DomKen -> RE: A few thoughts on climate change. (3/17/2014 2:47:00 PM)
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ORIGINAL: Phydeaux quote:
ORIGINAL: DomKen quote:
ORIGINAL: Phydeaux I'm going to speak a little imprecisely, so you can understand the fundamentals which have been understood for over a hundred years. What Einsteins (and bolzman's and schrodingers and..) equations mean is that matter an energy are convertable, from one to another. In a normal chemical or physical reaction matter is neither created nor consumed. In a nuclear reaction matter may be created or destroyed - it is only the sum of all forms of energy that is conserved. Matter is cconverted into energy (E=mc^2). So in fission, you have radioactive elements being split into lower weight elements and usable energy given off in the form of neutrinos, heat etc. In fusion, you have light weight elements being combined and again giving off usable energy in the process. Again, the second law of thermodynamics says that these things MUST occur, and it says the direction of these reactions; and that the opposite (creating elements higher than Fe for example) will REQUIRE energy. We get more energy out of fusion reactions more than we put into it all the time. The sun, the stars, and tens of thousands of fusion bombs are examples of fusion. Wrong! WRONG! WRONG!!!!!!! No reaction is 100% efficient. Some energy is always lost. Always. That is the fundamental truth of entropy. It is always true. It's why stars die and why perpetual motion machines are impossible. No Ken. It is you that is *wrong, wrong, wrong*. And you're compounding your error. No reaction is 100% efficient. Thats true - but irrelevant to the question of conservation of energy. Paraphrasing, the second law says the universe runs down hill. What this means is that it runs from higher energy states to lower energy states. Suppose you have 100 KJ of energy in the form of gasoline. When you attempt to extract useful work out if it - you will only get well.. approximately 35 KJ of useful work. The rest of the energy is converted into non useful things like sound, heat, chemical by products (CO for example). The fact that the conversion is "inefficient" has nothing to do with whether it is conserved. It *absolutely* is. But then, once again, you know better than anyone. Including Einstein. Once again who the fuck is talking about conservation of mass/energy? The discussion is whether you can get more usable energy out of fusion power plant than you put into it. The answer is of course, NO! You think I don't understand conservation? Is that really the sticking point? No, I assume conservation of mass/energy and would never even consider it being violated. Maybe you need to think over the reaction again.
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