3860280]

Luckily, rare earth elements are not destroyed by being used in solar panels.

[Anonymous No.3860281]

>>3860254
That's true of most hydroelectric plants. They're not very common (owing to the rarity of geographical features that can be exploited by them), but they're fucking MASSIVE.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_power_stations_in_the_world

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.3860291]

>>3860248
>Launch rocket with ~40 mining robots, ~6 larger construction robots, a bunch of part molds for things like robot chassis, tools, wheels and a small LFTR
>Launch another rocket filled with enough fine electronics like circuit-boards and visual sensors for 500 robots. Small foldable electromagnetic mass driver. Also plasma gasification unit for vaporizing asteroid rock into constituent elements, with a small centrifuge to separate elements from each other.

- Both deposit payload on ~1 mile diameter asteroid, stuff begins firing up. LFTR and PGU establish themselves in a crater, start connecting to each other and mass driver.
- Robots just chip away at asteroid rock and float around the asteroid slowly via wheels and small canisters of compressed gas, which can be replenished from the gas extracted from asteroid rock
- Robots dump rock into chute of PGU, PGU uses arcs of electricity to vaporize everything into an elemental gas, centrifuge apart, and use asteroid itself as a radiator.
- Stockpile elements required to build more parts for robots, use part molds to make 95% of the robot. Use shipped-from-Earth circuit-boards and stuff to complete. More workers!
- Mine away at the asteroid gradually with primitive AI and occasional human control. Asteroid should begin firing some mass in order to make its orbit closer and more regular to Earth's during this time.
- Fire precious metals and elements with a rough cast-iron/nickel 'heat shield' (read: disposable) and small enough so it doesn't make a huge crater when it lands.
- Small jets affixed to sides of payload to Earth, fired via mass driver, on approach it adjusts its course to land in a designated impact area, like a wide desert.
- Collect and resale.

[Colonel Coffee Mug !phJ7yIcs.Q No.3860296]

>>3860291

Also this: http://www.islandone.org/MMSG/aasm/

[Anonymous No.3860311]

>>3860291
I don't think you have a realistic idea of how much of said resources are in the typical near-earth asteroid, or the massive amount of infrastructure that goes into just FINDING these rare-Earth elements on Earth, LET ALONE processing them.

[Anonymous No.3860343]

>>3860280
> Luckily, rare earth elements are not destroyed by being used in solar panels.

If you believe that old solar panels are put ANYWHERE but in a landfill along with the rest of construction debris, you're fucking delusional.

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.3860353]

>>3860311
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%286178%29_1986_DA
>(6178) 1986 DA is a 2.3-kilometre-diameter M-type Mars-crosser and near-Earth asteroid, notable for being significantly more radar-reflective than other asteroids. It is an Amor asteroid, which means it approaches the orbit of Earth from the outside but does not cross it.

>Asteroid 1986 DA achieved its most notable recognition when scientists revealed that it contained over "10,000 tons of gold and 100,000 tons of platinum", or an approximate value at the time of its discovery of "$90 billion for the gold and a cool trillion dollars for the platinum, plus loose change for the asteroid's 10 billion tons of iron and a billion tons of nickel."[3]

[Anonymous No.3860382]

>>3860353

Sounds like a great idea, eh? Firstly, bringing that sort of resource to the Earth market with today's crippled space-access systems will cost trillions. Secondly, bringing that much metal into the market anyway will cause prices to crash, thereby obviating the effort.

You tards on /sci/ need to read a few books on economics. Economics is what drives Humans, not science.

[Anonymous No.3860421]

>>3860254
superior in general, I mean
you can't have plants like that in U-rope

[Colonel Coffee Mug !phJ7yIcs.Q No.3860423]

>>3860382

>bringing that much metal into the market anyway will cause prices to crash, thereby obviating the effort.

You do realize some things are valuable because of their uses and not their rarity, right?

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.3860428]

>>3860382
>Economics is what drives Humans, not science.
Congratulations, you've admitted Economics is not a science.

[Siegfried !84wCgAg.OU No.3860456]

>>3860423
>implying that they'd be that expensive if they werent rare

He's arguing that abundance (or a lack of it) defines the price, not usability. They'd have to lower the price if they intend to sell enough of it to cover costs + get profit.

[Anonymous No.3860468]

>>3860423
> You do realize some things are valuable because of their uses and not their rarity, right?

Are you fucking serious? Splashing that much gold and platinum on the world market would cause a serious lowering of price. You retards are this in love with gold that you somehow believe that the law of supply and demand doesn't apply to it?

[Colonel Coffee Mug !phJ7yIcs.Q No.3860472]

>>3860456

Under any realistic scenario, you probably wouldn't bring much more than a few hundred tonnes to Earth, and that's still pretty fucking expensive. Platinium is a candidate for room-temperature superconductivity, and even if it were a minor element of a superconductor it would still be expensive regardless of amount.

Well mostly regardless.

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.3860496]

>>3860468
>launch back materials at the frequency you want
>can choose to lower the price slightly compared to competitors selling rare Earth elements, end u pmaking back all your money and then some
>you still have 80% of the asteroid in rare metals
>dump them all on the market at once, watch the BUY GOLD conservatives panic
>still end up filthy rich

I don't think you realize how much +1 trillion is for a company.

[Anonymous No.3860503]

Consider also that most of gold's "use" is just retards buying up a yellow metal because they believe other retards will pay more for it. They are not using the metal at all.

Dump 10 kilotons on the market, and most of the buyers will panic and dump, and with all of the sellers selling, very few buyers will bid down the price. The price will collapse.

The only way to avoid that is to mine 10 kilotons of gold in secret and then dribble it onto the market. How fucking likely is that?

[Siegfried !84wCgAg.OU No.3860504]

>>3860472
500 tons is nearly three times the world yearly production of platinum. If they intend it to be a single trip which will bring money over the next 10 years, okay. Otherwise, they want to sell the shit, and the only way to do it is by lowering the prices. Seriously, it's an awesome thing, why the fuck are spacefags ignoring this fact?

[Anonymous No.3860511]

>>3860468
>Implying that quantity of gold or platinum would even put a dent in the global precious-metal market
I see you have a very poor understanding of large numbers.

[Anonymous No.3860514]

>>3860496

And I don't think that YOU realize that you can't conduct operations like that in such secrecy. Fucker, we KNOW how much gold you've got there in your deposit (ie. the asteroid).

[Anonymous No.3860526]

>>3860254
More like 5 to 20x

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.3860529]

>>3860514
Then let the market price collapse. We'll have a new Aluminium to play with for modern electronics.

[Siegfried !84wCgAg.OU No.3860535]

>>3860511
>yearly world production - 2500 tons
>a wild company with 10000 tons of gold appears
>not gonna affect the price at all

Look, it's awesome that it is x billions, but if you think you are going to sell it in any near time, you are going to lower the price. Significantly.

[Anonymous No.3860539]

>>3860514
I'm not saying diamonds
but diamonds.

[Anonymous No.3860547]

>>3860529
The problem is that YOUR SCHEME IS TOO FUCKING EXPENSIVE. It's not even viable in today's market where rare-earth metals are incredibly expensive, what makes you think it could possibly work in a market where said metals are even cheaper than they are now?

Fuck, you're delusional.

[Anonymous No.3860557]

>>3860529
> Then let the market price collapse. We'll have a new Aluminium to play with for modern electronics.

That won't happen, since the provider will know that that will happen, so he won't make the effort to provide it.

DUH.

[Anonymous No.3860565]

>>3860535
>Somehow magically able to strip an asteroid of ALL it's precious metals within a single year, yet unable to mine at the same rate on earth
Reserves on earth are a shitton larger than the ENTIRE MASS of that asteroid. Like I said, that asteroid won't even make a dent.

[Anonymous No.3860573]

>>3860146
Hell yes, solar thermal power.

[GayEmoBetch !.pCLIFaWNg No.3860611]

What's a matter libertarian faggots? I thought the free for all market would free up LFTR?

Yeah, capitalism isn't merely retrenching the most lucrative fossil fuel energy companies. In order to entrench global infrastructure in such fuels and make it even more painful to shift off burning hydrocarbons.

Yeah, instead of investing in thermo solar or LFTR ... or even buying out patents on such technology in an insidious fashion to gain a monopoly on all energy sources... they're wasting capital on buying ads on Pandora and CNN to convince you to stay on fossil fuels...

Full Retard America

[Anonymous No.3860614]

>>3860573
>Cheap reflector array
>High-temp ceramic collector
>Ground-coupled heat exchangers some ~50 feet down where the soil is cooler
>Stirling-cycle engine in-between to recover energy
Best solar energy scheme currently available. That said, I'm not a big fan of solar energy, but that won't stop me from taking an engineer's approach to how it should be done.

[Anonymous No.3860620]

>>3860614
It's not made of unicorn giggles, but it's a hell of a lot better than trying to run everything off of corn ethanol. *shudder*

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.3860623]

>>3860547
I would estimate that at the very most such a mission would cost 10 billion. AT THE MOST. Remember SpaceX are offering much cheaper kg to LEO, and that other projects such as the Skylon Spaceplane have been approved. China is working on LFTRs, and there are working plasma gasification waste disposal sites in places such as Taiwan.

[Anonymous No.3860643]

>>3860623
>I would estimate that at the very most such a mission would cost 10 billion. AT THE MOST.
That's fucking retarded, given the cost of other missions that escape Earth's gravity well on a price/payload basis.

[Anonymous No.3860648]

You do realize when you post that reddit reaction pic nobody takes you srsly anymore.

[Siegfried !84wCgAg.OU No.3860651]

>>3860565
It has twice as big average abundance on said asteroid.

>>3860623
Using advanced robotic technology we don't have, either controlled by AI we don't have or by humans with a 30 minutes reflex time.

[Anonymous No.3860662]

>>3860623
>Skylon Spaceplane have been approved.
Your delusions know no end. Also, LEO =/= THE SURFACE OF A FUCKING ASTEROID.

[Anonymous No.3860671]

>>3860662
but LEO is space, and once you're there you're golden right?

/sarcasm

[Anonymous No.3860692]

>>3860611
> What's a matter libertarian faggots?

Libertarians don't advocate staying on an economy of depleting fossil fuels.

Hear that ringing noise? It's the clue phone. And it's ringing for YOU.

[Anonymous No.3860696]

>>3860671
Yeah, like how Apollo only had to get halfway and then the Moon's gravity pulled them the rest of the way. I watched Apollo 13, I know what I'm talking about.

[Anonymous No.3860707]

>>3860696
Right. If it weren't for the moon's gravity, they would have to fire the rockets the whole way there. Constant force = constant motion.

Newton? Who's Newton?

[sage No.3860711]

>>3859594
>>3859594


wrong. all solar technology requires rare earths:

plastic solar cells
dye sensitized solar cells
amorphous, polycrystalline, and single crystal silicon

even mirrors heating gasses technology requires it.

even heating the ground, causing convection currents in tunnels dug under the ground, piping the heat through compressor blades mounted inside big tall cylinders requires it.


Rare earths are either directly incorporated into the material itself, or they are absolutely fundamental to their construction/synthesis.
if aliens came to earth to take our natural resources... it would not be for fissionalbe isotopes, gold, petroleum, water, oxygen, or even just real estate.


it would be for our Rh, Re, Pt, Pd, Ir, Gd, Hf, etc.

[Anonymous No.3860720]

>>3860711
SOLAR THERMAL POWER, HOW DOES IT WORK?

You're talking about photovoltaics.

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.3860723]

>>3860643
You're launching two rockets with perhaps 20 tonnes in them apiece. You really think it's gonna cost over 6 billion?

>>3860648
Wouldn't let me post the original picture, 'Duplicate image detected'

>>3860651
see
>>3860234
This is something we should set as a goal 10 years in the future, while developing the specific technologies that rope in all these existing inventions into play.

>>3860662
But it can take payload into orbit, can it not? Construct a small rag-tag spacecraft, the cargo locks together and a small rocket to fire it toward the asteroid using a launch that requires minimal energy to get to it. Could be in orbit until the destination for a year, who knows.

>>3860671
The atmosphere is 95% of your problem when launching shit. Or at least that's what I learned from Kerbal Space Program.

[Anonymous No.3860727]

>>3860711
Lay off the crack, bro.

[Anonymous No.3860734]

>>3860723
You're ignoring the central claim. A mission outside of Earth's gravity well is far more expensive than LEO, especially on a per-kilo basis.

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.3860741]

>>3860734
It is. But I'm saying it's not ASTRONOMICALLY large as you seem to think.

[sage No.3860744]

>>3860146


BWAHAHAHAHAHAH


those stirling parabolic mirrors are a dead technology. They have been around since day one.


they have no momentum and no one thinks they are worth a damn.

the only reason they are not dead right now is because of the "green energy cold war" industrial complex that is currently going on in the government.


for fucks sake we are funding larger solar plants based on silicon technology than stirling solar (yes, gigantic hectares covered in microchips, vs stirling engines powered by parabolic mirrors)


besides, those things are horrendously expensive to maintain.

much much much worse than those half-cylinder mirrors that heat pipes filled with a working fluid.


parabolic mirrors like that require motors to track the sun, and they need to be cleaned weekly to maintain their efficiency.


they are only really useful to power small facilities located in extremely isolated areas like islands or in countries without infrastructure.


they pretty much require some form of grid storage, and the only really useful grid storage for small scale is the Vanadium redox battery.

the downside is that you need to build a warehouse to house big gigantic tanks full of water and you need to have massive tanks full of extra electrolyte solution.

[Anonymous No.3860749]

>>3860723
>The atmosphere is 95% of your problem when launching shit. Or at least that's what I learned from Kerbal Space Program.
They lied to you. 95% of the problem is getting sufficient delta-v to orbit. If Earth had no atmosphere (for some reason), the cost of space launches would not be reduced by factor of 20. It's more like 95% of the problem is the delta-v.

[Anonymous No.3860751]

>mfw this is the most advance humans get in their history

Incoming plutocracy and service based industry ala Feudal Europe!

[Anonymous No.3860750]

>>3860723
>20 tonnes in them apiece.
PFFFFFFHAHAHAHA
>The atmosphere is 95% of your problem when launching shit. Or at least that's what I learned from Kerbal Space Program.
Look at newer updates in KSP. The old atmosphere was unrealistic; since 0.10.1, this problem has been more or less rectified (the drag model is still wrong though).

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.3860758]

>>3860749
Air resistance doesn't help.

>>3860750
Will check out. Sounds fun, was damn hard getting anything very high with stock parts unless you build some Hydra monstrosity.

[Anonymous No.3860762]

>>3860744
>shiny surface
>expensive to maintain
No.

Solar thermal power is one of our best sources of energy going forward. And you don't need tracking, necessarily. Start here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_thermal_energy#High-temperature_collectors

[sage No.3860771]

>>3860720

>SOLAR THERMAL POWER, HOW DOES IT WORK?

>>3860711


>even mirrors heating gasses technology requires it.

>even heating the ground, causing convection currents in tunnels dug under the ground, piping the heat through compressor blades mounted inside big tall cylinders requires it
nope.
Rare earths are fundamental in pretty much any form of mechanical system that involves high efficiency heat engines of any form.

the best example are engines powered by turbine blades (all major thermal solar works by pushing a hot gas through turbine blades).


Turbine blades are made out of Rhenealloys, which are specifically chosen for the following properties:

1) high refractory properties
2) low hysteresis properties.


its such a big deal (the rare earth issues relating to turbine blades) that GE, Pratt and Whitney, and a few Japanese companies literally had to SHUT DOWN PRODUCTION OF TURBINES (for jet airplanes and powerplants) when China did its recent 96% reduction in rare earth exports.

GE and P&W famously had to shut down production for like 8 month while they went "back to the drawing board" and redid all their metallurgy.

[Anonymous No.3860779]

>>3860758
>Air resistance doesn't help.
Of course not. But that's pretty damn far away you're moving your goalposts now. Make sure you update your beliefs accordingly.

[Anonymous No.3860791]

>>3860771
> Rhenealloys
Google doesn't know WTF you're talking about.

However, to be fair, steam turbines do require powerful magnets, the best of which are made of rare earths.

[Anonymous No.3860793]

>>3860744
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_power_stations_in_the_world#Solar_power

Solar-thermal is still king. It will ALWAYS be better, too, since PVs are more expensive and have a theoretical maximum efficiency of 30% - lower than that of current solar-thermal systems (INCLUDING steam cycle ones).

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.3860796]

>>3860779
If the United States were to sink money into NASA for this, it would help a load with the current status of the US and its manufacturing base. Any modern electronics would severely drop in price if it's using any of the metals dumped on the market. Aluminium used to be rare as hell as little as 100 years ago, more expensive than gold. And now it's so ubiquitous in industry! Abundance of elements stimulates the creation of new, profitable and still cheap inventions that previously would not be able to take off because some element they used was too precious. And while NASA is at it, study LFTRs a lot more for commercial power production. Electricity prices dropping also helps industry.

[Anonymous No.3860805]

>>3860796
Aluminum didn't drop in price because we found more bauxite ore.

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.3860811]

>>3860805
Aluminium dropped in price because a process was introduced that could smelt it properly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium#History
>Before the Hall-Héroult process was developed in the late 1880s, aluminium was exceedingly difficult to extract from its various ores. This made pure aluminium more valuable than gold.[46] Bars of aluminium were exhibited at the Exposition Universelle of 1855.[47] Napoleon III, Emperor of France, is reputed to have given a banquet where the most honoured guests were given aluminium utensils, while the others made do with gold.[48][49]

[Anonymous No.3860814]

>>3860254
If only we had unlimited rivers to dam.

[Anonymous No.3860819]

>>3860811
Glad we agree.

It seems your argument has silently shifted to "good technology is good". I can get behind that.

[sage No.3860820]

>>3860762


lets be clear.


there are 4 or 5 main types of solar/thermal.

the 2 main ones are used to build big gigantic power plants on multiple 10s of thousands of acres in places like New Mexico and Arizona.

those that use fixed mirrors that point directly up into the sky. the downside to these is that they have a very limited amount of generation capabilities, and most of the day is spent at way below their maximum (Basically only at high noon do you get the maximum output, because when the sun is at either side, some of the mirrors are not at 100%).

the other major one is filds of mirrors that move along the arc of the sun's trajectory. these power plants have big servo motors that control the mirrors and track the sun. Ever seen Gattaca? they filmed a scene at a power plant like that.

in both cases, the mirrors point at long tubes filled with a gas that is heated by the mirrors. The gas is then pumped inside of a big building where there are turbine blades that are spun around by the heated and compressed gasses.

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.3860827]

>>3860819
I'm simply arguing that we're on the edge of what technologies are required to have minimal investment in such a endeavor compared to massive returns. Advancing technology is always good.

[sage No.3860829]

>>3860820
one of the newest "hopeful" technology are based on individual parabolic reflectors, with the focal point typically occupied by individual heat engines like Stirling engines (because they are highly efficient) regardless of what you are intending to do with it... ALL PARABOLIC ANTENNAS MUST TRACK THEIR TARGET. your satellite dish for TV? you need to point it at the satellite radar dishes on ships? they spin around or point directly at targets. a parabolic microphone used by the FBI to track your pedophile movements? pointed directly at the target. they need big motors to turn and tilt the mirror at the sun. they also need to be cleaned REGULARLY because even small amounts of smudge drastically decrease the overall efficiency of these designs.

Big solar plants are major water hogs. They require tons of water to keep their mirros clean.

The other 2 types are based on a big field of mirrors all pointed at a big tower/column containing the working fluid. These are usually arranged in big circles with the tower at the center. The tower contains a working fluid that, again, pumps through turbine blades

the last one is similar, but instead of using mirrors, the sun basically just bakes a black surface, which heats gasses underneath. these gasses are piped into a central column which is equipped with a turbine blade.

that last one is also used in a variety of ocean based systems (big columns in the water that spin turbines based on differences in the heat between long distances in the water)

[Anonymous No.3860833]

>>3860820
The downside of fixed mirrors is real, but I think you are overestimating its impact. There is no silver bullet - but there are solar thermal solutions that look like a very good inclusion into the mix of human power going forward.

No, thousands and thousands of LFTRs isn't going to work, especially in the near-term. We won't be able to rely on them alone - oil will disappear too quickly, and with energy demand rising.

[Anonymous No.3860834]

>>3860382
>Say that we shouldn't harvest a resource because it would cause a drop in prices
>Tell others that they need to read up on economics

10/10, I raged.

[Anonymous No.3860841]

>>3860834
He's not saying it shouldn't be done ever. He's saying there is currently not enough benefit to justify this allocation of resources, as opposed to just mining what we have here (for now).

We aren't even recycling rare earths.

[sage No.3860854]

>>3860829
>>3860820
the biggest problem with solar of ANY type are:


1) efficiency (most barely produce a net energy gain)

2) natural resources intensive (they all suck up water like fucking crazy and require huge amounts of real estate)

3) grid storage (they only produce electricity for about 8 hours per day, so they require some form of battery or kinetic/potential energy storage mechanism to be useful)


many of these problems apply to other forms of green energy as well (Wind, Tidal, and Geothermal).


at the end of the day, 40% efficiency is the best you will ever get out of a thermal system and only in a dream world (thermodynamics is a bitch, aint it?)

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.3860856]

>>3860833
>No, thousands and thousands of LFTRs isn't going to work, especially in the near-term.
China's on the job, so if they make good, working ones by 2014, why not?

>We won't be able to rely on them alone - oil will disappear too quickly, and with energy demand rising.

Pass a law in America stating all cars sold in the United States are flex fueled by 2016. The difference is around $100 in price, with slightly different software for the fuel injector and more corrosion-resistant fuel lines and so on. Other automakers aren't walking away from the American auto market. You've just made an entire market for other types of fuels that cars can run on, with the rest of the world following your example. Then use the LFTRs to begin creating stuff like Ammonia, Methanol and Dimethyl Ether for vehicles, weaning yourself off oil and the need to import it in such large quantities. Problems of peak oil become much less of a problem if you have cheap electricity and your oil supply is going to last much longer if you don't have everyone BURNING IT IN THEIR GODDAMN CARS.

[sage No.3860866]

>>3860791
>>3860791
>>3860791
I apologize, I spelled it wrong.


"rene alloys" is the correct term that applies to the (original) class of high refractory low hysteresis materials used in the production of high performance turbine blades for use in coal, natural gas, and jet turbines.


the "overall" class of material that includes the newer alternative base material is called:


Super Alloy


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superalloy


Rene alloy:

>Examples of superalloys are Hastelloy, Inconel, Waspaloy, Rene alloys (e.g. Rene 41, Rene 80, Rene 95, Rene 104), Haynes alloys, Incoloy, MP98T, TMS alloys, and CMSX single crystal alloys.

[Anonymous No.3860871]

>>3860841
> He's not saying it shouldn't be done ever. He's saying there is currently not enough benefit to justify this allocation of resources, as opposed to just mining what we have here (for now).

Correct. But /sci/tards are woefully ignorant of the hard realities of economics. A businessman won't do DICK unless he's assured of a profit. Crashing prices really threaten that profit, often assuring that profit becomes impossible. Therefore no capitalist will embark on the venture, and that's even more true today than ever.

[Anonymous No.3860882]

>>3860871
But in this case, that crash in price would be an actual reflection of change in value. Meaning it really is communicating that you shouldn't be as excited about doing it as you would if you assumed infinite fixed-priced demand (a bizarre assumption).

[Anonymous No.3860885]

>>3860793
>since PVs are more expensive and have a theoretical maximum efficiency of 30%
1. For a single-junction cell, at least
2. Efficiency is honestly a very small factor, what's important is output to cost. It's not like you're really paying for sunlight anyways. Better to have lower efficiency panels at a low cost than high efficiency panels at a very high price.

[Anonymous No.3860887]

>>3860866
Thanks.

I'm still under the impression that you can more easily get by with non-superalloy turbine blades than you can get but with non-rare-earth magnets, when it comes to steam turbines. Of course, I don't have direct knowledge of that.

[Anonymous No.3860892]

>>3860885
Not that guy, but especially the way rare earths are going, I bet solar-thermal is going to be win the price/KWh race. What's the current breakdown for large-scale plants?

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.3860893]

>>3860871
see
>>3860496
Look, the businessman can be a dick and just keep trickling the rare earth metals on the market and make back all of his investment within 5 years, if not less. Everything after that becomes profit, as you're not spending any money on the workers who are mining. Everything is self contained there. if something breaks down, a molded component that was made previously of the now-broken component gets grabbed and replaces the broken part.

[Anonymous No.3860904]

>>3860893
The point is that it doesn't currently make sense. Rare earths are currently too cheap, and industrialized asteroid mining too expensive, to be profitable. Meaning we should spend our efforts and resources elsewhere, for the time being.

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.3860911]

>>3860904
We are at odds. I reckon it should be done ASAP. But that's the end of that debate.

[Anonymous No.3860933]

>>3860892
Don't know, but last I checked, CdTe PV cells cost less than a dollar a Watt. Lifetime varies, but 80% output at 25 years seems to be a fairly safe assumption.

[sage No.3860935]

>>3859591
>>3859591
>>3859591
>>3859591
>>3859591
>>3859591
>>3859591
>>3859591
>>3859591
>>3859591
>>3859591
BTW, now that I can finally get to my point after thoroughly slamming all arguments for thermal solar as a genuinely good technology (hint: there is none)
Here is the deal with rare earths..... i have to say this because the information presented in the journalistic sources is extremely misleading and often incomplete:
WE ARE NOT RUNNING OUT OF RARE EARTHS.


throughout the 19th and 20th century, there were a handful of mines all throughout the world that produced rare earth elements. The major ones were located in California, Russia (possibly a former soviet country, not sure), and Australia.... possibly also Canada. there are others but those were the main ones.

China, after rebuilding their infrastructure in the 1970s, began a process of government-sponsored economic development. Being a communist country, the government itself subsidized everything in order to make their economy internationally relevant. one of the many results of this general policy was that they began subsidizing a variety of mining activities. They did this to the point that they literally put these other mines, located in Russia, Australia, and North America OUT OF BUSINESS China was exporting kilotons or even megatons of rare earths. dirt cheap. no one could compete. They shuttered the doors of the mines and closed up shop. Recently, however, China has severely cut off the flow of these exports to the point that prices have absolutely skyrocketed. we are not running out. Rare earth supplies will last much much longer than Petroleum supplies. CURRENTLY those mines that were shut down all over the earth are GOING BACK INTO PRODUCTION. Small operations are starting up all over the world. this "shortage" was ECONOMIC, not GEOLOGICAL.... the earth's crust is rich enough in rare earths so as to never present a problem with supply.

[Anonymous No.3860936]

>>3860893
you know you're describing DeBeers, right?

[Anonymous No.3860943]

>>3860935
> after thoroughly slamming all arguments for thermal solar as a genuinely good technology (hint: there is none)
Your arguments as irrationally extreme as they are loud.

Show some numbers and evidence if you want to be convincing.

[Anonymous No.3860944]

>>3860935
We're not running out of oil ever, but that doesn't mean that supply will be insufficient to meet demand.

[Anonymous No.3860945]

Nest gen solar panels will be made of little more than carbon and silicon, which are practically unlimited.

[Anonymous No.3860951]

>>3860944
>We're not running out of oil ever

>We're never going to run out of rare earth metals
what the fuck is wrong with you idiots?

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.3860952]

>>3860936
I do. But something interesting is that the only businessmen taking an interest in space for profitable reasons are the enthusiasts, who seem to be more world-centric people. My hope is that when it does happen, they'll try to do it to recoup their costs and then lower the price of such useful elements drastically.

[Anonymous No.3860959]

>>3860951
Pretty sure he means it'll eventually just get unprofitable enough that we're forced to switch to other energy sources but because of that switch there will always be some crude around in the ground.

[Anonymous No.3860960]

>>3860945
why not just move the earth closer to the sun?

[sage No.3860963]

>>3860933


>80% output

BWAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHah

the higest efficiency out of a PV cell is 40%

that is from silicon based systems. There are "concentrated cells" that require mirrors to focus the light that can exceed that efficiency, but they are limited by the fact that it is cheaper to just fill that area up with solar cells, rather than put a concentrated cell at the focal point of a bunch of mirrors

CdTe max efficiency is around 20%..... that is very good for bulk produced semiconductors, but nowhere near Silicon.

the upside of CdTe is that its cheap. and we havent even gotten "started" with CdTe....

Silicon is only even remotely cheap because of the existing infrastructure dedicated to the semiconductor industry.

we have had purificaiton facilities making boules of single crystal silicon for decades

no such massive industry exists for CdTe..... if the technology gains a true footing, then the price will only decrease.

its difficult to gauge the prospects in the "green energy" (because none are green, they all involve extremely toxic production and high maintenance costs, making their net "green" effect dubious at best)....

just because someone somewhere built a powerplant using some particular technology means nothing whatsoever.

governments all over the world are literally throwing money at green technology.... so a "not quite there" technology or "stepping stone technology" (like hybrid cars) might SEEM LIKE its the solution....

but that is just because politicians are willing to give you money so that they can put "green" on all their election posters.

[Anonymous No.3860967]

>>3860951
And he never said we'll NEVER run out of rare earths, just that it's not a problem in the foreseeable future.

[Anonymous No.3860968]

>>3860951
I'm fairly certain he missed some negations. He probably meant that we're not going to run out of oil entirely, but supply will be unable to meet demand at current price levels, and price will get very high until consumption and supply equilibrate again.

We'll stop putting it in our gas tanks, that's for sure.

[sage No.3860993]

>>3860951
>>3860951


we are never going to run out of rare earths.


if you ever thought that was a "mounting problem" because you read it somewhere or someone told you;

1) you are an idiot and didnt understand

2) the person/writer who told you was an idiot and does not understand.
we are currently at an economic impasse with china, because china has been playing economic games/warfare with the rest of the world regarding rare earths.


they literally used their governent's economic structure to shut down EVERY SINGLE RARE EARTH MINE ON THE PLANET.

no one had a mine in operation since about 1990 through 2005.

no one. no where. anywhere. Except china.


but we have had rare earth mines all over the world for over 100 years.

we only stopped because it was not economical to continue.


china has changed things. prices go up. it now becomes economical to mine it ourselves.


companies open up old mines and create new mines.


they purify and sell their product because prices are now high.
we are not running out of rare earths. rare earths are just expensive because China cinched down the noose on their supply line.


understand, child, and one day you will go far.

[sage No.3861005]

>>3860967


we will never run out of rare earths.


just like we will never run out of oil.
there will always be both. but as people have pointed out, eventually their costs will eliminate certain applications of their use:

oil: gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel, etc.


rare earths: various electronics and metallurgical uses will become too expensive and we will focus efforts at replacing them.
the earth is large. we will never truly "run out" of any natural resource.


we would be living in space with miles of scaffolding below our feet before we truly RUN OUT of any natural resource.

"running out" is a term that is used to refer to a point where a particular application of a resource become too expensive to justify using that resource anymore.
remember kids, we have barely scratched the surface of our planet in terms of most natural resources.


WE WILL NEVER RUN OUT.


and many different technologies WILL ALWAYS REQUIRE THE USE OF CERTAIN RESOURCES;


pharmaceuticals will always require petrochemicals

heavy electronics industry will always require rare earths.


the costs will always be justified, even if the costs go up substantially.


get it through your heads:


WE WILL NEVER RUN OUT.

[Anonymous No.3861025]

>>3861005
We're already at .72 on the Kardashev scale. We're already near mastering this planet. You're also underestimating how much a petroleum or silicon shortage will affect life as we know it; sure, we'll adapt eventually--life tends to do that--but not without substantial civil turbulence and the retardation of scientific advancement.

Preempting those problems is a very desirable thing to do.

[sage No.3861030]

>>3861005


also I should point out that "running out" is always used in conjunction with a particular use....


we will "run out of oil" with respect to gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel for transporation.

we will "run out of rare earths" with respect to cheap electronics and various other highly specific types of technologies.
however, if you need rare earths to build MRI machines, or you need petroleum to synthesize drugs to treat cancer patients....


no realistic cost is too high.


$50,000 a kilogram for the yttrium you need to make superconducting magnets?


not expensive enough to justify replacing it.


$1,000 a barrel for petroleum? not expensive enough to replace it as a feedstock for producing the pharmaceutically relevant petrochemicals.


that is 5-10x the current cost of the most expensive of both categories.


50-100x is still not expensive enough to replace them....
and even then, the solution would be to recycle old shit....

even if costs are insane, its still there.


we never destroy the matter....


biofuels are just recycling the petroleum we burned into CO2

[sage No.3861036]

>>3861025


>retardation of scientific advancement


since when?


>silicon shortages


lets be clear: there is no silicon shortage.

there is a shortage of single crystal silicon, became demand has come up against the wall of production.


silicon purification is nasty business involving nasty chemicals and pollution. Its the reason why most, if not all, of the facilities are located in China, where they do not care about the environment one bit.


what is the solution?


build 2 more facilities for producing boules of silicon.


its probably already being done, honestly.

[Anonymous No.3861045]

Fuck it.
Why don't we invest in beamed power from solar statites?

Dirt cheap electricity.

[Anonymous No.3861051]

>>3861036
>since when?
In a hypothetical low-crude scenario where natural fuels are no longer a sustainable source of energy for transportation and heating.

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.3861053]

>>3861045
Cost to launch it up would be expensive enough to not make it dirt cheap. Asteroid mining would severely reduce the price of such an operation, as asteroid materials could be slowly refined into a photovoltaic statite over time in orbit.

[sage No.3861061]

>>3861045


because its not dirt cheap.


Satellites are horrendously expensive.. Electronics that can be used in space are also horrendously expensive, and extremely shitty.


did you know that if you took a modern laptop into space, outside of the Van Allen Belt, that it would literally stop working?


the particle radiation in space is high enough to actually destroy the crystal structure of modern high performance semiconductors.


the type of shit you use in a spacecraft or ultra high altitude satellite is equivalent to a Pentium 2.


literally 100 nm fabrication is too small because the defects introduced by particle radiation will affect the performance in a short timespan.
good god, if they could send modern electronics into space, we would already be on mars....

but they basically have to make due with 1980s technology on everything sent past the magnetic sheath.

[Anonymous No.3861066]

>>3861061
>What is a Faraday cage

[sage No.3861071]

>>3861053


>asteroid mining

>in orbit


orbit of what planet buddy? as far as I know there arent any asteroids near earth, and wont be for at least a decade or 2.


besides, the type materials needed to purify any mineral cannot be brought into space.


unless you want to launch gigantic canisters filed with Chlorine gas, Flourine gas, Methane, Phosphane, Germane, carbon tetrachloride, etc. into space.


personally I consider that to be insanely dangerous..... much more dangerous than the potential of launching a nuclear reactor into space.

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.3861072]

>>3861061
Would having a hull filled with a few inches of water protection help enough? I hear water is a hell of a radiation shield.

[sage No.3861079]

>>3861072


no. Carbon and boron are much much better.


one of the best radiation shields is boron doped polystyrene. (next to lead of course, since its dirt cheap).


>>3861066


>what is particle radiation

>what is electromagnetic radiation


massive bosons and fermions vs massless bosons brosky.


faraday cages would be fine if all that was involved was photons.... but thats not the concern.


Even X-rays of sufficient energy will go right through a metal faraday cage, however....

[Anonymous No.3861080]

>>3861079
Stop putting so many damn spaces in your posts. It makes me doubt your rationality.

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.3861082]

>>3861071
>orbit of what planet buddy? as far as I know there arent any asteroids near earth, and wont be for at least a decade or 2.
Near-Earth asteroids can be nudged into a wide orbit around Earth. China's already talking about how to do it.

http://www.geekologie.com/2011/08/china-lets-trap-an-asteroid-in-earths-or.php

>besides, the type materials needed to purify any mineral cannot be brought into space.
>unless you want to launch gigantic canisters filed with Chlorine gas, Flourine gas, Methane, Phosphane, Germane, carbon tetrachloride, etc. into space.

I've already spoken about extracting individual elements in this thread.
See:
>>3860291
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_arc_waste_disposal

[Anonymous No.3861097]

>>3861072

>hull breaches
>computer systems fry
>space hulk IRL

[Anonymous No.3861099]

>>3861079
Then use solar reflector statites and beam the focussed light back to Earth.

Or, you know, solar thermal.

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.3861105]

>>3861097
Add something to the water to make it freeze much easier in presence of a vacuum?

[Anonymous No.3861110]

>>3861105
Or use heat pumps.

[Anonymous No.3861114]

>>3861099

So, to avoid the inefficiencies of light going through the Earth's atmosphere, we launch a satellite to...beam sunlight down through Earth's atmosphere?

>>3861105

Wouldn't the outer hull be quite hot what with the naked exposure to the sun?

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.3861117]

>>3861110
I don't know how well that would work, as you want to keep the people inside warm and carrying a lot of radiators isn't very practical.

[Anonymous No.3861124]

>>3861117
Just separate the water filled hull and the crew compartment by vacuum and use separate radiators for them.

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.3861134]

>>3861124
If it can be made and shown to work, sounds alright.

[Anonymous No.3861175]

>>3861114
The cost of launching satellites shouldn't be underestimated, but a satellites can beam in frequencies that are less strongly absorbed by the atmosphere than the unmodified solar spectrum.

[Anonymous No.3861176]

>>3861134
Here's an example.

[Anonymous No.3861183]

What about solar thermal statites?
Wouldn't that work?

[Anonymous No.3861195]

>>3861183
...
I'm not sure what you're referring to. Are you referring to statites that are orbiting the sun?

Solar thermal makes sense on the surface of a planet, but I'm not sure if it's the best solution in space. Do steam turbine cycles make sense there?

[Anonymous No.3861215]

>>3861195
Yes, I mean the sun.
I don't see what the difference is between a planetary surface and a sealed airtight container is.

[Anonymous No.3861221]

>>3861215
You might have a good point here. I'm not sure what the best power-harvesting method for solar statites is, but at least some of it has to be harvesting energy from heat gradients, even if you have a high efficiency on a process that converts the solar energy to chemical formats.

[Anonymous No.3861232]

>>3861221
Use the inner surface of the statite to collect heat, connect it by way of a thermal engine to a surface parallel to the statite that radiates heat away.

[Anonymous No.3861262]

>>3861232
pic related.
Red is the hot inner surface, blue is the radiating surface, purple is the heat exchanger/thermal engine.

[Anonymous No.3861269]

>>3861262
fuck

[Anonymous No.3861280]

>>3861262
>>3861269
It'll all come down to the cost and efficiency of the mechanism that extracts energy from the heat gradient, and there are several basic kinds, like steam turbines and thermoelectric materials.

[Anonymous No.3861375]

but all rare earths are more plentiful than silver ,other than promethium, yttrium is twice as plentiful as lead and cerium is in 25th place for abundance from discover magazine july 2011

[Siegfried !84wCgAg.OU No.3863734]

Last few posts:
>how does thermal dissipation work in the fucking space

[Anonymous No.3863744]

>>3863734
blackbody radiation

[Siegfried !84wCgAg.OU No.3863758]

>>3863744
\sarcasm
I am aware of Stefan Boltzmann law, but you need a material of perfect emissivity to make half of the shit you are talking about.

[Anonymous No.3865015]

>>3861082
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_arc_waste_disposal
I like this! Absolute disintegration of waste! AN excellent use for early LFTR stations, maybe?
Would it work for radioactive waste, or make it worse?

[Anonymous No.3865077]

To everyone who says "SOLAR POWER IS DERP", please follow the following links:
http://www.stratosolar.com/
http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/02/stratosolar-for-concentrated-solar.html

Floating (via gas bladders) solar cells above 50% of the atmosphere, tethered to the ground by robust cables. At that altitude, they also receive more unfiltered light and have longer 'days'.