Yeah i was thinking one could probably generate something like synthetic petroleum when one has excess clean energy and store the synthetic fuel for many months.

First thing: biomass is about 200-250g of CO²eq per kWh. Burning biomass is polluting, and thus is not a viable alternative to nuclear, hydro, solar, wind, and the other low-carbon power sources we should aiming for.

I think “biomass” CO2 emission depends on whether it’s renewable biomass (which i meant here) or non-renewable biomass (a.k.a fossil fuels). If you consider it over a 10-year average.

my take is that 1. you don’t need equal supply year-through because big consumers should be able to sleep and reduce their energy intake in the winter. yes i know that is complicated, but sleep is also complicated in nature and evolution still pulled through with it because it does pay off in the long term.

secondly, storage can also be renewable biomass. i have some napkin math sitting around somewhere on my disk that says that about 5% of the yearly energy demand can be covered with basically non-cost “waste” biomass that’s basically being burned to get rid of it today. I actually wanted to write a longer post about it in the [email protected] community, i just couldn’t figure out how to properly present my calculations yet.

somehow needs this meme in it:

These are not the same Linux users, however. In fact, they hate each other (/s)

Technically, there’s only two sources of energy in the universe: nuclear energy and the expansion of the cosmos.

Like, solar is fusion, ofc, the light coming from the sun. So is wind and water and bioenergy (indirectly). Geothermal is fission (heat comes from radioactive decay inside Earth).

But then there’s another source of energy that nobody ever talks about: tidal power It works by converting the rise and fall of water with the tides into electrical energy. This energy ultimately comes from the moon orbiting around Earth, more precisely, its mechanical energy: The fact that the moon is distant from Earth is only because the universe expanded after the big bang. Had it not done this, the moon and earth would be located at the same location, and there would be no “orbiting” to extract energy out of :P

I just made a post about this here

there’s no such thing as 2 because we’re using a base-10 system.

i see you have studied the book well!

Scientist: “Scientific discoveries are meaningless when taken out of context.”

Newspaper: “Scientist confirms that scientific discoveries are meaningless.”

This diagram shows the LCOE (levelized cost of electricity) for various technologies - i.e. how much does one kWh of electricity cost if you divide the total number of generated kWh by the total cost of the power plant.

“utility-scale solar” means large-scale flat-area solar parks

But will Fusion ever be cheaper than solar?

I doubt it; It’s not only about technology costs but also about advantages like decentralization. If you can generate your own electricity in your own back-yard, you’re much more independent than if you’re dependent on large-scale fusion power. Because that will necessarily be very large-scale and centralized because nobody can set up a fusion reactor in their own back yard.

i mean if it doesn’t exist yet, i’m glad to be the first to write a paper about it and have it be named after me or sth ;-)

You feel like shit so you don’t go around and infect others, but instead stay home.

The thing with taking responsibility is that it isn’t actually about punishing a potential maldoer.

It’s to ensure that a safe outcome is guaranteed (as much as realistically possible). If you have a fire-proof door that automatically seals itself air-tight in case of a fire and stops the fire that way, that door is considered responsible too. Even though it doesn’t have a single living cell in it.

By the way, granting AI personhood would not mean it gets special privileges or extra protection or sth.

Companies are legally speaking persons too. That doesn’t mean that people recognize them as “alive and sentient”. It merely means that companies are able to possess property, enter contracts, file lawsuits, and such. Not more, not less.

oh wait maybe you’re talking about something like this:

yeah, no, i don’t consider that an atmosphere. it’s individual molecules bouncing around, but they don’t fulfill the “statistical” character of gases.

the thing is you can’t burn other people’s leaves (because they’re not yours), only your own, so you’re the only one who loses out if you do this.

on that site i found this:

but no other mention of air or atmosphere on that object.

Gandolfi number (Gf). :-)

wait, fr?

downvoting because it’s not really true what you said. sure there’s always exceptions in biology that don’t fit into the species concept, but i dare say for lots of living beings, including practically all eukaryotic organisms, with very few exceptions, it’s a good categorization scheme.

the exceptions you mentioned (asexual reproduction; edge cases where interbreeding is difficult but not impossible) are the exception, not the rule. that doesn’t make the rule meaningless though.