Geothermal Power

It occurred to me in the cold heights of my bathroom (where someone saw fit to leave the window open throughout a snowstorm) that geothermal power is a really, really, really, dumb idea.

"B-but it doesn't create any pollutants! It's natural! It's eco-friendly, man," one might retort.

Those are all good points. Except the last one. The last one is as short sighted as many eco-geeks are. I will now guide you through the reasoning why making ventures in geothermal power is a bad fucking idea.

1. The Earth was created well over 4 billion years ago. (Argue. I dare you.)
2. When the Earth was created, it was very rather warm.
3. The Earth today is rather cool in comparison, however the centre is still molten hot.
4. The molten hot centre is made of iron which, while moving, creates a magnetic field.
5. This magnetic field shields the Earth from many of the Sun's rays that are harmful to living things both directly and indirectly.
6. Recall the previous data: Earth was hot, but cooled. The centre of the Earth is hot. If we extrapolate this data we can predict that the centre of the Earth will cool.
7. Recall point 4. If the centre of the Earth cools, it stops being molten. If it stops being molten, it stops moving. If it stops moving, it stops creating a magnetic field.
8. Recall point 5. If there is no protective magnetic field around the Earth, then the harmful rays from the Sun will reach the surface.
9. This is the most important point. You and the majority of the living things you want to be eco-friendly towards live on the surface of the Earth.

So tell me, why exactly do we think it's a good idea to punch holes into the surface of the Earth and vent out all the heat? Because it's such a huge source of energy that we'll never use it all? Yeah, you said that about fossil fuels.

Thinking Room

When it comes to thinking, I do the most when I'm in the bathroom. But tonight I was in bed trying to sleep and I got some pretty crazy thoughts.

In descending order order of occurrence:

1) Fine! I'll sign up for twitter.

2) "Up where they walk, up where they run, up where they play all day in the suuuuuun!" Fuck, I need to watch the Little Mermaid.

3) When we talk about the speed of light and that nothing can go faster than it, we fail to consider what the speed of light really is. We often think about it as about 300 million meters per second. We say "about" because we think that we don't know what the exact number really is because light moves to fast. But consider this:
We know that light cannot escape the Schwartzchild radius of a black hole. At this point, gravity is greater than all things, one of which being the momentum of light. Light must necessarily have a mass and therefore momentum (or analogous properties) if it is to be affected by gravitational force. To put plainly, light is slowed down to the point that it cannot escape a sufficiently dense mass.
We also know that light is bent by the gravitational force of all massive objects, notably stars. When an object's trajectory is changed it undergoes an acceleration. Acceleration is a vector. For example, when you jump up and down, your velocity is altered by the constant acceleration downward. For every moment in time, you can calculate your new instantaneous velocity by combining your last velocity and your acceleration. There is a point where your speed decreases so much that you stop. Like light at the Schwartzchild radius, you cannot escape the gravity of the Earth.

Now, we can conceptualize what happens when an object like a person slows down. A car travelling at 50km/h decelerates (or negatively accelerates) to 20km/h. We can imagine a car that was travelling fast, is travelling slower, and even a car that is stationary due to an acceleration causing it to have a velocity of zero.

Here is my main point: What the fuck does slow light look like? We imagine things like light turning into longer waves, like radio waves, when they are subject to a black hole. If gravity changes only the frequency of light, then how does it also alter its velocity in the case of gravitational lensing (where light bends around massive objects)?


Shit like that just blows my mind, man. I'm sure someone has it all figured out, but it still keeps me up at night.

Bad Arguments

Give give it a little bit of thought.
Now, I'm no scientist, but I did complete high school. Isn't methane flammable? And for that matter, isn't butane? I mean, that's what makes it so good for lighting on fire.

See if you can follow this reaction.
CH4 (methane) + 2 O2 -> 2 H20 + CO2 + energy
Or, hell, this one:
2 C4H10 (butane) + 13 O2 -> 10 H2O + 8 CO2 + energy
We can even go crazy and say,
2 CH3OH (methanol) + 3 O2 -> 4 H2O + 2 CO2 + energy

It seems to me that we exhale CO2, so we breathe it in naturally from our atmosphere. And inhaling water vapour never really hurt anyone. Seems to me you put three incredibly clean burning fuels on your list. Bad argument.

After all, we're not afraid of inhaling the fumes from our lighter, sewer gas (you inhale methane when you're in the shitter, get over yourself), or from a candle! How dumb do you have to be to not understand that when you burn a candle, the stearic acid they claim is in it burns into the atmosphere you breathe!

It seems to me that cigarettes are most dangerous when eaten. I know these people aren't smokers, but ignition is a vital part of the smoking process.

And finally, if you think all those "chemicals" are bad for you, you're not quite getting it. Chemicals aren't bad. Everything is made of chemicals (acetic acid is vinegar. You put it on your fries). Some chemicals are in other weird shit, but if that puts you off smoking, check this out.

I'm not pro-smoking, or anti-smoking. Do what you want. If it's not affecting other people, whose business is it? And if you want to talk about the smell, let me know and I'll prepare a lecture on perfumes.

Green Energy

I'm reading New Scientist today (I say that like it's what I do) and this guy Mark Jacobson has been reviewing alternate energy sources. Finally, someone who knows what's going on. Biofuels are for complete and total morons (my words, not his).

'Environmentalists': "I know! Let's grow a bunch of food!"

African kids: "Can we have some?"

'Environmentalists': "Ha! No, silly starving kids. This food is for driving SUVs, not for 3rd world countries. Eco-SUVs."

Essonol: "Okay, we switched from gasoline to ethanol. Now, where's the billions of litres of fuel we need?"

'Environmentalists': "We need to grow more. Just sit tight."

Grade School Math Student: "According to my calculations 5318008. Now, look at it upside down. Yeah? Oh! And you need twice the surface area of the Earth to grow enough corn every season to consistently keep up with current fuel needs."

'Environmentalists': "You're making that up."

Grade School Math Student: "Totally. I hate doing math. But it doesn't take a mathematician to tell you that you need more space than you have to grow enough corn to last an entire season. Not to mention basic knowledge of agriculture tells us the soil is depleted of its nutrients when a single crop is grown there season after season. That's where four year rotation comes in."

'Environmentalists': "For a math student, you certainly bring up a lot of non-math related arguments."

Grade School Math Student: "Yeah, it's because I'm not a complete an total idiot."

Okay, back to the point.

The energy sources that Jacobson found most promising were, in descending order:

• Wind

• Concentrated solar power (mirrors heating a tower of water)

• Geothermal energy

• Tidal energy

• Solar panels

• Wave energy

• Hydroelectric dams

Unfortunately, these still have their problems.

1. Wind Power. Wind is a fundamental component to weather. To harvest energy from it, you are removing that energy. Energy is what makes wind go. I'm no climatologist or meteorologist, but when you start fucking with the wind, you start fucking with global ecosystems. Who knows the ramifications of erecting vast fields of wind turbines? It won't be apparent until we are dependent, but there are some serious consequences to removing that much energy from the wind.

2. Solar Thermal. I always thought the way to do it was to heat a hunk of salt or sodium or something like that until it melts and use that to vapourize a small amount of water which is used to run turbines. You know, rather than making a giant kettle. But, if there is a method that isn't reliant on heating a large body of water, this seems fairly viable, save for its expanse. This could be resolved possibly by overlapping solar power and pre-existing infrastructure. The great core of a city could be a power plant, and all the surrounding buildings might reflect light from calibrated mirrors toward a single bright beacon of a renewable future. Plus, you could regulate the building owners to maintain their mirrors as a cost for the real estate (or pay a hefty government tax to have them do it for you). I mean, cities are already affecting the Earth's natural albedo. Might as well make electricity out of it.

3. Geothermal. Okay, I just have one question here. Have any of you scientists ever eaten anything hot? I mean, come on! Imagine the Earth is one big pizza pocket. During the formation of the galaxy, accretion formed the Earth on High for 1 1/2 minutes. Now Earth sits on the plate of space. It is cool and crusty on the outside, but liquid hot on the inside. What you're proposing is for us to stab holes in the Earth and use that heat for power. Now, we can't exactly eat the Earth when it is merely deliciously warm rather than inhospitably hot. So it will sit on the plate and cool and cool and cool until we are a man-made asteroid. That's an exaggeration, but the part about cooling still stands. Again, messing with the Earth's temperature probably isn't exactly eco-friendly. Think of the places where geothermal energy escapes naturally. Do you have a hundred million large scale examples in your head? Didn't think so.

4. Tidal Energy. I've been thinking about this one for years. Other than maybe not being that efficient and the high probablity that large amounts of natural habitats would eventually be destroyed (think about it. Ain't nothing living in the toxic waters of New York City that can't live somewhere else.) Gravity is the weakest and greatest force in the universe. It may not push very hard, but it is unstoppable. No man-made machine could ever unintentionally disrupt the gravitational interaction between Earth and the Moon. But, again, inefficient at best. Although, the work load is pretty even. High tide, gravity works. Low tide, maintenance.

5. Solar Panels. Raw materials. Where do you get all of them? A lot of plastic and metal and glass and... and all those things over again. Other than that, hella-stellar idea. Only, make it mandatory. I'll come back to that one later.

6. Wave Energy. It's like gravity lite. But not a bad idea. Using the weight of water is never a bad idea. 'Cause it be heavy.

7. Hydro Electric Dams. Great idea! Except for the beavers and fish and plants and bears and cougars and moose and wolves and deer and the rest of the temperate zone riverbed ecosystem. Fish swim upstream to spawn every year, right? I have an idea! Why don't we put little generators inside every woman so that-
I'll stop myself there, but you can see what I mean. Fish need rivers to spawn, and thus, to live. Maybe we could exploit other species for energy. 200km/moose


Obviously I'm big on this whole environmental impact deal. I kinda like the environment. But I understand that we do nothing that is 100% eco-friendly. The best source of energy is all of the above. This energy crisis is like being poor. The solution isn't a single answer and it's not easy and we will have to make sacrifices. One big heist exposes us to serious, long term dangers. The solution is to scrape and save and work all the options. It's all about the division of labour.

I just want to finish up here by talking about hydrogen power as a replacement for gasoline. It only makes sense so long as we can store more energy in hydrogen than we can in a battery with the added bonus that we get to keep the same combustion engine technology with lighter environmental consequences. I propose that half of you scientists go work on a way to store electricity better and the other half works on how to make storing hydrogen practical and safe. All of you scientists who are working on ways to transmit energy, keep doing your thing. You will be the saviours of us all.