Titan's Organics Surpass Oil Reserves on Earth 555
jcgam69 writes "Saturn's orange moon Titan has hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth, according to new Cassini data. The hydrocarbons rain from the sky, collecting in vast deposits that form lakes and dunes."
All we need now (Score:4, Interesting)
so.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Call me Uninformed...but (Score:5, Interesting)
So...where did these big extra-terrestrial reserves come from?
(Simple answer would be, "That's not the only way hydro-carbons form" but I've never heard that mentioned before.)
That's great if you want hydrocarbons (Score:4, Interesting)
If you're searching the solar system for cheap energy, Mercury is your spot. We should do all our heavy industry, including our supercomputing, in factories buried under the surface or Mercury. Forget sending men to Mars; that's another "Mission Accomplished"-style photo op.
Re:pointless (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Mars? (Score:5, Interesting)
With how things are moving and how poorly NASA, ESA, and others first prioritized the ISS mission and now this thing to Mars where people will take a stroll and perhaps not find that much more than what the current rovers are finding (although yes, it will make a huge media impact for a week or so, or maybe even a month, before it disappears into the back of peoples' minds), I have low expectations on that I'll even be alive by the time we get to those moons perhaps harboring life, despite we probably having the technology for the job today!
We have identified water ice on the surface of Enceladus, we have strong support of there being active water volcanism there similar to Earth's geysers, we know not much sunlight is needed to pass through the surface to harbor life judging by extremophiles on Earth, and if there is water beneath, there'd be more water there than on Earth! Yet, we try to hunt water on Mars by theories so hard that we're to the brink of seeing what we want to see, and design a gargantuan long term exploration effort to go there. *sigh*
Re:Time for Space tankers to start taking flight (Score:5, Interesting)
I've always drawn solace from the fact that eventually oil will run out and we'll stop pumping smog into the air. Can you imagine if we were not suddenly able to pump hundreds of times that amount into the air before we ran out?? Holy smokes!
On the other hand, it would also be such an awesome thing for investment in science and space travel. If some portion of the extraction process needed human oversight, it would be an awesome thing for manned space travel. The building of the infrastructure, to support the mining of Titan itself would really be a milestone in human history. The point at which man kind ceased to harness the resources of his own planet, and started to harness the resources of his solar system. If infrastructure were built to mine Titan, it would make sense to resuse a large chunk of it to mine the asteroids too. The possibilities boggle the mind.
Would it be worth it though?
Re:Time for Space tankers to start taking flight (Score:2, Interesting)
"Uhh... Sir? We seemed to have caused the moon to break free from Earth orbit"
"No time to worry about that, we have bigger fish to fry! all the sea life is dying"
Im fairly confident that the earth is relatively impervious to our existance (in that it will still rotate, and life will still exist, including our own species) if all we are doing is basically dissorganizing materials in our little bubble... but messing with the moon, kinda scary...
Sure there is the arguement that *however many* tons of debris lands on the earth and moon every day, its sort of a natural distibution based partly on chaos, and partly on gravity... but we always do things in an ordered fashion...with general disregard for what it may effect... carving "CHA" into the moon... Sponsered by Ikea... then wondering why grass refuses to seed anymore...
Re:Call me Uninformed...but (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Mars? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Call me Uninformed...but (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm surprised nobody's pointed out... (Score:5, Interesting)
Fuel for probes (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Time for Space tankers to start taking flight (Score:3, Interesting)
For this amount of cost, we could easily just build solar power satellites and beam it down with Masers.
And... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Fuel for probes (Score:5, Interesting)
All those hydrocarbons are completely useless if you don't have an oxidizer. When we combust (here on Earth) we take the atmospheric oxygen for granted despite it being an essential part of the equation. However if there is no oxygen all those hydrocarbons are completely useless to your probe. The limiting factor now becomes how big an oxygen tank you can carry...
Re:Mars? (Score:5, Interesting)
Mars (and to a lesser extent the moon) however, do hold the long-term promise of harboring self-sustained *human* life. While it would be an Epic project the likes of which has never been done, with complications we can't even realize yet... it would be relatively easy to terraform mars as compared to a rock further from the sun. Send everything to mars on a long route with solar sails and then use them to build huge mirrors to lengthen the days and increase heat. Start processing the regolith and non-water ice to make an atmosphere, and then start air-braking ice comets in the thickening atmosphere to add heat, hydrogen, oxygen, and water. Introduce some of the antarctic and bio-engineered bacteria.
It might take enormous effort for centuries and it'll certainly take a decade of research into closed biological systems to figure out how to build a biosphere from the ground up, but there's a *reason* to send man to mars. Europa, though? It's an ice ball. About all it has going for it is liquid water and possibly a heated core. It'll be very interesting if we find life there, but the surface is soaked in radiation and too far from the sun to be interesting as a habitat, and if we're going to live underground there's no reason to prefer it over any other large rock.
With a thick atmosphere and a surplus of mirrors we might eventually make one of Saturn's moons habitable, but the lower solar flux just makes it a less desirable position that would require more work then mars. Smaller surface, too.
Re:All we need now (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:All we need now (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually the book Empire (I think thats the name) by Arthur C Clarke actually involved humans from earth mining Titan, the earth would send empty pods at Titan, and the people on Titan (miners) would send the pods back full of fuel.
14 year round trip, but once the "stream" of fuel pods starts coming it becomes a steady source of fuel.
Useful for colonization (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:All we need now (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Mars? (Score:5, Interesting)
I hope that the opportunity to visit other planets arrives in my lifetime. It's just a bit sobering when you realize the obstacles that face permanent human presence outside of Earth's biosphere.
Re:Mars? (Score:3, Interesting)
Wouldn't it be better to spend a smaller amount of money to figure out how to build better space stations?
Without faster than light travel if humans are heading anywhere beyond the moon, they are going to be spending a LOT of time in space.
So we should work on making better space stations than the current _crap_ we have. Dig out some of those "old" designs which spin to create artificial gravity or make much better ones.
I personally don't think Mars will be that attractive once you've worked out how to build good space stations. The asteroids belt will be useful, and I suppose other cheap places for extracting resources to supply a space colony with. Mars is not cheap - once you land, getting back out is hard.
The Romans had gladiators and circuses to distract them from real problems.
Perhaps people are happy to pay for _extremely_ expensive suicide missions, that'll be a candidate for reality TV I guess.
Re:Mars? (Score:4, Interesting)
Relatively easy? It doesn't have enough mass -> it doesn't have enough gravity -> it can't hold an atmosphere we can use. But we can just keep smashing meteors into, right?
Let's say we had the technology to move planets (because that's the order of difficulty we're talking about). Even if we could move enough matter together, we still can't terraform Mars. Do you know why? MARS HAS NO EFFECTIVE MAGNETOSPHERE!
The core of Mars is cold. It has no active swirling iron core like we enjoy here on Earth. No active core -> No effective magnetosphere. But what do we need that for, anyway?
Quote Wikipedia: [wikipedia.org] Even if you did get enough mass to hold an atmosphere, and enough atmosphere to be habitable (which would need to be MORE than we have here on Earth, due to the increased distance from the sun), the lack of a strong magnetosphere would allow the solar wind to strip it away again. Oh, and all that deadly radiation.
Mars. Will. NEVER. Be. Terraformed.
Re:Useful for colonization (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Mars? (Score:2, Interesting)
Don't be so negative and pessimistic. No gravity? Big deal, we need to invent a gravity/antigravity machine and implant it into the Mars' core.
No magnetosphere? Also, a bit of ingenuity never hurt anyone. Just put two satellites with magnetic cores into orbit around the planet.
This way we could "fix" Venus, too. We just need time, money, dedication and education.
Re:Don't tell the president (Score:3, Interesting)
What about the fact IRS claims that less than 10.1% of total income taxes come from corporations?
Well, the return (gross profit) of a corporation is divided into two parts for payment. On average, 80% of the take is paid to employees (you). 20% is paid to corporate shareholders (your grandma). So you would expect there to be a lot more tax paid by the 80% employees rather than the 20% shareholders (only the shareholder's portion is taxed as corporate tax). The fact that there are some obscenely overpaid CEOs [who are not corporate shareholders - in fact you can argue that they are robbing the shareholders] means that the ratio is balanced even further away from the corporation.
stating GAO report that 61% of US corporations paid no taxes.
Well, what about it? Why didn't they pay? Were they non-profits? Were they just not profitable? Very few small corporations are profitable - most are started and die soon after. A good percentage of corporations in 2004 made no money - why should they pay taxes?
What about which states 71 companies paid ZERO state income tax
That doesn't have anything to do with federal income tax, does it? It is very easy to not pay state taxes - all you have to do is convince the state that your business is more important than the tax revenue, and threaten to leave. Of course, I'm sure this report also included companies that were doing business in many states and only paid in the ones where they recorded profits. While this is bad for one state, it is good for another, and I believe that from such competition between states better states are formed.
corporate taxes have falled to less than 1.4 % of GDP
This is a foolish comparison - GDP is related to gross revenue, not gross profit. If I buy a building for $1M, and sell it to you for $1.01M, you want me to pay $100K in taxes on that $10K I earned? Don't be stupid - the average gross margin is about 20%, so gross takes are 20% of GDP. Like I said previously, 80% goes to employee salaries, so we are down to 4% of GDP as corporate profits. I claimed a corporate tax rate of 35% - hey look, 35% of 4% is (drumroll) 1.4% - imagine that, I was right!
the IRS refunded corporations $63 billions
And the IRS refunded individuals $109B - what is your point? That only shows that corporations are forced by the government to overpay more often than ordinary citizens - this does not benefit the corporations...
Pepco Holdings profit was $725 million while its tax REFUNDS were $432m
OK, someone else rebutted this one right through your thick head, so let me just add this: You get a refund because you were forced to pay too much tax earlier - a refund is NEVER a good thing, moron; it means the government forced you to give them a 0% loan at gunpoint.
So maybe you better look into the facts, truther. The world does not run the way you think it does.
Re:Think of it as a tire (Score:3, Interesting)
This isn't the first time I've heard this idea, either. Where do you guys pick up these notions of how things work? I don't even know where to begin. Should I point out the mathematics? (Taking into consideration the mass of Mars, how many "old-fashioned nukes" would it take to heat up its core again? Do we have access to that much fissionable material? And then add on all the other mass you're going to need to hold an atmosphere.) Or should I just let it slide?
That's it, mister. No more sci-fi movies until you learn to obey the laws of physics! Set off a few old-fashioned nukes to heat up the core? I...the mind BOGGLES.What are you talking about? In the real world, we say NEVER all the time!
- We will never travel faster than the speed of light.
- We will never invent a perpetual motion/energy device.
- We will never terraform Mars, because if we ever DID have the technology to overcome the myriad of obstacles between us and that goal, why would we need to terraform Mars? Under what circumstances would we have the technology of the gods, and yet need another planet? Giant arcologies in space seem more reasonable.
Yes, clearly *I* am the crazy person here who has no idea of how physics works. In this dimension, it runs on imagination! Obviously. I feel like a fool. Thank you for enlightening me.Re:All we need now (Score:3, Interesting)
And you confuse corn with perpetual motion.
Solar energy is perpetual motion?
1) None of the corn used for ethanol production is edible.
False - MOST of the corn used for ethanol is edible. There has not yet been a significant shift to higher energy varieties. Further, corn production for ethanol displaces acres that could be devoted to edible corn or other edible grain.
2) Food prices have gone up because the cost of the fuel used to transport them has gone up.
True to an extent - Ethanol usage has raised the cost of food, and not just the cost of corn. Ethanol takes corn away from food production. Further, high corn prices stimulates planting of more corn which displaces other editable crops. However, ethanol accounts for only a percentage in the overall rise in prices. Increased demand from China accounts for a large percentage. Further increased fuel prices accounts for an even larger percentage. Finally, commodity speculation accounts for a huge percentage. I'm afraid most of the people on Slashdot are unaware of the present over valuation in futures contracts for corn.
Slashdotter's are also unaware of ethanol's byproducts which mitigate the impact on food prices. Ethanol produces distiller's dried grain which is used in animal feed. This is animal feed that would have used corn if it weren't for the more desirable and nutritious distiller's dried grain. This animal feed is an indirect use of ethanol byproducts in the food supply. Ethanol also produces corn oil which can be used for food or diesel production. None of those other explanations can alleviate the fact that ethanol production does impact food.
to add to that, growing stuff for fuel pushes up the price of food - in countries where many are already hungry this is not good. As if enough of the 3rd world hadn't already supplanted food crops with tobacco and coffee ...
Low priced American corn is destroying third world agriculture. Its a chicken and the egg problem, which would we prefer - people that can buy food because they cant make money, or those that can't buy food because they don't have enough? High corn prices stimulate modernization of third world agriculture. Third world farmers are poor because they can't afford to invest in advanced technology. Higher corn prices stimulate foreign direct investment as well as third world government investment in more productive methods.
It takes energy to process corn into ethanol. That energy is not coming from previously produced ethanol. It comes from hydrocarbons. Ethanol completely misses the idea of carbon neutrality.
It also takes energy to process the alternatives to ethanol - THIS IS A MAJOR POINT THAT CRITICS NEGLECT. You are essentially arguing that ethanol production = fuel use. However, pure electric cars = coal use. Hydrogen cars = coal use. You are arguing that, because a majority of corn is planted by diesel fuel consuming tractors it is the equivalent of burning diesel fuel. Well, the majority of electricity comes from coal and the majority of hydrogen is produced with coal electricity.
Granted, that majority of electricity doesn't have to be produced by coal. Then again, the majority of ethanol doesn't need to be produced by diesel. The corn produced on my land this year was produced by biodiesel produced from corn oil (a byproduct of ethanol production).
Reality is probably much lower than the our friendly lobbyists from Iowa would have us believe.