Reply To: Animated plasma.

[Phil’s Dad]

Breakable wrote:

Fuels can be made:
first, electrolysis splits water: 2 H2 -> 2 H2 + O2; then heat CO2 with the hydrogen, in absence of oxygen, to get a variety of simple and complex hydrocarbons.

Once it becomes cheaper to do this, than to mine fossil fuels, the carbon cycle closes.

Exactly.
This is just one simple example.
EVERYTHING IS ENERGY!
Food, water, oxygen, materials, work, though (processing power), travel, housing, war … etc.

Good – back on topic.

Vansig is quite right about closed cycle fuels – useful for air travel for example where an electric plane probably will not do it. What fascinates me though is thinking beyond “more of the same”. For example how might we generate metals or substitute materials (other than just digging faster and deeper) if only we had the energy to make it viable. What about totally new forms of transport? How about things designed to bring all standards of living up to the highest without bankrupting the planet?