r/technology • u/ourlifeintoronto • Sep 10 '23

Transportation Lithium discovery in US volcano could be biggest deposit ever found

https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/lithium-discovery-in-us-volcano-could-be-biggest-deposit-ever-found/4018032.article
13.9k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

879 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

66

u/TheJDUBS2 Sep 11 '23

how does one harvest the sun? through solar panels. how are solar panels made, who makes them, and who gets the materials? Thats how

39

u/regoapps Sep 11 '23 edited Sep 11 '23

You can actually produce energy from solar using only mirrors, lenses and a steam generator. Just angle the mirrors and lenses to focus the sunlight onto a thermal receiver, similar to a boiler tube. The receiver absorbs and converts sunlight into heat. The heat is then transported to a steam generator or engine where it is converted into electricity.

45

u/ComputingWaffle Sep 11 '23

Way off topic but I did not expect to see the creator of the 5-0 police scanner app while scrolling through Reddit. I’ve had the app downloaded for years and I instantly recognized your profile picture. Anyways, I appreciate the work you put into creating it.

Have a good one!

32

u/regoapps Sep 11 '23

Aww, you’re too kind. Thanks for using my app! You have a good one as well.

6

u/katarjin Sep 11 '23

This right here is why despite all the issues social media has I still love it. (Never heard of that app, I'll have to check it out.)

15

u/thebornotaku Sep 11 '23

Like so: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivanpah_Solar_Power_Facility

Downside is sometimes the intense, focused sunlight cooks birds that fly through.

37

u/regoapps Sep 11 '23

Free electricity AND a free meal? Where do I sign up?

5

u/BioshockEnthusiast Sep 11 '23

brb buying stock in KFC

5

u/doyletyree Sep 11 '23

Kilowatt fried

10

u/Gavroche_Lives Sep 11 '23

Yup birds die sometimes. Next.

2

u/kimbabs Sep 11 '23

Pretty insane how many birds that thing kills for not reaching its advertised capacity, even into 2020.

3

u/CrimsonMutt Sep 11 '23

6000 a year is nothing compared to cats

1

u/buckX Sep 11 '23

How many bird kills were advertised?

0

u/brianwski Sep 11 '23

focused sunlight cooks birds that fly through

I heard that they invented home microwave ovens after they noticed birds that fly in front of military radar were cooked in flight.

Now in full disclosure, I heard this from a drunk stranger in a bar, so it deserves to be checked out for certain.

1

u/jeffjefforson Sep 11 '23 edited Sep 11 '23

I think the first "microwave" was actually used to wake small rodents from cryosleep which is just as insane

Edit: I am wrong, guy below me right

3

u/[deleted] Sep 11 '23

[deleted]

2

u/brianwski Sep 11 '23

I saw these posts and realized there was no consensus between these comments and nobody was actually citing any sources

Haha! Now I am doing Google searches and I'm still not sure. This page: https://www.si.edu/newsdesk/snapshot/microwave-oven (and the Wikipedia page) claims a guy named Percy Spencer was working with military radar during World War 2 (1945) and noticed a chocolate bar in his pocket was melting. (I'm a little worried about what that was doing to his dangling man parts.)

vacuum tube radio waves were used to heat sandwiches at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair

Huh, yeah, other Wikipedia articles reference that. Plus say it can't be earlier than the 1920s because the first radio wave generators were invented then.

There are several references to the United Kingdom inventing the "cavity magnetron" but it was explicitly for things like radio transmission and military radar, they didn't realize it heated things containing water.

1

u/jeffjefforson Sep 11 '23

Thank you for the correction! Awesome info!

1

u/blade740 Sep 11 '23

The story I heard was that a guy working at Raytheon was trying to invent some sort of death ray, but it wasn't working very well. Then someone walked in front of it and the chocolate bar in his pocket melted.

1

u/sadbr0cc0li Sep 11 '23

Thanks for the super interesting read!!

1

u/uzlonewolf Sep 11 '23

Still fewer bird deaths than by outdoor house cat.

1

u/thebornotaku Sep 12 '23

Still not a reason to hand wave away actual tangible impacts things have on the environment.

1

u/uzlonewolf Sep 12 '23

And yet hand-waving away the bird deaths caused by the pollution from fossil fuel plants is fine?

Also, surely you have a source showing the number of birds cooked is statistically relevant? Because that whole argument is just FUD if not.

1

u/thebornotaku Sep 12 '23

And yet hand-waving away the bird deaths caused by the pollution from fossil fuel plants is fine?

When did I ever state that? Please quote the specific sentence. I'll wait.

Also, surely you have a source showing the number of birds cooked is statistically relevant? Because that whole argument is just FUD if not.

https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-solar-bird-deaths-20160831-snap-story.html

1

u/[deleted] Sep 11 '23

New supply of rotisserie for supermarkets

1

u/danielravennest Sep 11 '23

It is the Nevada desert. There aren't that many birds. The top killers of birds in the US are (1) domestic cats, (2) windows, (3) power lines (4) coal pollution. Wind turbines and solar farms are way down the list.

5

u/TheJDUBS2 Sep 11 '23

yes and individuals and other companies could do that, fact of the matter is that the oil companies are actually the ones investing the most into green energy

8

u/Consistent_Wave_2869 Sep 11 '23

They are likely investing in lobbying against it as well

1

u/InsufferableMollusk Sep 11 '23

Also, freshly baked birds on the ground below 🍗

-1

u/ProRustler Sep 11 '23

Hell yeah, let's really get this global warming started by making it day all the time!

1

u/[deleted] Sep 11 '23

[deleted]

1

u/ProRustler Sep 11 '23

I'm missing an /s, but nothing is 100% efficient. Plus, we're just gonna build one power plant?

1

u/sombrerobandit Sep 11 '23

well, some of it

1

u/texinxin Sep 11 '23

Concentrated solar is sweet tech! Check out molten salt thermal storage and ditch that silly old school steam generator for a whiz bang supercritical C02 generator and you are cranking out electricity only when you need it! It’s solar that can run 24/7 if it needed to!

1

u/spez_might_fuck_dogs Sep 11 '23

Cool, who's investing in the infrastructure to create the mirror field and giant suspended heat globe?

1

u/[deleted] Sep 11 '23

You can, it just way harder and more expensive.

1

u/Cyberlout Sep 11 '23

Nestle gonna figure out a way to make you pay for that boiler water!

1

u/Karatekan Sep 11 '23

Steam doesn’t transport well and has high maintenance costs, turbines are difficult to make/expensive and work best at larger scales, and higher ambient air temperatures dramatically reduce the efficiency of relatively low-temperature systems.

For heating water for residential use it’s ok, but even there the dramatic price drop in PV panels mean it’s usually better to directly produce electricity and run heat pumps.

3

u/SirBMsALot Sep 11 '23

I mean didn’t other suns technically make the materials needed to make the panels?

1

u/Eponymous_Doctrine Sep 12 '23

if it's heavier than Iron, it came from a supernova

1

u/pablogott Sep 11 '23

Isn’t it better if BP finds more profits from solar than oil? Either way it’s going to require a large company to organize the research, production, and distribution of energy.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 11 '23

Ok, but nobody is every going to make as much money on panels that last 40 years vs constantly supplying fuel, sooo who cares.

At the end of the day the green tech is more efficient and easier to maintain, not just cleaner. Blaming fossil fuel companies for consumer demand is weak. We all did it, live up to it and work on solution vs waste time pointing fingers.

1

u/TheJDUBS2 Sep 11 '23

not sure if this is a wrong reply or not, I was just pointing out that big oil can make money on green energy