Talk:Unlimited energy

Deleted Supply of Tritium is very, very, very small to the point that mining it from lunar soil might be cost effective. Tritium would be breed from lithium, so its supply is not important. pstudier 06:10, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I question the qualification about renewable not meaning unlimited. Strictly speaking by the definition here nothing can be unlimited, humans can always desire more than the Universe can provide. Practially speaking, and in common usage, renewable is synonymous with unlimited. It is easy to find any number of references, here is one from http://www.evomarkets.com/rec/

"Renewable energy may broadly be defined as energy that is of unlimited supply, such as solar, wind, and geothermal energy."

I think the comment should reflect common use, rather than a strict definition which is impossible to achieve. Bobcousins 18:39, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Solar energy
Arguments against solar energy are poorly formatted. "Some solar cells use gallium and arsenic (gallium arsenide, two heavy metals, manufacture of which is dangerous;" is somewhat biased; solar energy can be harvested without the use of these materials. "Electrical power is direct current, not alternating current, so to use it most people need an inverter, which is up to half the cost of a functioning solar electric setup" is also similarily biased; the larger the system the less costy is the inverter setup. "Most of these power supplies are intermittent, and would require uneconomical methods of power storage;" storing electrical energy is uneconomical? Interestinglu put. "Not economical without government subsidies" True, but the technology is still developing. It is uneconomical because of rarity, and rare because of high cost. The wheel of neverending ecological disaster.

On an interesting side note; in the comic series Transmetropolitan the human kind has plated the surface of Mercury with solar cells. The energy produced by them is then beamed in microwave carrier to satellites orbiting Earth which redirect it to the surface. Near unlimited energy. This would be terribly expensive of course.

Another interesting fact - by covering the whole of Sahara with solar cells it is possible to extract enough electricity to supply either the whole planet or very near so - I don't remember which. Again, very expensive. Khokkanen 17:09, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Someone has to read about entropy
and this story http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html Asimov's favorite. --Leladax 23:32, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

This article does not cite any references or sources
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. I did insert some references. J. D. Redding 19:59, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * It's no longer true that the article does not cite any references or sources, so I converted the tag to "refimprove".--Srleffler (talk) 04:31, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

This section may contain original research or unverified claims
Please list in specific bullet order to improve the article the sentences that need references. Othrwise I'll remove this in a bit. J. D. Redding 19:59, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * The whole section on implications is a problem, because it is speculative in nature. Wikipedia, by policy does not itself speculate, although it can describe speculations that have been published elsewhere. While the proposed implications are reasonable, the tone is wrong for an encyclopedia. The article should be reporting on discussion of implications that have been published elsewhere, not speculating on implications directly.--Srleffler (talk) 05:20, 12 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Sounds good. Please help improve it. J. D. Redding

vagueness?

 * Many of the pros and cons are vague. Terms like "large" and "significant" are inappropriate. They need to be replaced by numbers backed up by citations. (Citations that give estimated numbers are fine, as long as the references are of good quality.) See Avoid weasel words.--Srleffler (talk) 05:38, 12 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Could you list them in bullet format? Then everyone can help improve it. J. D. Redding 16:27, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
 * No, but I marked quite a few of them with cite needed and/or vague tags.--Srleffler (talk) 05:49, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Appropriateness of article
This article overall is kind of questionable. One could have an article that discusses the science fiction concept of unlimited energy, but that's not what this is. One could have an article that discusses the pseudoscience concept of unlimited (free) energy, but those articles exist already. There is no real source of unlimited energy, nor does science allow such a thing (barring a radical and fundamental change). What the article ends up with is a list of sources of energy that might be practically unlimited, in the sense that we might be able to draw large amounts of energy from them and not run out in the forseeable future. It overlaps a bit conceptually with sustainable energy. Beyond that, though, I'm not sure I see what the point is. How does having a list of kinda sorta maybe unlimited energy sources help anyone?--Srleffler (talk) 05:54, 12 April 2008 (UTC)


 * the article shold discuss the real world implictions [with citations] and the science fiction concept of unlimited energy [with citations] ... please help improve the article so that it does this ...
 * it is, or atleast acknowledge, the list of sources of energy that might be practically unlimited, in the sense that we might be able to draw large amounts of energy from them and not run out in the forseeable future ...
 * sustainable energy is massive and would need this concept be split off anyways ...
 * Sincerely, J. D. Redding 16:33, 12 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Is there anything covered under this topic that would not be better treated at Sustainable energy, World energy resources and consumption, or Energy development? That is, leaving aside the current quality issues with this article, is there any topic or concern that fits better here than in a similarly idealized version of one of those articles? In reality, I would say no; in pseudoscience Srleffler notes that we are covered; this leaves only the uses in science fiction. Can this concept be distilled sufficiently to be a meaningful and useful article (rather than essay or unending list)? My impression is that there is not enough homogeneity of ideas even in "hard" SF for this to be so. - Eldereft ~(s)talk~ 18:07, 12 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Sustainable energy and Energy development are subsets of this topic.
 * There are current quality issues, I agree ... citations from futurists should be sought ...
 * Science fiction should be a in popular culture aspect (eg., a section)of this article.
 * List are ok. There are alot of lists on wikipedia, such as List of futurologists.
 * Not enough homogeneity? That's a cleanup issue.
 * Sincerely, J. D. Redding 18:51, 12 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Lists are fine as long as they have well-defined inclusion criteria and serve a notable topic. Should this be moved to List of nigh-unlimited power sources? With a proper title, of course. I have no opinion on such a move at the moment, but it seems worth considering.
 * Homogeneity in the power sources postulated by "hard" SF authors, I meant. In other words, are there reliable sources documenting that e.g. many significant authors place antimatter factories in close solar orbit, but almost nobody of note proposes running nanofog using induction off the old radio towers once everything goes to micro-band hopping? Would such an article have potential as a useful summary of historical perspectives on where people have thought we might be going, or would it necessarily be merely a recitation of every book and story ever to need directed control over a great deal of energy? - Eldereft ~(s)talk~ 22:08, 12 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm not concerned so much about the present quality of the article as I am about the appropriateness of the topic itself. It is not clear to me that Wikipedia should have a separate article on this topic. The topic itself is not well defined, and is perhaps better covered elsewhere. Realistic energy sources that have the potential to deliver large amounts of power indefinitely are probably best covered in the context of viable energy sources in general, hence in articles such as Energy development. The article is misnamed, in that we are not talking about sources of energy that are actually unlimited. The title sets a tone for the article which is unencyclopedic. At the least I think this article needs to be renamed and refocused. Perhaps instead it needs to be merged with one of the other articles on energy or deleted.--Srleffler (talk) 06:01, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Some of the recent editing activity has decreased my perception of the appropriateness of the article, particularly the attempted expansion of material on pseudoscientific theories. Such material is already adequately covered in other articles, and cannot be appropriately mixed with science-based material without lots of explanation of its fringe nature. Careful writing can achieve NPOV with that. No amount of citations and references will suffice alone, however.

I think we need to decide just what this article is about, and then see if Wikipedia needs such an article. I don't really see any need for a misnamed article on kinda sorta not-really unlimited sources of energy. I don't see a need for an article on science fiction ideas about unlimited energy sources. I don't see a need to duplicate perpetual motion. If someone can propose a new name and a clear concept for the purpose and content of this article, we can discuss it here and come to a resolution. If not, it's probably headed for either an AfD discussion or a merge proposal.--Srleffler (talk) 04:39, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Adding to my concern, I see that in a footnote the definition of "unlimited" has been altered to "the ability to access as much energy as required at any given time, and possibly for an infinite length of time", with a specific comment that solar doesn't really fit the definition. I don't think geothermal does either. Perhaps both should be removed from the article. --Srleffler (talk) 05:01, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

POV reversion

 * via personal attacks ...

No personal attacks ... Both users comments on a contributor, not on conent. J. D. Redding 16:04, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
 * 10:55, 15 April 2008 User:JzG (Reverted to revision 205807916 by ScienceApologist; More Reddi nonsense.
 * 10:38, 15 April 2008 User:ScienceApologist (bad sourcing and more Reddi nonsense.) (undo)
 * You've placed this complaint on ANI, which is fine, but let's keep this talk page for discussion of improving this article. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 16:09, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Just a note on why the article is not NPOV. The POV edits have removed sources for content that ScienceApologist objects to. In doing that he has attacked me personally. I'll try to edit other pages ... but the editing has all removed different significant theories. J. D. Redding 16:34, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I read "Reddi nonsense" as "nonsense added by Reddi", which is ostensibly a comment on content, not an editor's person. So, less wikilawyering, more WP:RS. Crying "NPA" is no substitute for delivering content. dab (𒁳) 16:30, 15 April 2008 (UTC)


 * The US government works are nonesense? Documents from the US government are a relioable source .. but it's been removed ... J. D. Redding

... the editing has all removed different significant theories. J. D. Redding 16:35, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

The works by the US government has been removed (report to the Carter administration and the wPatent works!). The comments by published books on the topic have been removed. This isn't a content objection ... it borders on stalking ...  J. D. Redding 16:37, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Geothermal, solar etc.
Clearly none of these are unlimited and therefore I intend to cut the "arguments for and against" on each to a minimum. Readers can refer to the articles on these topics for info. I'm also going to move the Tesla quote into a new "history" section - about the history of the idea of course - with specific mention of Tesla. Itsmejudith (talk)

notability?
the vague introduction screams WP:SYN. On what grounds do we have an article on this notion in the first place?

A google search indicates that this needs to be a disambiguation page. --dab (𒁳) 16:36, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Unlimited Energy is the largest, locally owned solar contractor in the Central San Joaquin Valley
 * Unlimited Energy is a futuristic thriller by T. Ray Deal
 * perpetual motion
 * renewable energy


 * You wouldn't know since the earlier referecnes and citations have been removed.


 * See above ... J. D. Redding 16:40, 15 April 2008 (UTC)


 * you did not establish how this is different from perpetual motion. If you have citations from futurists, bring them up at perpetual motion, nuclear fusion or whereever they are appropriate. dab (𒁳) 17:43, 15 April 2008 (UTC)


 * See above. - Eldereft ~(s)talk~ 17:08, 15 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure the first two proposed dablist items are notable enough to get an article. It seems to me that if this article is kept, it should be renamed and then a dab page created with links to Perpetual motion, Renewable energy, and this (renamed) article.--Srleffler (talk) 04:59, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Merge?
I've replaced the split tag with a proposal to merge this article with Sustainable energy. My reasoning is that there is no content here that belongs in the first three articles listed above (the content that belonged in Perpetual motion has been removed). Much of the content here would fit into Renewable energy, but Sustainable energy seems like a better fit because it focuses on the idea of an energy supply that lasts indefinitely, with less concern about the environment. In particular fission and fusion fit into the "sustainable energy" category, but are more controversial as "renewable" sources.

Generally, I am proposing a merge because of the issues that have remained unaddressed in the Appropriateness of article section above. No one has advanced a clear explanation why this article is needed or exactly defined the scope of its subject matter. It's not even clear what "unlimited" means here. The existence of the article on sustainable energy casts further doubt on the need for this article. The only element covered here that doesn't fit there is the science fiction aspect, which is not really discussed much here and is of questionable value.

After the merge, a dab page can be created here with links to all of the relevant articles.--Srleffler (talk) 03:58, 19 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure about this proposal. First of all, energy efficiency and conservation is an inherent part of sustainable energy. To many, it's even the first frontier. The idea of energy abundance and free energy is not compatible with sustainable energy. In sustainable energy circles, the term 'unlimited energy' is rarely if ever used. The article on sustainable energy suffers from a lack of a clear definition on the subject. There is a confusion between sustainable and renewable energy. And all energy systems, whether based on carbon fuel, nuclear energy or renewable energy have an impact on the environment. -- Hans De Keulenaer (talk) 11:33, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
 * That's pretty much why I'm proposing the merge. As used here, "unlimited" means pretty much exactly the same as "sustainable", as defined in the sustainable energy article. The current name is misleading, and invites the addition of inappropriate POV/pseudoscience content. The merge need not introduce the term "unlimited" into the destination article. Rather, any useful content and references that this article contains would be added to the destination article.--Srleffler (talk) 04:56, 22 April 2008 (UTC)


 * These are two different topics. A few kernals of information could be moved to other pages (most of the important stuff is already there), but this page should either discuss psuedoscience or be deleted.  NJGW (talk) 15:55, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
 * This article should not discuss pseudoscience, since that is already covered at perpetual motion and free energy suppression. I'm open to suggestions to delete, but a merge seems less drastic.--Srleffler (talk) 17:24, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
 * The only way energy can have no limit is if it's psuedoscience. Maybe this page should be a disambiguation to pseudo science and sustainable, or else a discussion of why unlimited energy isn't possible.  As I said, not much to move to other articles.  NJGW (talk) 17:30, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree with you. See, above, where I raised some of these concerns. The merge proposal is an attempt to fix this. If we can get consensus to merge with Sustainable energy, all valuable content and references can be moved from this article into that one, and this article can be replaced with a dab page. Note that it doesn't matter how much or how little valuable content there is—we need either consensus to merge or consensus to delete to convert this page into a dab page.--Srleffler (talk) 21:56, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

In popular culture
Offhand, I do not recall any of the currently listed authors, Isaac Asimov, David Brin, Greg Bear, or Larry Niven, treating explicitly the concept and ramifications of unlimited energy. Certainly the civilizations of the Galactic Empire / Foundation, the Five Galaxies, The Way, and the Ringworld Builders would require colossal power sources, but in each case the author uses this condition as a necessary backdrop rather than a central theme. Plenty of authors use settings that require nigh-unlimited energy, but this, I would argue, is not sufficient to be classified as an "unlimited energy author". By way of analogy, consider what makes Flannery O'Connor a Southern writer as opposed to merely somebody who lived and wrote in the American southeast.

Sifting through my collection, there are a number of instances where vast energy requirements are acknowledged (oh yeah, we teleport that in from a dying star / use "hyperspace" / strip mined Neptune ...), but none that I can find that are central to the story. There are Dyson spheres a-plenty, but Charles Stross' is the only one I remember that is being built and mentions the types of constraints; even that is post-Singularity, which arguably pushes it into Fantasy. Peter F. Hamilton mentions in his Night's Dawn space opera that all the energy beamed in or extracted or otherwise moved to Earth's surface is conserved, going eventually mostly to waste heat produced by friction and irreversible computing.

So, I am deleting this section for now without prejudice to recreation with descriptions of specific instances of unlimited energy being treated as a central or major theme. - Eldereft ~(s)talk~ 17:05, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Restored links to pseudoscience articles.
I restored the see also section's link to Free energy suppression, and also added Perpetual motion. While this article should not discuss pseudoscience (unless carefully handled so as to remain NPOV), a see also link from "Unlimited energy" to articles about the pseudoscience conceptions of getting energy from nothing seems appropriate. This does not constitute an endorsement of those ideas, and is strictly NPOV. (Hopefully those articles are themselves NPOV, of course.)--Srleffler (talk) 04:50, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Implications
The entirety of this section was WP:Original research (diff) except the sentence saying that the implications would be "complex". This is fairly obvious and too general to be particularly useful, but the references removed may be found easily in the diff above. Also, much as I like ORNL, there are several other DOE labs with an interest in basic energy science. - Eldereft ~(s)talk~ 16:42, 21 April 2008 (UTC)


 * The statement that the implications would be "complex" is worthwhile in that it is very well cited, and the cited articles may be interesting to readers of this article. It is not so obvious that unlimited energy would not be an unmitigated benefit to humanity. Having a comment contradicting this naive view backed up by citations that explain the argument in detail is worthwhile. I am restoring this statement. Further editing can either integrate it differently into the article, or expand the section with well-cited material.


 * For the record, the uncited material that remains removed is :

{{quote|

Physical economics
For some industries, the cost of energy is not the most important consideration. Others, such as the electrical generation and petroleum industry could be strongly affected. The geopolitical implications could be severe in countries with a lot of money coming in from oil revenues. However, since many parts of the world that have oil have very limited water supplies, unlimited energy could turn their deserts green with desalinated water from nearby oceans.

Energy crisis and abundance
An energy crisis is any great bottleneck (or price rise) in the supply of energy resources to an economy. Ongoing effort, by such institutions as the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, to provide abundant and accessible energy, through knowledge, skills and constructions have been undertaken to solve occurances of theses crisis.}}
 * --Srleffler (talk) 05:02, 22 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I can accept that logic. - Eldereft ~(s)talk~ 06:48, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Vote to Keep article, or change to a DisAmbiguation Page
There's lots of discussion above, so let's put it to a vote:


 * dab I think there's nothing useful here that is not already at other pages. The term is not used by scientists, exept perhaps in passing.  The sources use the term in passing as well, not as an actual technical term (such as "alternative energy" or "sustainable energy"). Other uses imply a misunderstanding of basic physics or pure science fiction.  Thus I vote to moved any relevant information to other pages, and have a disambiguation page here to related topics (eg perpetual motion, sustainable energy, solar/geothermal/whatever).  The talk page should stay as a record.  NJGW (talk) 02:39, 24 April 2008 (UTC)


 * dab. It is a valid search term so we should have something here, but the concepts that an Unlimited energy article might cover are already treated elsewhere. I do not see any pressing need for a fork. Based on the variety of merge targets, a disambiguator is better than a redirect with hatnote. - Eldereft ~(s)talk~ 08:03, 24 April 2008 (UTC)


 * dab. There is no legitimate subject here: only a legitimate search term. ScienceApologist (talk) 17:11, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
 * dab. Looks like consensus.--Srleffler (talk) 03:35, 2 May 2008 (UTC)