The Need for a Frontier...
POSTED BY: nanite1018
UPDATED: Tuesday, August 1, 2006 02:19
VIEWED: 11082
PAGE 3 of 6
Quote:Coal actually has the leaf patterns of fossillised plants, Oil is the byproduct of millions of years of pressure and geologic processes on dead animal matter, largely crusteaceans and the like. Of course burying a cat for a few months in the back yard isn't going to produce oil, it won't produce a fossile either, is that proof that fossilised Dinosaur bones don't exist? No pressure, no eons of geologic processes acting on the fossiles, no oil.
Originally posted by citizen:Quote:This hasn't actually happened, I defy you to bring up an account. As I said this is largely from the Eugene Island wells, which are, I might add, now on a steady decline.
Originally posted by kaneman:
I have also heard that when they stop pumping oil from a well and go back at a later date its full again...Quote:
As we all know now "fossil fuel" is an out dated word. Oil doesn't come from dead dinosaurs and trees. Bury a cat in your back yard...keep looking no oil!...
Quote:This is the Abiotic theory, but what has never been explained is how this works, how plate tectonics or any geologic process produces oil from thin air (or rock as the case maybe). Your very much right, it is not a Science, it is a belief, just like creationism and it requires ignoring scientific evidence and faith.
I believe oil is constantly created in the inner earth. A byproduct of plate tectonics? Has anyone else heard this...Don't recall where I heard this...Kind of made sense to me.
Quote:Except of course we are seeing exactly what is expected. In the US alone Oil production peaked around the 1970's and is gradually falling off, in a way very consistent with the bell curve. Big oil spent $8bn US looking for Oil in 2003 and found $4bn US worth of Oil, clear signs that Oil is getting rarer and thus harder to find.
We have been told for years that we will be on the decline of the oil production curve...But that keeps getting revised..."By the year "blank" we will be out of natural gas"...Then it gets changed?
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.
Just went online. From what I'm reading about this debate..Is that the abiotic view is backed by 50 years of scientific data...The renewable fossil fuel opinion is based on no data period..Called an "eighteenth century relic" that we in the west have grasped onto. There seems to be no debate in the eyes of the Scientific community only for journalists, tree huggers, and alarmists. The scientific community has known oil is produced deep in the earth out of crystalline basement rock....They have found and have been pumping it for years we just never hear about it. All data used to support a "Peak oil" argument goes on the assumption oil is made from decaying organisms close to the earth's surface. And I repeat there is no Scientific evidence to back it up.zero..Fossil fuels is a theory. It appears an out dated one at best.
As for US oil peaking in the 70s...There hasn't been a refinery built here since when...You guessed it the 70s. coincidence? If you can't drill and can't refine = decline in production.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Alcon:--
Three Mile Island (which was more a success story than a failure, the safety mechanisms by and large worked).
THANK YOU! I was beginning to wonder if anyone else out there got this fact.
In terms of proportionate damage to the environment, if the Exxon Valdez had been the S.S. Three Mile Island, the oil spill would have consisted of a crewman accidentally dropping a quart of WD-40 over the side.
Quote:
The radioactive waste we create isn't a whole lot more radioactive than the fuel that went in. The Earth is full of radioactive stuff so really it's not that big a deal.
And again, common sense, such a breath of fresh air. I'm in favor of nuclear power because every form of power production produces some kind of poison -- I'd rather have that poison in a concentrated form that can be safely buried than in the form of chemical pollution that enters the biosphere in megaton lots.
(And yes, I include solar power too--nearly every case of skin cancer on Earth has overexposure to solar energy as a cause, and solar power cells contain chemical poisons that can leech into the environment. And since wind farming is dependent on solar warming of the atmosphere, it's not exempt.)
"She's tore up plenty. But she'll fly true." -- Zoë Washburn
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Quote:Your going to have to back this up. Firstly both the common view and the Abiotic theory (which no, isn't scientifically backed at all) both came from the 19th centuries. Abiotic lost out because there is evidence to the contrary, some still hold to it because they can't wake up to the reality, no resource is infinite, no resource.
Originally posted by kaneman:
Just went online. From what I'm reading about this debate..Is that the abiotic view is backed by 50 years of scientific data...The renewable fossil fuel opinion is based on no data period..Called an "eighteenth century relic" that we in the west have grasped onto. There seems to be no debate in the eyes of the Scientific community only for journalists, tree huggers, and alarmists. The scientific community has known oil is produced deep in the earth out of crystalline basement rock....They have found and have been pumping it for years we just never hear about it. All data used to support a "Peak oil" argument goes on the assumption oil is made from decaying organisms close to the earth's surface. And I repeat there is no Scientific evidence to back it up.zero..Fossil fuels is a theory. It appears an out dated one at best.
As for US oil peaking in the 70s...There hasn't been a refinery built here since when...You guessed it the 70s. coincidence? If you can't drill and can't refine = decline in production.
As I said I defy you to bring up one account of an Oil well refilling, or any of this scientific evidence for the Abiotic theory. The Abiotic theory IS not backed by 50 years of scientific evidence; it's backed by 50 years of heresy and coincidence.
As for the refinery thing, think about it, who's going to build a refinery to refine oil which isn't there? You're confusing cause with effect.
All the Abiotic theory is, is a rehashing of the cornucopia.
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.
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The biggest hurdle to overcome before space colonisation becomes a reality is the fact that, to date nobody has managed to build a life support system that is totally closed.
Yes, we can keep people alive in orbit almost indefinately provided we keep resupplying them with food and air but that method is only workable as far as the moon.
Mars is a LONG way from Earth if something critical (like a `catalyser`} breaks down or you find that you`ve introduced something in to the colony ecosystem thats going out of control.
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Flight Instructor: Son, know what the first rule of flying is?
Me: Don`t crash? 
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Quote:
Originally posted by Rabbit2:
The biggest hurdle to overcome before space colonisation becomes a reality is the fact that, to date nobody has managed to build a life support system that is totally closed.
Yes, we can keep people alive in orbit almost indefinately provided we keep resupplying them with food and air but that method is only workable as far as the moon.
Mars is a LONG way from Earth if something critical (like a `catalyser`} breaks down or you find that you`ve introduced something in to the colony ecosystem thats going out of control.
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Flight Instructor: Son, know what the first rule of flying is?
Me: Don`t crash?
Well that is true. Mostly because we haven't A) tried hard enough and B) built large enough stations. You see we humans have only built 3 space stations. All were rather small. But if you built dozens, and built huge ones, ones where you could use biological processes to regulate the environment (such as plants in the largest, other times you may use bioengineered algae and such). Then you'd get very efficient life support systems. And of course, once we get a really large number of people up there (probably no more than 100000 would be necessary), we'd be able to import materials from the Moon or the asteroids. And that would ease some of the problems. The import levels probably wouldn't be very large, maybe a few thousand tons a year for the biggest colonies. And as the year's pass we'll get better and better. Look at it this way: Earth does it. So we know it is possible. All we have to do is design the right system.
Granted, we've tried it with Biosphere 2 and whatnot. But those weren't very large. And technology is getting far better. Plus, their approach was kind of retarded. Mini-ecosystems? Come on. Doesn't make any sense. Why wouldn't you use bioengineered algae to weed out the pollutants (we've got bacteria and algae that can eat pretty much any pollutant, even toxic waste and oil!) in the water, and use algae or photosynthetic bacteria to produce oxygen and scrub CO2 from the air? We can do far better than they did. We only need a little bit of practice (probably not much at all).
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Well a technological approach is only absolutly necessary on a station or ship (then perhaps not even then). A planet would have enough space for a more natural eco-system, air recycling via plant matter for instance.
Re-breathers are improving, I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that this sort of technology will improve to the point it'll completely reverse the CO2 put into the air by respiration. This is technically possible by seperating the carbon from the oxygen atoms in the CO2.
We already have the technologies for water reclimation, the major hurdle would be reclaiming the water in all the ways we shed it, sweat waste breathing and so on. It shouldn't be too hard, I'd of thought a dehumidifier would be able to take out all the water evaporated into the air, and we can already reclaim water from waste.
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.
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There aren't any major problems with the development of perfect/near-perfect life support systems. there aren't any major problems in fact with colonizing space, except the will to do so. I really can't see how Browncoats wouldn't want an expansion into space. Kind of seems strange to me. It would ensure the survival of humanity for pretty much eternity. And it would provide humanity with a new stage to play out the human story. That's what Firefly is all about insidently, the human story, played in the background of a humanity that has spread out into space.
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Well we seem to have some hardcore capitalist purists around these parts, people who believe nothing is worth doing unless it makes money. While colonisation of space costs money and merely ensures the survival of the species it's just not worth doing.
In the short term there's no profit in the continued survival of our species, and in the long term the money's already been made, so who cares 
.
I'd remind people that before they talk about private space exploration those private companies are not interested in space exploration but exploitation. At the moment that means satellites and trips into low Earth orbit. If NASA or another space agency put colonies on the Moon, Mars or developed technologies to exploit extra terrestrial resources private companies would exploit them, perhaps even make them profitable, but they WILL not come up with them.
There's no money in exploration unless you find something, then the money is in what ever you find, not the exploration itself. Space exploration is also on the grand scheme fairly low return on your investment, far better to let someone else (like NASA) to do the actual exploring, then step in and make all the money from whatever has been found. This is how it is, has been and always will be done.
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.
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Quote:
Granted, we've tried it with Biosphere 2 and whatnot. But those weren't very large. And technology is getting far better. Plus, their approach was kind of retarded. Mini-ecosystems? Come on. Doesn't make any sense. Why wouldn't you use bioengineered algae to weed out the pollutants (we've got bacteria and algae that can eat pretty much any pollutant, even toxic waste and oil!) in the water, and use algae or photosynthetic bacteria to produce oxygen and scrub CO2 from the air? We can do far better than they did. We only need a little bit of practice (probably not much at all).
Actually,Biosphere 2 was a good experiment that taught us some of the things NOT to do when setting up a life support system, it was`nt quite the failure the media tended to lable it as.
You `re right about using bioengineered algae and bacteria but you are also going to need controls on them otherwise (to use Biosphere 2 as an example) you end up with your colonists spending all their time scraping algae off the windows to allow their food plants to get enough sunlight.
Yes we need practice with this, preferably someplace where you dont get killed if something goes wrong.
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Flight Instructor: Son, know what the first rule of flying is?
Me: Don`t crash?
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