Your brain wouldn't change. Time passes as normal in your own frame of reference but time will pass differently for objects around you in other frames of reference (like in a weaker gravitational field or traveling at some velocity relative to your frame of reference).

Time doesn't slow down for you in your own frame of reference.

Good point.

These larger elements are created in supernovae and neutron star mergers when nuclei absorb a bunch of extra neutrons, some of which beta decay into protons, and voila you have larger elements than iron. Maybe we'll find that strategy is better than fusion for this purpose.

Fusion is endothermic for elements larger than iron. At least for larger than iron elements, it'd be energy prohibitive.

As far as smaller elements go, you need increasing temperature as you go up the periodic table. Hydrogen fusion in the Sun requires ~15 million °C. When the Sun runs out of hydrogen, it will collapse until it's warmed to 100 million °C and then helium fusion will begin. Heavier elements than helium need even larger temperatures. Probably am engineering challenge.

Nuclear is as safe as wind and solar, even with Chernobyl and Fukushima.

https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy

Nuclear just feels more dangerous because that's how it's portrayed in popular culture, but, as always, data gets to the truth.

Old nuclear is extremely safe, and newer designs are even safer.

We don't even really need to worry much about that here on Earth

Another Chernobyl isn't possible except at the few remaining RBMKs

>One of the big challenges now is whether the technology can be scaled up to really make a difference - and will the developers be able to use it to get electricity out as well as heat?

>The efficiency falls dramatically when the sand is used to just return power to the electricity grid.

So it's useful where you have district heating, but that's not most places.

Not really useful to turn the heat back into electricity.

It's something but it doesn't solve green energy's "big problem" like the headline suggests.

That's not very efficient either is it?

>There's the exact same level of evidence for Uranium miningnslavery as polysilicon.

Evidence?

>And then there's the nice men from Rio Tinto that hold on to your passport for you if you're a migrant laborer in Australia and give you a place to stay for only 80% of your wage, and basic services for 30% of your wage and will only fly you home if you pay the debt off.

This is a criticism of mining in general. Solar is actually the most mining-intensive way to make a kWh.

I'm not opposed to solar, though I'd prefer see it on rooftops rather than encroaching on nature. I understand some portion of the world's energy will come from solar but it bothers me when people extrapolate it to 100% with no concern about reliability or land and materials use. Nuclear needs to be included and even the IEA says:

>Nuclear power should play a significant role in helping meet net-zero goals globally, and building clean energy systems will be harder, riskier and more expensive without nuclear >https://www.power-eng.com/nuclear/iea-build-more-nuclear-to-meet-net-zero-goals/

>you're pretending that the majority of uranium mining doesn't have the exact same problems

I don't recall uranium being part of the discussion but slavery? There's none I know of but maybe it exists somewhere.

And there were problems with uranium mining but this was at the dawn of the Cold War and mostly for weapons production.

Today there are still problems with China's uranium mining in Namibia. This is <10% of global production and a symptom of a bigger problem with China and not representative of the rest of the industry.

You lack self-awareness. You brush off concerns about enslaved Uyghers and then compare me to a racist to try to claim some moral high ground. Sure.

Your life must be pretty sad.

A lot of the world's polysilicon is made with coal by slaves in Xinjiang. It's not propaganda and kind of weird you deny it.

>Ohhh, I thought you were making a good faith mistake. My apologies, I didn't realise you were trying to concern troll.

Well that's condescending...

>The largest commodity is polysilicon, which is basically just energy and is increasingly made with solar because it's cheapest

More than 80% of the world's polysilicon comes from Xinjiang, made with coal power and slave labour. They literally built coal plants next door. If solar is so cheap, why would they do that? Using LCOE to compare 24/7 coal power with intermittent solar is a fallacy.

Thanks! That's what I was getting at.

Solar fell in cost over the last 10-15 because of technological advances and because of falling commodity prices. As the cost of manufacturing falls, the cost of material inputs make up a larger portion of the cost.

There are physical limits and commodity prices are now rising, so I'm skeptical of such "laws".

It's the same idea, doubling over x time.

But something like 40% of a panel is material inputs whose price has been rising for 2 years.

Moore's law doesn't apply to solar panels like that

Isn't that the same for coal though?

Why isn't nuclear suitable?

Didn't DC motors at the time cause sparks and AC solved this?

>Although maybe under vacum it could be faster.

But the lower temperature may defeat the purpose

The real limitation of electricity replacing fossil fuels is that storage is much more challenging.

>but watch how this sub of fission circlejerkers whine about it.

You're the one who brought it up by the way.

Solar and nuclear play different roles and the energy they produce has different value.

You'd never want 100% solar because you still need energy when the Sun's gone down.