Modern Living

[NT]

Biff:

When continued economic growth is dependant on finite resources it will not continue.

Flyfisher:

I agree. It's obvious that, long term, it can't continue.

This is common misconception imho. Economic growth and increasing material consumption are not the same thing. In a world where matierals are plentiful it can go this way, so sometimes does, but it need not. In a world with less plenty, growth will be primarily efficiency driven. Over time ever less material will be used to make each item, as designs are improved to achieve this. Also lower value item manufacture will be replaced by more useful items.

The Roomba robot vac is a good example of 2 of these principles. First it is much smaller & lighter, using far less material than today's vacs. 2nd it is of greater use, since it does the vacuuming job all by itself.

100 old vacs can make 100s of roombas, the utility of the same amount of material is much higher, and thus economic growth occurs.


NT

 

[NT]

My understanding is that energy generation, construction and transport are our biggest C02 contributors so we need to look at reducing those before we start trying to include factors beyond our direct, local control.

and these are elemetary to control if we really wanted to.


NT

 

[NT]

measuring one's own domestic and personal CO2 emissions is a good start.

Doesnt it make sitting down uncomfortable though?

NT

 

[Flyfisher]

Biff:

When continued economic growth is dependant on finite resources it will not continue.

Flyfisher:

I agree. It's obvious that, long term, it can't continue.

This is common misconception imho. Economic growth and increasing material consumption are not the same thing. In a world where matierals are plentiful it can go this way, so sometimes does, but it need not. In a world with less plenty, growth will be primarily efficiency driven. Over time ever less material will be used to make each item, as designs are improved to achieve this. Also lower value item manufacture will be replaced by more useful items.

The Roomba robot vac is a good example of 2 of these principles. First it is much smaller & lighter, using far less material than today's vacs. 2nd it is of greater use, since it does the vacuuming job all by itself.

100 old vacs can make 100s of roombas, the utility of the same amount of material is much higher, and thus economic growth occurs.

I suspect it's all a question of timescale. What you say makes sense in the short, maybe medium, term (whatever that means in years). Obviously, as resources become less plenty we will be more careful how we use them (economics will see to that), but you can't extrapolate "making more from less" indefinitely. When you've achieved 100% efficiency there is no scope for improvement. Unbridled optimism about human ingenuity is one thing, but science fiction/fantasy is quite another - but maybe that's just a question of timescale too?

As for the roomba, I'd like to see it vacuum our stairs :lol:

 

[Penners]

measuring one's own domestic and personal CO2 emissions is a good start.

Doesnt it make sitting down uncomfortable though?

NT

NT - Aren't you thinking of methane, rather than CO2? :x

 

[NT]

measuring one's own domestic and personal CO2 emissions is a good start.

Doesnt it make sitting down uncomfortable though?

NT

NT - Aren't you thinking of methane, rather than CO2? :x

Couldnt see how to make the joke without overlooking that... facts can be inconvenient! But mostly they really are the solution imho.


NT

 

[NT]

I suspect it's all a question of timescale. What you say makes sense in the short, maybe medium, term (whatever that means in years). Obviously, as resources become less plenty we will be more careful how we use them (economics will see to that),

this is why the scenario I describe is more or less inevitable. As population grows, physical resources per person will diminish further and futher as centuries pass. To continue to improve life with diminishing resources one can only progress by technological advance. There is no other way.

but you can't extrapolate "making more from less" indefinitely. When you've achieved 100% efficiency there is no scope for improvement.

There are numerous ways to improve on 100% efficiency. Patent history is riddled with examples of this. A simple example is that we achieved 100% efficient electric heating over a century ago. We now have heatpumps which behave somewhat like 300% efficient heat sources, as well as cavity wall insulation that reduces heat demand. This is precisely what new tech does, it moves beyond the limits of the old, and 100% efficiency is in most cases not the hard barrier it may appear.

Unbridled optimism about human ingenuity is one thing, but science fiction/fantasy is quite another - but maybe that's just a question of timescale too?

The known world 100 years ago compared to today... tech dev has not stopped, the pace of development is higher than ever, and set to increase greatly in future. Many things we consider fantastic today will occur - and some wont of course.

In the longer term, human ingenuity wont even come into it. Computers are already at the point where they can very occasionally generate novel ideas. As the tech progresses, it is computers that will design better computers, and those will design our new technology. Humans will be out of the race, mental cripples in comparison to computers.

This isnt science fiction, its already happened in niche areas. Computers are already able to map delivery routes far better than any human can. Computers can also improve all sorts of things by random incremental changes plus assessment, but the process is so immensely slow on todays machines that its almost useless at this time. Fast forward 100 years it'll be very different, even with today's simple randomise & assess method machines will be able to do useful design work.

As technology moves on, this computer superiority effect very slowly spreads to more and more things, and computers will rule all or most areas of R&D.

As for the roomba, I'd like to see it vacuum our stairs :lol:

Its successors will, because the market exists, and is expanding. No new tech is needed to do it, it just awaits domestic robovac market growth. Considering Roomba is the very first domestic robot, it does surprisingly well. Most first generation technology products are just gadgets, yet this one is functionally competent and economically viable.

The technology of Roomba is a great (economic) success actually. Hand vacuuming floors makes little economic sense now. Hand vaccing for 20 minutes twice a week @ £7ph = £5/week = about £250 labour per annum. A £160 robot can do that for 3 or 4 years (Roombas have limited life) for £160 instead of nearly £1,000. The home user market just hasnt woken up to it yet. As successors come out, the message will get hammered home, and our hand vacs will be as desirable as manual washing machines.

Its a good parallel with my oldest vac. Its hand powered, no electricity. The suction fan is geared up from the wheels, kept spinning by a flywheel, and it works quite well if you clean at running speed. Nobody would clean like that today, the electric motor saves far more labour than it costs. Robotics likewise.

Robot vacs are already viable and selling, with Roomba for the domestic market and Trilobite for commerce.

Roomba is also an example of what you do when you need to surpass 100% efficiency. A 100% efficient motor driving a standard vacuum fan would need 100s of watts to be effective. The solution is to change the way it works, the Roomba cleans on something nearer 10w.


NT

 

[Lime]

Slightly on a different tack, in the Biosphere 2 experiment there was a problem of oxygen loss of about 0.3% per month which eventually resulted in adding additional oxygen to the enclosed environment.
I recall that the eventual conclusion was that the cement in the building had absorbed the oxygen hence the loss.

In the quest for carbon-neutral homes I wonder whether this has been taken into account?

 

[Penners]

Many years ago I visited the Cement & Concrete Association, and I was shown a series of concrete hardening experiments. Apparently they had demonstrated that concrete goes on hardening for at least 50 years after its initial curing. After that the process probably continues but is no longer measurable.

 

[Flyfisher]

NT, you are clearly an optimist. That's no criticism, though, and I agree that technological progress is likely to continue, and probably accelerate. Your comments about problem solving using computers are certainly pertinent as 'genetic algorithms' are already being widely used to develop solutions and strategies that can be shown to work, even though no-one actually understands why. So-called 'machine intelligence' might well be the saviour of humand-kind, who knows?, but it raises some interesting issues.

My concern about such unbridled optimism, though, is that it can reduce people's sense of responsibility to the point that they take none themselves. After all, why should anyone worry about their carbon footprint if they are optimistic that a technological solution (sequestration perhaps?) will be developed to solve the problem?

On a more pedantic point of detail about heat pumps breaking the 100% efficiency barrier; that, of course, is only true for a limited definition of 'efficiency'. As you well know, a heat pump supplements the electrical energy it consumes with environmental heat and the electrical energy is really just the 'harvesting cost'. You might as well argue that oil is more than 100% efficient because we get more energy from it than we put in to 'harvest' it.

It may well be possible to improve the efficiency of a heat pump in the future, but it won't, and can't exceed 100% efficiency in true energetic terms. Unless, of course, we discover a new twist to the laws of physics and allow energy to be spontaneously created - how optimistic are you feeling?

 

[Penners]

new twist to the laws of physics and allow energy to be spontaneously created

Aha - the good old Law of Conservation of Energy, which states that energy can neighter be created nor destroyed. It can only change its form.

But before you regard that law as immutable, consider this. If you take a coil spring and compress it, you are embedding energy (from your muscles) into the spring. You now fix a clamp around the spring to keep it compressed.

Now chuck the spring, still clamped, into a bath of acid. The acid will eat away the spring until there's nothing left.

So where has the energy gone? :shock:

 

[skier-hughes]

Heat?

 

[Penners]

Hmmm - I can't comment on that empirically, but I have a strong feeling that the acid would be the same temperature after eating the compressed spring as it would be after an uncompressed one. After all, the reaction is just dissolving matter (ie: changing its form), isn't it?

Would you care to try it, Graham? I just haven't got a couple of springs or a bottle of conc. H2SO4 on me, at the moment!

We need our passing chemist, Jill, again.

 

[skier-hughes]

I'll look in the fuel store, would over 50 year old wine work?
I found 4 bottles which the previous occupant said were definately not his and he'd been here since the late 50's.

I suppose the same material/amount of it, otherwise it'd be eaten away first and the sping would decompress.... this is getting complicated now..... my brain is hurting..... google.......

 

[Nemesis]

50 year old wine?

Might be vinegar, might be worth a mint!

 

[Flyfisher]

My bet would be something like this; the energy put into compressing the spring is used to twist the spring material (like a torsion bar spring). This torsion is 'held' in place by the strength of the spring material. As the acid eats away at the spring material it will eventually weaken to the point where the remaining material cannot maintain the torsion and the spring will fail, thus releasing the original compression energy.

So, sorry Penners, no Nobel prize just yet :wink:

 

[Penners]

thus releasing the original compression energy.

But in what form? How will that released energy manifest itself?

I have a feeling that I'm punching somewhat above my weight, here, but who cares? :?

 

[alice]

If energy comes in three types ( mechanical, electrical and chemical) then when the spring is released, it's turning the potential energy to mechanical. I think as the spring is eaten up by the acid, it will shift, even ever so slightly, as parts of it degrade, and there is how the mechanical energy will be released.

Interesting thought experiment.

alice

 

[Penners]

I think as the spring is eaten up by the acid, it will shift, even ever so slightly

But that sounds as though its movement will be considerably less than the original compression. So there is still apparently some energy being lost somewhere.

 

[alice]

No, I think the combined energy of all the tiny shifts as the spring relaxes while it's being eat away will have to equal the inital compressed potential energy.

When I go back to school on Monday I'll have to ask one of the physics profs about this and give them another reason to avoid me in the halls.

alice