CaptainPanic

An ice cube is a very poor example, since that actually melts (it's reversible)... And your other example (a table and four chairs) is just ridiculous, so we're still nowhere near a decent example to discuss. Since you seem to suggest that melting isn't always reversible, can you please provide us with a decent example of that?

I'm personally a fan of hydroelectric dams for storage of surplus energy. It is proven technology (according to this website, there are 82 of such dams around the world, specifically for storage, not just power generation). I do not understand why anyone would build a large battery right now, except to fund the learning curve to make them cheaper in the future.

There is confusion, because you persist to use the word melting for a phenomenon which isn't melting. To put it very bluntly, you have 2 options: you can either accept the common definition of melting, or you can keep quiet. You can't use a word, and change its meaning for your personal use... at least, not in science. And this is a science forum.

You can have your viewpoints, sure. Nobody can force you to think in a particular way. But since everybody else is happy with the existing definitions, and we all refuse to use your viewpoints, don't you think it's easier to use the conventional definitions in your communications to the rest of the world??

I am indeed arguing with myself. I shouldn't have called it "Hal's Melting". I should have said that what you describe is commonly called liquifying. And you're not allowed to have a "different viewpoint" on something for which there is a clear definition. It's like a law. You must abide the law.

The main problem that I have with this, is that there is really no need for an additional name. All known phenomenons of a solid turning into a liquid already have a name (liquifying, melting, condensing, smelting, dissolving, etc.).

Can you please give the link to that graph? Coal often gets employment subsidies (instead of energy-related subsidies), so I'd like to check whether those are included in the picture already.

... and it does not distinguish whether the passenger dies when the plane crashes at Chicago O'hare airport, or arrives safely.

I think it is impolite to make all these suggestions, and then place the burden to look up numbers on someone else. It would be more appropriate it you would have ended your post with "I'll look up these numbers to back up my argument, and I'll get back to you a.s.a.p. It's easy for you to discuss, because all you do is disagree and disbelieve, and all the work is done by others. Anyway, I have already posted trends of the costs of solar and wind power. You can find the comparison of current electricity prices to current prices and expected prices of solar panels. It suggests that it's simply becoming profitable. Why do you have problems with profitable and clean industries?

Well, if there is supposedly an economic link between energy savings and the use of sustainable energy for companies or private people, I invite you to explain it, rather than just tell me I'm wrong. Thanks.

No, economically the two have nothing to do with each other either. Industries or people will search for a way to make their processes/households more efficient, and they might also choose to use sustainable energy, but the two things are not linked.

Because the two have nothing to do with each other? It's just economically interesting to get more efficient engines, thinner yet stronger packaging, insulated houses, efficient factories. The fact that our entire economy constantly searches for more efficient processes, and thereby eliminates wasting energy has absolutely nothing to do with the economic viability of sustainable energy.

It becomes easier for yourself if you write the units (a 'unit' is something like "gram", or "gram / mol", or "meter" or "degree Celsius"). You want "mol per liter", or "mol / l", so you do 0.02 mol / 0.5 liter to get 0.04 mol / l. If you do 0.5 liter / 0.02 mol, you get 25 l / mol (and the liter and mol are upside down!). You must write down the units. Always. Terrible things can happen if you don't do this:

Almost. The idea is there, but you have some mistakes: You have 1.2 g of urea, and its molar mass is 60.06 g/mol (you must mention the "g/mol" or your answer is wrong... we're not counting eggs, or trees, or meters, or kilograms... we're counting grams/mol. It sounds a bit silly perhaps, but you must write "the (molar) mass is 60.06 g/mol). Then if you calculate 1.2 g / 60.06 g/mol = 0.02 mol (you did 60.06 / 1.2 = 50). You can check this with the units: [math]\frac{g}{\frac{g}{mol}}=mol[/math], so [math]\frac{1.2 g}{\frac{60.06 g}{mol}}=0.02 mol[/math] but: [math]\frac{\frac{g}{mol}}{g}=\frac{1}{mol}[/math] Then you know how many moles of urea you have, and you divide by how many liters (0.5) you have to get "mol/liter" (not yet mmol/liter). p.s. On a sidenote (not related to your question): it took me a long time myself to understand what the hell a "mol" is, and I get a feeling you're still struggling with the idea too. "Mol" is just a number. I always compare it to a "dozen", which is just 12. You can have 3 dozen eggs (3*12 = 36 eggs). Or you can have 0.5 dozen (half a dozen) eggs, which is just 6 eggs. You can have 2.5 mol of urea, which is just 2.5*6.022*10^23 = 15.055*10^23 individual molecules of urea... but because that number is so large, we prefer to talk about "mol" only. Mol is not just for chemistry... you can have 1 mol of elephants, if you want. That just means you have 6.022*10^23 elephants, so you'd better have a really large garden.

Why should I balance anything? You're the one posting the "comparison" between solar and nuclear (the OP), thereby inviting us to shoot holes in that piece of text. In this particular discussion, or any other discussion, it is not my task to give a balanced elaboration on the future of energy use. I only wrote that previous post because you were putting words in the mouths of others, and twisted those words in such a way that you would always be right .

LOL. You're a fantastic debater. You're able to twist and turn, and if necessary to offend your opponents without using bad words. These are quite good skills, and in a twisted way I enjoy to have you around. Keeps me sharp. But anyway... We are all 100% certain that there are NO guarantees about the future. So, no, we are not SURE that technology WILL provide anything. By posing the question like that, you already got your answer. But you didn't win the discussion. Also, we're pretty certain (but not 100%) that we probably should not go on consuming as normal. One of the main pillars of almost every energy policy of every country is to save energy, and to recycle. Less consumption is less problems. Trends suggest that electric cars will get more efficient. Trends suggest that solar and wind energy will get cheaper. We know trends, we hope that these will continue in the future, but we don't know the future.

You're proposing we use nature and sunlight to create a form of energy that can easily be stored and used to make mechanical energy in a car?? Can I propose that this already exists for hundreds of millions of years, and that it's called a "plant", and that the resulting stored energy is called a biofuel? The most efficient way to utilize ATP / ADP is to do it in a cell... why re-invent something that already works at peak efficiency?

The distance on one tank / battery charge has nothing to do with efficiency. Don't mix that up. Anyway, the action radius of the electric cars is increasing rapidly, and charge time is decreasing quickly. I agree that current technology isn't ready, but I think it's coming soon. Regarding efficiency: The electric car is at least as efficient as an internal combustion engine... how much more efficient it is depends on how the electricity is generated (and not on the car, which is really efficient).

My main problem with the piece in the OP is that it is not a comparison of solar vs nuclear. The author takes some random figures, and compares those. Looking only at concrete and steel of the actual power plants is pointless. Solar panels require a number of other materials for construction (silicon). And nuclear power has a whole range of additional penalties which aren't listed here, the biggest of which is the storage of the spent nuclear material for thousands of years (how much concrete, steel and energy does it cost to build, operate and maintain a safe bunker somewhere underground for the storage of tons of nuclear material for many thousands of years??). The comparison to the concorde is totally flawed. The fact that solar energy is a diffuse and intermittent energy source has nothing to do with fundamental physical limitations. Nature itself has solved the problem (plants seem to thrive on solar energy)... all you need is to make the solar panels cheap enough to make it worth it. There is no fundamental limitation, and nature itself proves that. So, as far as I'm concerned, this comparison is not at all complete. It is nothing but an advertisement for nuclear (or fossil) energy.

If you approach this from the perspective of a single molecule, then what's the incentive for that molecule to travel in a circular motion in that vortex? Molecules only change direction because they bump into other molecules. Molecules travel in a straight line until they hit something... and I do not yet understand why they would be separated individually. The whole point of using a vortex is to separate something by a difference in density. But you cannot talk about density when you talk of a single molecule. The bulk gas has a density, but a molecule does not. A molecule only has weight.

You should at least mention whether you're on the northern or southern hemisphere, because the night sky is totally different on both sides.

There is not enough energy to cool the ice from skaters... Even if you somehow can harness all the energy from the skaters, you would still need a ridiculous amount of skaters... like 1 skater per m2 just to cool the ice.

Water goes up in a capillary, but it's actually attracted to the surface. To separate the water from that particular surface takes energy (the same as the difference in height of the waterin the capillary and its original level + efficiency losses). In other words, if your capillary sucks water up, the water will never form droplets that fall off at a higher level. It will only form droplets at a level lower than the original water level. The only way to get the water out is to force it out somehow by using energy to get it out (for example, you can squeeze it out).

Your generator will not be able to power the next 2 electric engines. In reality, it will be able to power <1 electric engine. So, your electric engine can power the generator. The next generator will make enough electricity to run 0.9 electric engine (connected to the next generator) The next generator will make enough electricity to run 0.81 electric engine (connected to the next generator) The next generator will make enough electricity to run 0.73 electric engine (connected to the next generator) The next generator will make enough electricity to run 0.66 electric engine (connected to the next generator) The next generator will make enough electricity to run 0.59 electric engine (connected to the next generator) etc. Even the highest efficient systems will never be more than 1.

Let's start off with a welcome to the forum! I just noticed the post count of you, and this must be one of your first discussions here. It's always a good idea to discuss new methods to improve separations. Chemical separations are a huge energy consumption in the world, and improvements can give enormous benefits. The method you describe is not free of penalties either though. The big question is of course which is worse, and it's not so easy to calculate that. I certainly don't have the time to calculate it in my coffee breaks. And without calculations, all that remains is to be skeptical of each others' proposals. First of all, you might already know that regardless of the method you choose to do your separation, you need to overcome the difference in entropy anyway. Splitting up a mixture into its pure components simply costs energy, always. So, there's no free lunch here. It is my feeling (but I haven't calculated it yet) that the cyclones you describe require a relatively high gas velocity to get the G-forces to high enough values and that they will have a relatively high pressure drop as a result (difference in pressure before and after the cyclone). This means that you need to install compressors to pressurize the gas... and compressors are notorious energy consumers. It's my feeling that you need to find out the pressure drop before we can say anything decent about this method of separation.