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Best method of green energy
Being interested in green energy, I was wondering what some favorites were out there. Not the most efficient or practical (necessarily), but simply the *BEST*.
Cut the human population in half, thus reducing the world's energy consumption by one half. Then take all the dead people and use them as fertilizer for plants and trees. That's about as green as it get folks ;)
except for all of the CO2 released by decomposing human bodies.
no, not so much of CO2 will be released once we kill as many as half the population and use it as manure and fertilizers for the plants. it will even help the vultures feed on some good and tasty meat. actually come to think of it, if we kill fatties more than thin ones, then that will help more better. also we can try becoming veggies for a short period of time, so that species that are going endangered, will have some time to recover from the shock of being the least in numbers.
Depends what you mean by "best" if it's most efficient then it's bioethanol. If you mean cheapest them it's solar. If you mean easiest then it's Wind turbines and if you mean best potential then it's ocean tides.
The most efficient form of Energy known today is Actually Gasoline. The most efficient Heat energy-mechanical work converter known today works at 65-67% efficiency. Bioethanol actually has a -12% energy Efficiency rate. The Cheapest form of Green Energy is Nuclear Fission, almost by definition. The easiest to make form of Green Energy generators is Thermo-Solar, it can be as cheap as $300 to cover a small roof. The one with the best potential is actually Zero-Point Energy Manipulator Generators, as they quite literally suck energy out of "empty" Space and are powered by the gravity of all mass in the universe. As of today, Id say the Best form of Green energy is Nuclear Fission, thanks to its low cost and high energy output.
there is no such thing as an energy manipulator generator. Something cannot be both manipulated and generated instantaneously.
secondly, zero-point energy (if it even exists) is theorized to be energy in its absolute lowest form. Entropy dictates that we cannot convert energy from a lower state to a higher state, so converting the absolute lowest state of energy to anything useful would violate the laws of physics.
"Nuclear Fission" is absolutely not 'green'. In addition to literally being bad for the environment due to the dumping of radioactive wastes into the earth, they are in no way low cost. They may be efficient once set up, but the costs for building the plant are around $4000/kWe
Its rather easy to conglomerate energy into more using a really long addition problem, Protozoa.
Secondly, were not converting energy to a higher state, were just putting it together to say we have more energy total. No conversions there.
And when I say energy manipulator generator, I mean energy that is being manipulated into a closed state i.e. conglomerated, and then used to generate electricity.
As for Nuclear Fission, it is actually rather green. Youre environmental argument stems from the 1960s and '70s, when analysts obviously saw waste products from a radioactive process being dumped in places. All of these arguments have been more or less stemmed thanks to an overview. When you think about the total radioactivity of 5 years worth on Nuclear Power plant waste, it comes up to about one cancer dose. Secondly, the materials used to encase the waste products and make sure they stay that way are generally lead and tungsten composites. These exist naturally in the environment to begin with. We are merely putting it in other places on the planet. Places with equivalent specs to the places we took those resources from. Thus, taking resources from one desert and putting them into another desert(Sahara to Nevada) isnt really much of a problem.
As for efficiency, if you can just cite the source for your stats at the bottom of your argument, Ill address that. Until then, The most cost-effective/energy-effective Nuclear power plant built recently has been built in China, with a (non-cited) low building cost and it produces nuclear energy at a rate of $0.022/kW/h. Pretty cheap.
When one addresses the cost of maintenance on either wind or Nuclear and the length of their lives producing power, the average 20-acre Wind farm has a 20 year life, whereas modern nuclear has a 35-40 year life span. Cost of maintenance over the course of their life times per year are actually EXACTLY the same(weird!). That number comes out to be $4,500(rounded).
"Its rather easy to conglomerate energy into more"
ok. Concentrate all of the heat of an object into a single point. It is actually difficult
because energy flows from high to low concentration.
"used to generate electricity."
that is an energy conversion
"[Your] environmental argument stems from the 1960s and '70s"
No, it does not.
I did not so much as mention nuclear waste
Nor did I say it was expensive to produce electricity (Uranium is a surprisingly cheap fuel source)
I did not even mention the cost of maintenance
I simply mentioned that it is expensive to build the generator in the first place.
Whereas I could literally build a crude wind power plant at home with nothing more than a fan, a magnet, and a string of wire (I have, but it had a rather unimpressive output).
I suppose I could try to make a nuclear energy plant- but I would probably die, be arrested, or both
"Nuclear Fission" is absolutely not 'green'. In addition to literally being bad for the environment due to the dumping of radioactive wastes into the earth, they are in no way low cost. They may be efficient once set up, but the costs for building the plant are around $4000/kWe
You said this. Anyway I just wanted to mention that there are relatively safe ways to store nuclear waste, and I would consider it a rational cost which is better than all the smoke we pump into the air with coal, oil and gas power. It would also be superseded by fusion power before the end of this century, and mean that we saved that many more decades' worth of waste entering the air.
where exactly did you find this information? You state each of these quite factually, without giving neither explanation nor source.
For the majority of these topics- although I am knowledgeable in them- I do not know the exact efficiency or cost/ kilowatt and so would like to know.
what I am more concerned with is what you mean by 'easiest' and 'most potential'. For instance, piezoelectricity could be harnessed from everyday actions like walking, driving, etc.
And I do not even know where to begin with "most potential". How did you even come up with criteria for 'most potential'?
Consider matter-antimatter annihilation. Should we develop an easier mechanism to capture it, we could convert 1 kilogram of antimatter and matter into 8.988×10^10 joules in a fraction of a second.
for comparison, the maximum yield of kinetic energy from the ocean's waves are about 2.88×10^20 J/year.
That would only require 3204 kilograms of antimatter. As of now, that would not be feasible- but that is a far higher energy density than anything else in the known universe. Were we able to harvest it from the Earth's Van Allen belt, it would have a lot of "potential"
Piezoelectricity is a very neat topic, especially under Highways and high-traffic-volume streets. However, as of now, most generators have only a 20% efficiency and a high input cost, and due to the nature of their placement, roads and highways, it would require a huge government bill to put these in. If they can achieve a much higher efficiency, around 60%, Id say that they should and would be put into every Highway. Until then, the easiest form of green energy remains thermo-solar.
As for Most potential, you give the example of a Matter-Antimatter Anihilation Generator. Yes, it gives off a great amount of energy per kilogram, but the cost of infrastructure and a stable reaction chamber would be in the trillions per facility and the cost of fuel would be enormous, regardless of its source. Unless we can get Zero-Point Energy manipulators in here, there is no way to efficiently transport, hold or utilize Antimatter. My suggestion would be a Zero-Point Energy Manipulator Generator. By utilizing the gravity of any mass at all, useful energy is produced. Essentially, the Earth's Own Gravity could be used, or the gravity of every single body of mass in the universe. Endlessly, as well.
Also, your projection for Ocean waves is incorrect. I believe that figure comes from current Wave-Mechanic Generators. Future ones on the ocean floor, where the current is 80000 times stronger, will produce far more energy than ones as of today. Your number of 2.88x10^20 x 8x10^4 equals 2.30x10^25 J/year. Thats a lot more. Not to be mean or anything. That sounded mean, sorry.
"If they can achieve a much higher efficiency, around 60%, Id say that they should and would be put into every Highway"
Although I agree that it would be excessively expensive to put piezoelectric harvesting materials on roads, piezoelectric harvesting technology exceeded 60% in 1998.
"The efficiency of the piezoelectric generator is 78% for this new LiNbO3 generator and 65% for a conventional PZT generator"
"but the cost of infrastructure and a stable reaction chamber would be in the trillions per facility and the cost of fuel would be enormous, regardless of its source."
Which is why I labelled this form of energy as having potential. At the moment it is far from feasible.
However, there are many efficient methods of harvesting antimatter that are being developed that do not involve trillions of dollars per facility. As it turns out, lightning storms on earth produce antimatter naturally, and all that would be required is a mechanism to capture it.
actually, the theoretical yield of all marine energy is around 7.536×10^17 joules, assuming a realistic level of efficiency for a mechanical conversion of future technology.
The previous source was discussing 100% conversion factor, and so resulted in a much higher number.
And, to be honest, you did not sound mean. You sound uneducated.
after all "Zero-Point Energy Manipulator Generator" is perhaps the largest mash of pseudo-scientific sounding words I have ever seen compiled into a single concept.
Zero point energy is a controversial form of energy- although this is not where I find fault in you bringing it up. It is, after all, a cultural phenomena
What truly bugged me is your combination of manipulator and generator
if it is manipulating something, by definition it is already there.
therefore you cannot be generating it.
and i did a search on my sources, to see how I missed some sort of breakthrough in zero-point energy that did not shatter the quantum field (field of science, not particle field)
And I did not know it had passed 60% efficiency. Perhaps we should be looking to that then.
As for antimatter, even a mechanic for capturing the antimatter generated by Lightning storms would be expensive, dont you think? Transport is still a problem, holding remains a problem, manipulation remains a problem, realistically, youd need an entire planet designated for energy generation for cost to become feasible. Thus, I do not believe it has any realistic potential. So there.
As for Zero-point energy manipulator generator, I meant merely a device used for manipulating and conglomerating Zero-point energy into a useful amount of energy and then using it to generate electricity. Not a manipulator-generator, something that generates manipulators. Sorry about that.
If you want an article, look up "zero-point energy manipulator" alone. That ought to turn up some results.
It seems you do not fully understand how energy is harvested.
you state that you want to use zero-point energy to generate electricity
that is an energy conversion: zero point to kinetic electron flow
Because zero point energy is, by definition, energy at its base level, the conversion would be unfavorable and would not occur.
"zero-point energy manipulator" does indeed turn up results
first entry, wikipedia, described the free energy device under the category "Claims in pseudoscience"
the second site, Calphysics, states that the possibility of harvesting zero point energy is "considered extremely unlikely by most physicists"
interestingly enough, despite the 5,730,000 results on google, I could not find any credible source that had any evidence of a zero point energy manipulator
I never said the technology existed, Protozoa. Im merely relating it back to the argument of cleanest and best energy source. If you think about it, all one really requires is electromagnetism and superdense matter. After that, youre golden. The Zero-point energy I speak of is the transcendant energy of gravity waves of all matter floating through space. I dont think it would be very difficult whatsoever to harvest that.
As for the manipulator search suggestion, that was mostly a joke. Refer to my first statement.
Okay, yes, its energy conversion, but weve already cleared that part up.
As for entropy, Screw it. Think about non-realistic applications of the manipulation of zero-point energy fields and how nice and useful that would be. Just think about it. Its so limitless.
As for antimatter, I just dont see it happening on planet. It requires way too much Capital.
antimatter is expensive, but obeys the laws of thermodynamics.
Zero point energy is, by definition, the most disordered form of energy. There is no way you could get favorable energy output from any conversion.
not only is it not easy to harvest, it is impossible to utilize.
electromagnetism would not have any effect in capturing zero point energy- charge is determined by quark components, and zero-point energy could not, by definition, be composed of anything else.
So, if it did not violate the laws of thermodynamics, then zero-point energy would be the best form of energy.
also, if it did not violate the laws of thermodynamics, you could put a leprechaun on a treadmill near a rainbow and get an infinite amount of energy as he runs along :D
however, if all particles are not accounted for in an observation
"observer B (who knows all of the variables) can cause an effect that looks like a violation of the second law of thermodynamics to observer A (who knows most of the variables)"
and also that
"no evidence has ever been presented that the Second Law breaks down under any circumstances."[4] The Second Law is universal and seems to accurately describe the overall trend in real systems toward higher entropy"
Heres a page on the Macroscopic violation of Thermodynamics. I Believe it also makes reference to other violations, including scalar dimensions/universes, Quantum Foam(Theory?), certain interpretations of aerodynamics and other specific statistical theories I cant remember.
unfortunately, that article is outdated (not surprising- its from 1964)
it is based on the premise of antimatter having antimass and antienergy
however, antimatter has proven to be composed of regular matter and energy (it produces C^2 joules per kilogram just like mass), so the concept of antienergy has no grounds in the modern day.
and quantum foam actually explains how particles or energy can come into existence without violating thermodynamics:
it is a pretty cool concept, actually. It describes space-time as a matrix of quantum particles and energy. as time is warped, it affects the concentration of space-time, effectively converting time into energy.
this is not violating conservation of mass/energy because, in this theory, space-time is mass/energy.
if you are interested, you should look into maxwell's demon. It is an experimentally valid method of converting information into energy.
As we understand it, the ingenious scientists at the Chinese institute of nuclear research (God knows what they call it) have developed a method of nuclear power generation utilising fuel pellets encapsulated within graphite spheres. This method renders meltdown impossible.
We are also aware of certain radiophilus bacteria which subsist on fissile materials such as plutonium and uranium. We surmise that they might be used to dispose of the waste products created through fission.
Hmm.... did anyone think of using the moons gravitational effects on our oceances....wait yes they did.....capturing...measurable force..converted into power, the tidal flows will allow us to forgoe our dependence on oil.. and yes there will be another step...as we progress towards an optimal efficencey..that is static and continual
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