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this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2026
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Turns out we already have fusion power, it's just been placed safely 149.6 million km away. The solution to energy independence comes up every morning.
All energy comes from the sun except for geothermal which comes from the Earth's rotational momentum which might as well be the sun because it wouldn't rotate without something to orbit around.
Technically nuclear came from a different star. The sun won't create those kinds of heavier elements until it burns through its hydrogen and helium fuel to start fusing its way up to lead, and I don't think it's massive enough to actually reach the kind of supernova collapse required to smash lesser elements together into heavier elements than that in any significant amount. So technically, fission is the only the form of energy that isn't based on solar. It's just the still-cooling-embers leftover from someone else's dying star, a whole bunch of billions of years ago. I guess you could say the sun's gravity at least attracted it all into this general vicinity though, at least until the Earth's own gravity started pulling its own weight.
All accessible energy originates from the low entropy state during the big bang.
Well, it's like I told my old friend Einstein, everything's relative!
well actually there's renewable energy on the cosmological scale (look up E. Harris - Mining Energy In An Expanding Universe), at least theoretically. nobody's ever practically utilized it (afaik).
btw geothermal does not come from the earth's rotation. it mostly comes from nuclear decay of heavy isotopes in the earth's interior and the enormous heat capacity of the earth's interior, which means it's still warm from the friction heat from when the planet first formed. in other words it's there since the Earth formed, independent of the sun.
also there's another (practically accessible) form of energy that comes neither from geothermal nor from the sun: you can pull energy out of the tidal movement that comes from the moon's changing gravity field as it orbits around our planet. i think that one's not really being used though because the only way to really utilize it is to build dams across havens and important shipping routes and that interferes with trade, which is considered the more economically valuable activity from the two.
Tidal energy is being used in many countries. You don't have to block the canals. You can build structures in coastlines, or just put underground generators that run automatically without any dams because the water moves without the dams as well
emm that is not the source of geothermal energy..
TIL - according to one source 80% of the geothermal energy comes from radiation and the remaining 20% is from the sun.
Didn't the molten core also originate in some way from the sun?
Yes but no. The sun didn't form the Earth. The Earth and the sun both formed from a primordial star. You don't hear much talk about the star that actually birthed us, because theres very little we can say for certain about it. We can't even say for certain if Sol (the sun) is a second or third generation star because we only have vague notions about if the star that produced all the elements that aren't hydrogen in the solar system was long lived or went nova in under a billion years.
The molten core is hot because a whole lot of rocks crashed into each other. Also, nuclear decay.
Well... those are remnants of a supernova aren't they? So the velocities to have meaningful impacts came from a sun?
Definitely not what I was thinking or trying to say though, and not our sun, but kinda still all the energy comes from at least, a sun.
Probably
geothermal which comes from the Earth’s rotational momentum
umm.. that is not the source of geothermal energy..
Yes it is, and the earth is gradually slowing down because of it.
how many American hotdogs is that?
At least three.
Found the guy who buys the fancy third of an AU dogs.
Well you know what they say about the length of your sausage. If it can't reach Venus, then what's the point, really?
You can't mix units like that
I'd want to say "about a week", but I learned not to overestimate people, so probably 5 days top
I know you are joking, but we have several commercial fusion plants that are in the construction phase.
Now you know why Big Oil is pushing so hard for massive profits. Between renewables and fusion the energy landscape is going to change dramatically.
...and it's still 20 years away.
That is the propaganda big oil pushes. You are correct.
I'm curious, I wonder why something like a large magnifying glass, hasn't been used to heat up something like a special metal/material or even oil or something, which can somehow be turned into storable energy for the grid 🤷♂️
Other than solar panels? Consumers have to pay for their implementation, with power sold to the grid at such a low rate these days, that for single occupier dwellings, they're not worth it financially.
Do you mean something like the Mojave Solar Project, which has produced 5.1 million MegaWatt hours since 2015?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojave_Solar_Project
Or do you mean something like a smaller scale, e.g. home use? Look up Parabolic Solar Collector.
Or are you thinking of an Heliostat? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliostat Something like the Solar Two, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliostat#/media/File:Solar_two.jpg
Yes, something exactly like that, thank you for the link, I wonder why this idea hasn't been replicated more around the world.
I'll take a read today, maybe I'll find out why this is so.
I'm wondering, too. I haven't looked into the topic for some time, e.g. back when Solar 2 was being set up. At the time I had calculated that an efficient heliostat could scale down to the amount of power that four homes would use. And that was when I started thinking of forming a solar power coalition with my 3 closest neighbors. Of course we'd need a place to put the heliostat. So we'd need to raize the home on a fifth property. And of course we'd need gardens, sized for sustainable agriculture. Going from Jeavon's How To Grow More Food, my property would have enough space for me, but I would need more for my partner. Assuming 2 of similarly sized properties for each of the above would be 8, plus one for the heliostat equals 9 properties, which is pretty much the whole block. Of course the HOA was going to have issues with that, so we had to take them over their properties as well. That was ages ago, and so now we're realizing the need for additional power to run a moderate sized Data Center, and there IS that ridge to the North, which would be good placement for some discretely placed Wind Turbines.... lol
You mean a Dyson Sphere right?
Dyson swarms would be more feasible. Heat rejection on a sphere would give an engineer a complete meltdown.
First a Dyson Ring; have you read any of the Ringworld series by David Niven? And for the time being solar panels, solar architecture, cardboard solar fucking ovens, solar deathray from a satellite dish, etc, etc, etc.....