Water on the moon

[Pat]

I don't see a WW3 in the near future.

[EpicPhailure]

I don't see a WW3 in the near future.

Darnit! My version of Solanum didn't work...Perhaps if I add a little more pnuemonic plag-

Er. Disregard everything above.

[11clock]

How is water on the moon even possible? It's too cold up in outer space. The water would like, freeze.

[Jackabomb]

ummm...yes, clocky, that's what they mean when they say water. Let me teach you about a thing called MATTER so you can show all your second grade buddies how smart you are...
Leguy, be very careful when you start making such predictions. People in the '80s and '70s said that we'd have flying cars and laser beams by 2000...of course, they were people in the 80s and 70s, and any american knows what that means...

[Chaos]

ummm...yes, clocky, that's what they mean when they say water. Let me teach you about a thing called MATTER so you can show all your second grade buddies how smart you are...
Leguy, be very careful when you start making such predictions. People in the '80s and '70s said that we'd have flying cars and laser beams by 2000...of course, they were people in the 80s and 70s, and any american knows what that means...

Cept we do have laser beams.  Weapon-capable ones, too.  We just don't have anything in our technological level that can output enough energy in a small size to make handheld weapons of it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directed-energy_weapon

As for flying cars, again, we 'have' them, just not in a practical form.  Once again, we lack a good, practical energy source available in small size to power such a thing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_cars

Honestly, if and when anyone discovers a way to generate energy cheaply, cleanly, compactly, and effectively, there will be a massive WAVE of technological breakthroughs, and that person will become a VERY rich person.

[Red October]

Honestly, if and when anyone discovers a way to generate energy cheaply, cleanly, compactly, and effectively, there will be a massive WAVE of technological breakthroughs, and that person will become a VERY rich person.

Red shouts "NUCLEAR FUSION!"

[Chaos]

Honestly, if and when anyone discovers a way to generate energy cheaply, cleanly, compactly, and effectively, there will be a massive WAVE of technological breakthroughs, and that person will become a VERY rich person.

Red shouts "NUCLEAR FUSION!"

Yeah, that'd be good, except at the moment, it is neither clean, cheap, nor compact.

[Red October]

Honestly, if and when anyone discovers a way to generate energy cheaply, cleanly, compactly, and effectively, there will be a massive WAVE of technological breakthroughs, and that person will become a VERY rich person.

Red shouts "NUCLEAR FUSION!"

Yeah, that'd be good, except at the moment, it is neither clean, cheap, nor compact.

Nuclear Fusion is clean.

Nuclear Fusion is cheap (to run).

Nuclear Fusion is not compact.

[Chaos]

Honestly, if and when anyone discovers a way to generate energy cheaply, cleanly, compactly, and effectively, there will be a massive WAVE of technological breakthroughs, and that person will become a VERY rich person.

Red shouts "NUCLEAR FUSION!"

Yeah, that'd be good, except at the moment, it is neither clean, cheap, nor compact.

Nuclear Fusion is clean.

Nuclear Fusion is cheap (to run).

Nuclear Fusion is not compact.

Nuclear Fusion is not clean.  It still produces radioactive waste, even if the waste is radioactive for less time than Nuclear Fission.

Durr Hurr, I see what you did there.  Nuclear Fusion is NOT cheap.  Building a machine to produce Nuclear Fusion would be VERY expensive at the present, meaning using it to power things such as cars is not practical.

And indeed, Nuclear Fusion is NOT compact.  As matter of fact, building something to produce Nuclear Fusion COMPACTLY would probably be even more expensive.

[Red October]

Honestly, if and when anyone discovers a way to generate energy cheaply, cleanly, compactly, and effectively, there will be a massive WAVE of technological breakthroughs, and that person will become a VERY rich person.

Red shouts "NUCLEAR FUSION!"

Yeah, that'd be good, except at the moment, it is neither clean, cheap, nor compact.

Nuclear Fusion is clean.

Nuclear Fusion is cheap (to run).

Nuclear Fusion is not compact.

Nuclear Fusion is not clean.  It still produces radioactive waste, even if the waste is radioactive for less time than Nuclear Fission.

Durr Hurr, I see what you did there.  Nuclear Fusion is NOT cheap.  Building a machine to produce Nuclear Fusion would be VERY expensive at the present, meaning using it to power things such as cars is not practical.

And indeed, Nuclear Fusion is NOT compact.  As matter of fact, building something to produce Nuclear Fusion COMPACTLY would probably be even more expensive.

Clean - OMG there's a neutron particle it's not clean! Seriously, every energy sources have waste products, all of which are damaging to the environment, whenever it's radioactive or not. The only two considerations to this would be hydroelectricity and solar energy (which comes from the sun... and the sun is powered by NUCLEAR FUSION). Now if everything had to be "clean" energy we will still be in the day where water mills were used. It is true that Nuclear Fusion has some radioactive waste products. But lets compare that to Nuclear Fission. We all know that Fission products takes thousands of years to decay. However Nuclear Fusion's products are smaller (therefore take less time to decay), now this decay process takes about... 150 years to become a safe level. However during this time it's indeed more radioactive than fission products, but is less harmful overall. In a D-T reaction this radioactivity only comes from a rogue neutron from the reaction. Now sciences just need a way to contain this neutron then everything would be fine (until the reaction is decommissioned). If you want everything to be "clean" then your more than welcome to stand outside with a solar panel and save the world by the Energy Crisis.

Cost - Why would we want Nuclear Energy powered cars? Very silly Chaos. Maybe your just too scared to invest the money required to develop this wonderful technology. Or you can just be one of those people who thinks very large cost project is just a bad idea.

Compact - Pfft I agree with you there... No need to shout about it.

[LeGuy]

Since, ultimately, all of our energy comes from the sun (think about it - water evaporates because of it, which then falls as rain and creates running rivers for dams; it heats the air, causing the air to move around, hence, wind power) I have to imagine that the most efficient way to get energy would be just be directly through solar panels. It's 100% clean, it's safe, and it's the only option that will be available when you're living on an atmosphere-lacking moon. Well, that or nuclear, but nuclear creates quite a bit of waste, as we've discussed before.

Personally, on a similar note, I think a great plan of action for America's economy would be to just put some more focus on solar energy. It'd most likely speed up the development process for a widely-used fully-electric car, which would not only be a great export and economy booster, but it would decrease our dependence on foreign oil - another economy booster. Plus, it's just a lot better for the environment. New jobs would be created, travel deaths would decrease, (I have to imagine cars are a lot less explosive when they no longer contain flammable materials) and so on.

Of course, right now America apparently is building roads instead. And doing stimulus bills for hog farms.

[Pat]

Theres like half of the moon we can fill up with waste and use the rest of the land, no problem, or we could launch it to the sun, I'm sure it likes it.

[Lingus]

Solar power isn't cheap really at all, and in compact form doesn't really create enough energy to be all that usefull. The solar panels are extremely expensive to make and install, not to mention maintain. They have to be constantly upkept, and if a piece cracks you have to replace it.  Of course, they are making softer materials more like cloth that can collect solar power. But you have the same problem with efficiency. Not to mention, with no sun, you have no power. No power at night, no power during a storm. You would have to have an alternative, or a way of storing excess power (which means tons of batteries, which means not compact.)

Hey, what about cold fussion? Eh??

[Epsilon72200]

Well I was with you guys up until 'cold fusion' (or 'fussion', whatever, not sure exactly what you meant to say), anyone care to enlighten me on what this is?

[Lingus]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_fusion

I don't freakin know what it is. It's supposed to be clean, efficient energy.