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by jared＠hatwhite.com 13 Sep '07

13 Sep '07

>Its called EROEI -- Energy Returned On Energy Invested .... Invested, not >Input -- if it were INPUT, all fuels would have EROEI's of less than 1. As >it turns out, using current techniques and technologies, EROEI for hydrogen >is FAR LESS than 1, while oil is probably more like in the range of 30 to >100 (depending mainly on the grade of oil, depth, and extraction method). >Now, in terms of EROEI, there are several things that have greater-than-one >values that are NOT fuels, such as windmills and solar panels and wave >generators -- we can make these on a relatively "cheap" energy budget, then >use them to HARVEST energy that WE (humans) don't have to invest ... >because it comes from the sun, or from gravitational forces, in the case of >wave energy. This is an important statement because you are showing how, by shifting to another domain, energy becomes "free" (EROEI > 1). It's not actually free, but it appears so because we're utilizing a resource which replenishes without any significant material effort of our own. Now take this same principle, and shift the domain to THE ONE IMMEDIATELY GREATER THAN THIS ONE. It has no name, because we just created it, and it is theoretical at this point. That means that all basic assumptions can be refactored, because the thought experiment is entirely theoretical, and anything can happen. Just as changing a single axiom of Euclidean geometry changes EVERYTHING, we can do the same for this mess of assumptions we have inherited. And we can do so "six times before breakfast," as the saying goes. For example, the assumption that there is no such thing as overunity is really just an extremely well established assumption, so well established that it is assumed a "law" but in fact, it is nothing more than a very well accepted assumption. Go:del proved in mathematics that _any_ well-developed system cannot prove some of its own assumptions, and therefore they must be accepted without proof, meaning that we accept them on a basis which is really quite similar to "faith." Once this enters the thought experiment anything is possible. And yet all of this is entirely logical so far. Once anything is possible, then it is easy to shift into the domain immediately greater than the present one (which everyone 'assumes' is the one and only true one, until someone like Copernicus comes along and says "well actually we're all entirely wrong..."). Thus by using plain and simple logic and the ability to apply principles in different domains, we can create the appearance of a system where E > mc2. Within our current set of assumptions, it will appear that we can acquire greater energy than mass times the speed of light squared. But within the greater set of assumptions, E is still operating as we currently understand it. Remember this is all theoretical so far. I hope at least one person is following the logic, because by using this line of thinking, we can: 1. Realize that our current concept of light is flawed, and it is actually a gas in a larger system. 2. See that whatever is a gas can become a liquid, and whatever is a liquid can become a solid. 3. Wonder what happens when light becomes a solid (instead of gaseous "particles" which behave in a wave pattern by some measurements) -- a completely solid block of light. Like a quark star? Maybe. Who knows. 4. Begin experimenting with ways to achieve a solid light state, and thus create (or find) a resource which has so vastly much more energy than we can comprehend now, that it might as well be considered "infinite" for all our ability to measure it. 5. Convert a tiny amount of this "infinite" supply of energy into supplying the entire grid capacity of the planet earth, and do away with those pesky oil zealots using entirely peaceful means. Kind of like refrigerators did away with the ice zealots... or, manufacture a "suitcase" variety, selling it cheaply to the masses, and become richer than Bill Gates squared. Hmmm. Cubed. The basic idea is that, instead of working within the limitations of our current system, which we can call "linear and categorical" for its obvious inability to go beyond its own crude limitations -- break out of the box, and look at things holographically, that is, from all directions at once. Then we don't have to put up with one Einstein per century, we can handle fifty or sixty of them per decade. Or of course, you can stay within your inherited assumptions, never questioning them, and forcing everyone who questions them into belief by cursing, insulting, and pounding on the table. -Jared

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Re:
by Joe Fish 13 Sep '07

13 Sep '07

No, I can't, that was my point. I've read that there is conjecture that there may be conditions where it does not -- such as before the big bang, during a "Big Crunch". In other words, assuming the Universe existed before The Big Bang, there had to exist some means of getting the universe to the state it was at the beginning of The Big Crunch -- and if the universe that existed sometime before that event was like ours (ie, always INCREASING in entropy), then there are those that philosophize that there must be some conditions in which that "old" universe went from a state of higher entropy (like our universe now) to a state of lower entropy, or higher "order", ie, the perfectly-ordered universe that consisted of all matter and energy at on millionth of a pinpoint spot and the rest of all space-time consisting of utter nothingness. As I said, this is more a matter for quantum physicists and philosophers (I sometime wonder if there is a difference ... ;^) than it is for me. As an engineer, I consider the 2nd Law to be just that ... a LAW. JOE On 9/12/07, Billy Crook <billycrook(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > can you name a situation where the 2nd law of thermodynamics does not > apply? > >

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ultracapacitors are off-topic
by David Nicol 13 Sep '07

13 Sep '07

it is my understanding that recharge rate for lead-acid batteries is largely limited by cable size, and that practical quick-charge stations have been built which charge a stationary back-up pack, which is connected to an equivalent-voltage pack in the hobbyist's wheels, allowing a rapid recharge as the packs equalize. Useful if you're delivering pizza in an EV or something like that. yawn an ev fueling station obviously has to have some kind of local store and pull a leveled load from the grid. Jared may have been referring to genuine research in his ternary way http://www.google.com/search?q=stopping+light -- The Wisconsin Employees' right to know law regarding toxic substances specifically exempts Lutefisk -- Wikipedia

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Needed, bad ASUS Board
by Earle Beason 13 Sep '07

13 Sep '07

Asking to see if anybody has a bad ASUS board, I just had a M2NPV-VM commit infant suicide half way through loading Ubuntu., I troubleshot it down to a T042/69 chip which appears to be either a transistor or a voltage regulator, not sure since it has propriatry part number.

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(no subject)
by jared＠hatwhite.com 12 Sep '07

12 Sep '07

Not sure why my subject-lines keep disappearing. I hope this one gets through. You _could_ respond: "But you have completely and fundamentally misunderstood the basic laws of physics, you misapply them with absurd and empirically unproveable logic, and you are nuts!" Interesting assumption that you have in your system. I removed that axiom from mine some time ago, and am having a blast. Try it. It's kind of fun. http://tesladownunder.com/ -Jared

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Re: Have you seen this!?! Burning saltwater
by Joe Fish 12 Sep '07

12 Sep '07

> > 4) The idea that we shouldn't use hydrogen as fuel > because it takes more energy to extract it than it > will deliver is silly. The only way to get fuel > that takes less energy to produce than it takes to > make is to pump it out of the ground, and I'm not > entirely certain even that is true. Incorrect. Hydrogen makes no sense as a fuel EXACTLY because it takes more energy for us to produce it RIGHT NOW, than it gives us back RIGHT NOW. Oil takes more energy to produce than it gives off also, but that's unimportant, because the energy input was from the sun millions of years ago, but we can get the output NOW, with far less energy than we have to put in NOW. The same goes for wood, even though its sun energy is put in more or less contemporaneously with our use of it (ie, the sun puts in energy over the course of sometime during the last 100 years, we burn wood and get that energy back NOW). Its called EROEI -- Energy Returned On Energy Invested .... Invested, not Input -- if it were INPUT, all fuels would have EROEI's of less than 1. As it turns out, using current techniques and technologies, EROEI for hydrogen is FAR LESS than 1, while oil is probably more like in the range of 30 to 100 (depending mainly on the grade of oil, depth, and extraction method). Now, in terms of EROEI, there are several things that have greater-than-one values that are NOT fuels, such as windmills and solar panels and wave generators -- we can make these on a relatively "cheap" energy budget, then use them to HARVEST energy that WE (humans) don't have to invest ... because it comes from the sun, or from gravitational forces, in the case of wave energy. The question hydrogen skeptics are asking is, once we have this power generated, why waste a huge portion of it making a fuel, just so Fat Bastards in the fuel-distribution business can keep their jobs? Why not just use the energy directly, instead of shifting it all around into different forms? All THAT said, it does take energy input and materials to make batteries or some other means of storing the energy to propel a vehicle, assuming you want some sort of system where the vehicles don't have to travel along energized tracks of some sort. So the question really becomes, can this (or any tech) make it so the currently-exorbitant-and-unrealistically-huge cost of electrolysis and creation of precious-metal-intensive fuel cells are actually cheaper and more efficient than simply creating batteries and using the generated electricity (almost) directly? And don't even get me STARTED on how impractical hydrogen-as-a-fuel is in terms of STORAGE losses ... Do you think it > costs less to produce batteries than it does to > produce an energy equivalent of Hydrogen? Actually it does ... especially considering the creation of the fuel cell to USE that hydrogen, which nobody's come up with an economical way of making without the extraordinarily rare metal PLATINUM -- the reality is that, without a breakthrough in that area, we CAN'T use hydrogen as a viable fuel, because we DON'T HAVE ENOUGH platinum to create fuel cells for our huge fuel-using infrastructure. All that said, this technique may be useful for > extracting Hydrogen. It needs to be determined if > it takes less energy to do this than other methods of > extracting Hydrogen. At this point, this method could reduce the energy input for electrolyzing hydrogen by an order of magnitude, and creating hydrogen for fuel STILL wouldn't make good engineering sense ...

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Have you seen this!?! Burning saltwater
by Jeremy Fowler 12 Sep '07

12 Sep '07

Radio frequencies breaks apart the hydrogen and oxygen in salt water - watch it burn! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kKtKSEQBeI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6vSxR6UKFM The oil companies are going to be pissed!!! Oh man, I hope this isn't a hoax!

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move to california, work for Google
by David Nicol 12 Sep '07

12 Sep '07

I have been asked to forward this link to local mailing lists so here it is. Recruiter contact available on request. http://www.google.com/support/jobs/bin/answer.py?answer=23591

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Kernel panic as an unneeded event.
by Oren Beck 12 Sep '07

12 Sep '07

Ok folks, here's a mindset wrench. CAN we make a set of fallbacks to allow a certain minimal function allowing a potential "panic" to seek external help? This help could come from either defaults designed to establish a session with human agents or some AI mimic. Starting from the point I have left us at where it is taken as not arguable that a Knoppix concept routine set CAN establish a remote session and functional remote console interface, then the external intelligence hopefully could complete the Linux install. Constructive comments anyone? Oren Beck "So, you mean there was a time when an installer did NOT include remote support?"

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(no subject)
by jared＠hatwhite.com 11 Sep '07

11 Sep '07

There are -101 types of people in the world. -1 Those for whom the glass is half empty. 0 Those for whom the glass is an infinite holographic energy flow which redefines quantum mechanics to qualitum mechanics, as well as providing 12 essential vitamins and minerals. 1 Those for whom the glass is half full. -Jared

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