fossil fuels, and reducing the need

[miriam_e]

Almost every technology we have relies upon fossil fuels. We need to work out ways to break that chain of dependency. I don't count using oil to make plastics as an example of a bad thing, but I do see the use of oil as fuel to run the processes in making that plastic as bad. Plastics are amazing materials that we should value more. Correctly used they are light, flexible, resilient, non-toxic, and can last thousands of years, potentially being handed down to our descendants. Using them for disposable items is obscene.

We could use solar furnaces instead of oil and coal for almost all industrial processes that currently require fossil fuels, but it does require effort. And it would help to have a government which is not corrupt and whose heads are not buried in the sand.

The most important change is to design our buildings properly. We've been building them badly for thousands of years and it feels like we've learned almost nothing over that time. They are our biggest standing consumer of energy -- much worse than transport. We need to insulate and light them sensibly so that they need as little additional heating, cooling, lighting, and shading as possible. It is actually easy to do.
● Clerestory lighting and skylights, and ponds or other reflective surfaces oriented correctly outside windows can greatly reduce the need for artificial lighting.
● Insulation and passive convection heating and cooling, can vastly reduce energy needs, especially if a sunroom is used to gather heat in cold climates, and appropriately calculated roof eaves ensure light is admitted in winter, but not summer. Strategic placement of deciduous trees can also help in this respect.
● Building underground, if designed with sensible lighting and heating/cooling can bring great improvements to many aspects of homes and commercial buildings:
- better thermally insulated
- greater thermal mass (so they change temperature slowly)
- much better sound insulation (play the drums without upsetting the neighbors)
- double use of your land (you can still use the land on the "roof")
- safety from bushfires, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, and if designed right, even floods
- better protection from thieves and other hostile invaders

Any other thoughts?

Comments

[greylock]

I'm also a little disappointed they are concentrating primarily on producing fuel, mostly diesel, as far as I can see.

Sadly, there's just more of a ROI on that.
I'm not surprised they're keeping quiet.
I suspect the tech won't work.
The kinds of people investing in it.... worries me.
It suggests other, smarter people have doubts.

If we could move most mining and refining (and possibly some manufacturing) off Earth we would eliminate some of our planet's worst burdens.

I've researched a few articles on 'space mining' and there are a few issues.
The first is obvious. Do we really want to mine the moon, or asteroids? Do we trust NASA or anyone to move an asteroid into orbit? Because as soon as we can do that, we're pretty much in mass driver territory.

The second, the transportation costs are pretty rubbish for bulk commodities (iron ore and bauxite) because they are so common on Earth.
Even at the good old days of $150/tonne they're not viable.

The electricity goes to the wealthier members of those societies, not the poor, he was saying.

True, that. They're looking at electrifying in PNG (around Ramu) which could give three million people access to power (gas fired) using the income from PNG LNG. Which is nice.

China is closing down its coal-powered generators in Beijing and coal demand generally has fallen by about 10% recently, I believe.

I'd be wary of those numbers. Not the trend, but specifics.
China has all the benefits of 1960s era environmental issues, and a 21stC economy. Plus a central government.

I suspect a lot of people will do the same and the dopey power companies will suddenly find they killed the goose that laid golden eggs.

I consider grid connection a net social good. Not everyone will have renewables, and it's good to have redundancy.

You simply build down instead of up.

True, but you can only go down so far.

[miriam_e]

Pity about the ROI for diesel being such a motivator, though I can understand that. It will be interesting to see whether the tech pans out.

Most of the stuff I've read (and written) about space mining concentrates on mining at the asteroid(s) and sending the raw material to the refinery, which would be at one of the Lagrangian points (probably L1). One of the big advantages is that there's good reason to think a lot of it is pretty-much pure metal. The nickel, more than anything, would pay for it and iron would almost be free. On Earth our iron was oxidised (rusted) in our oxygen atmosphere, mostly by bacteria, over hundreds of millions of years. Out there in space it may be available as large chunks of metal from the cores of wrecked planet(s). Admittedly this is largely speculation, but there are good reasons for thinking this may be so.

Transport costs in space (once out of the gravity well) are negligible, especially if the EM drive turns out as hoped. And when the space elevator is built even gravity won't be much of a problem. There is even some possibility that the EM drive might make lifting to orbit cheap, but I need to read more there.

I know there is a big list of "ifs" in the foregoing. :)

I'd trust NASA to deliver goods across vast distances with pinpoint accuracy. They already do this routinely. My only qualms are that it will probably not be NASA so much as dozens of get-rich-quick companies.

I consider grid connection a net social good. Not everyone will have renewables, and it's good to have redundancy.

I agree 100%. I've tried to argue this with politicians, but they seem to be all about casting solar users as "cheats", and want to find a way to reduce the incentive to stay connected. When they manage to do so they'll find that more than a million homes currently grid-connected will drop off and they'll lose that enormous backup.

When digging down for high density housing you don't really need to go very far to get terrific density. Remember, underground you don't need to leave room for roads the way you have to on the surface. Roads, parks, and even rivers can have housing built under them, while leaving the surface as pristine-looking parkland. And there are very good reasons to move roads underground too. One of the things I hate most about cities is that they tend to be built on the most fertile and naturally beautiful land, which gets promptly paved over so nothing can grow there anymore, and gets turned from an area of natural beauty into a horrible scar that is actively hostile to life. (I'm biased against cities, I know. I grew up in the bush.)