Season's Over

[Jeff Hopkins '82]

If it's fossil fuels, you're only kicking the can down the road.

Depends on the fossil fuel. Of course, we shut down Ward...

Nuke isn't considered a classic fossil fuel.

[billhoward]

OOC, what's the source of electricity for re-charging it?  If it's fossil fuels, you're only kicking the can down the road.  Not to mention a two-step process (fuel to electricity to Zamboni action) is most probably inherently less efficient than a single step process.

Caution thread drift: A battery electric vehicle that gets its electricity from a big power plant is more efficient propelling the vehicle than using a hydrocarbon fuel for combustion energy. Charging your car with electricity at 12-13 cents/kWh is like buying gasoline at one-third of the prevailing price for gasoline. It may be more efficient to scrub the pollutants in 250 big powerplants than in 200 million (in the US) individual combustion engine vehicles. And Dave and his successors aren't breathing carbon monoxide inside Lynah no matter what the full lifecycle cost of the Zamboni is.

Also true: There's total lifecycle cost of an EV, the batteries, where the battery components are sourced, etcetera, to be considered. But there's a real benefit to emitting the pollution that creates power for vehicles someplace outside the world's ~40 megacities (10M plus population). Most are in Asia so we're a little slow recognizing the problem. All North America has is Mexico City, NYC, LA depending on how you measure the region, and Toronto almost (6M metro area).

If Lynah had an lithium-ion powered Zamboni, we'd still have Dave scraping the ice, maybe.

Natural gas is so cheap and so prevalent that coal-fired plants, the worst powerplant polluters, are being mothballed. So there is that one upside to fracking. Nuclear powerplants are super efficient and non-polluting with a couple outlier exceptions such as Fukushima (we have relatives living near there but they are spreading God's word so maybe it's okay), TMI, Chernobyl.

[Scersk '97]

If it's fossil fuels, you're only kicking the can down the road.

Depends on the fossil fuel. Of course, we shut down Ward...

Nuke isn't considered a classic fossil fuel.

Fine, fine. Uranium is not made of compacted dead organisms, but we do get it (mostly) out of the ground!

Poor nuclear, always sui generis.

[Trotsky]

If it's fossil fuels, you're only kicking the can down the road.

Depends on the fossil fuel. Of course, we shut down Ward...

Nuke isn't considered a classic fossil fuel.

Fine, fine. Uranium is not made of compacted dead organisms, but we do get it (mostly) out of the ground!

All energy came from the sun at some point...

::burnout::

[David Harding]

If it's fossil fuels, you're only kicking the can down the road.

Depends on the fossil fuel. Of course, we shut down Ward...

Nuke isn't considered a classic fossil fuel.

Fine, fine. Uranium is not made of compacted dead organisms, but we do get it (mostly) out of the ground!

All energy came from the sun at some point...

::burnout::

Or some other sun, in the case of Uranium.

[Trotsky]

So I have a spectacularly stupid question.  Heavy elements come from larger, hotter stars or their explosions or whatever -- OK I get that.  But why do the atoms of those elements congregate together in large enough concentrations to be easily gathered?  Why aren't they spread diffusely through all matter?

Do atoms of the same type "like" each other?

[French Rage]

So I have a spectacularly stupid question.  Heavy elements come from larger, hotter stars or their explosions or whatever -- OK I get that.  But why do the atoms of those elements congregate together in large enough concentrations to be easily gathered?  Why aren't they spread diffusely through all matter?

Do atoms of the same type "like" each other?

I think it's just random and it builds upon itself.  After the explosion, certain areas happen to have more stuff, that stuff gathers more stuff by gravity, and so on.

[Trotsky]

I get why matter collects into clumps -- that's gravity.  But why do you get enough uranium atoms to collect into molecules close enough to each other that you get uranium ore?  Why don't you get infinitesimal traces of uranium scattered everywhere so that most matter has a random handful of uranium atoms scattered through it.

Matter concentrates but why does it become relatively homogeneous above the molecular level?

Are you saying the local source just has enough of it that some of it will stick together?  My completely uninformed understanding is even right at the supernova source of heavy elements they are still ludicrously rare.

Um.  .3 what?  Does that mean 3/10th of a percent of all the matter ejected from the super nova?  That's actually not that rare at all.

[scoop85]

I get why matter collects into clumps -- that's gravity.  But why do you get enough uranium atoms to collect into molecules close enough to each other that you get uranium ore?  Why don't you get infinitesimal traces of uranium scattered everywhere so that most matter has a random handful of uranium atoms scattered through it.

Matter concentrates but why does it become relatively homogeneous above the molecular level?

Are you saying the local source just has enough of it that some of it will stick together?  My completely uninformed understanding is even right at the supernova source of heavy elements they are still ludicrously rare.

Um.  .3 what?  Does that mean 3/10th of a percent of all the matter ejected from the super nova?  That's actually not that rare at all.

There's thread drift and then there's thread drift. But given our country is falling apart at warp speed, why the hell not?

[underskill]

I get why matter collects into clumps -- that's gravity.  But why do you get enough uranium atoms to collect into molecules close enough to each other that you get uranium ore?  Why don't you get infinitesimal traces of uranium scattered everywhere so that most matter has a random handful of uranium atoms scattered through it.

Matter concentrates but why does it become relatively homogeneous above the molecular level?

Are you saying the local source just has enough of it that some of it will stick together?  My completely uninformed understanding is even right at the supernova source of heavy elements they are still ludicrously rare.

Um.  .3 what?  Does that mean 3/10th of a percent of all the matter ejected from the super nova?  That's actually not that rare at all.

There's thread drift and then there's thread drift. But given our country is falling apart at warp speed, why the hell not?

Who would've thought locking people in their homes for 3 months and destroying the economy would have consequences.

[Jeff Hopkins '82]

I get why matter collects into clumps -- that's gravity.  But why do you get enough uranium atoms to collect into molecules close enough to each other that you get uranium ore?  Why don't you get infinitesimal traces of uranium scattered everywhere so that most matter has a random handful of uranium atoms scattered through it.

I googled it.  Uranium is considered to be "incompatible" with magma.  That is, when magma cools and partially solidifies, the uranium (and some other metals) tend to stay in the melt.  It's concentration by fractional crystallization.  Eventually the melt completely solidifies and you get concentrated solid uranium ore deposits.

[Trotsky]

This is great, thank you.

Your google-fu has defeated mine.

[Jeff Hopkins '82]

I also was involved with crystallization system design in my old job.  Not of magma, of course, but it does mean the concepts are rather familiar.

[Swampy]

Warning: I have absolutely no idea of exactly what makes uranium atoms congregate.

BUT: Usually it depends on the atom's valence electrons, of which uranium has six. This leaves room for two additional electrons in its valence shell. These can be occupied by electrons from adjacent atoms. This is why "uranium is almost always found combined with other elements" (Hammond 2000).

[osorojo]

Folk wisdom give a simple explanation: "Birds of a feather flock together." This explains uranium, gold mines, and Trump conventions.