Extinction Events

On the bright side, nobody ever will contest there's a Global Warming.

Because they'll be all dead.
 
Well, series of eruptions spanning 750,000 years. Even if you weren't among the extinct your lifespan isn't long enough to recognize what's happening. For all we know Yellowstone might be in the midst of a series of eruptions spanning 750,000 years right now.
 
No, it'd be more than just a few Geysers going off. And Yellowstone has erupted 3 times in the last 2.5 million years. Its not a flood basalt though, its just a huge explosion that effects temperatures around the world for a decade, much like the Toba eruption of 70,000 years ago.
 
Archbob said:
No, it'd be more than just a few Geysers going off. And Yellowstone has erupted 3 times in the last 2.5 million years. Its not a flood basalt though, its just a huge explosion that effects temperatures around the world for a decade, much like the Toba eruption of 70,000 years ago.
Click to expand...

Okay. Substitute Hawaii. That's a series of eruptions spanning hundreds of thousands of years. The point is that an event lasting several hundred thousand years is not something anyone really perceives at the time.
 
We're in a mass extinction right now and it's happening unusually fast. Extinction events take tens of thousands of years for all the species to dwindle out in a negative feedback loop.
 
Overpopulation of humanity is leading to the extinction of many species. Humanity itself however is in little danger. While the carrying capacity of the Earth may fall well below a billion some humans will almost certainly survive anything but an impact which destroys the Earth itself. No genetic bottleneck of the past can be used for comparison due to our scientific progress. More governments than just ours in the US have been preparing underground shelters. These shelters should be able to provide fresh food with LED grow lights running off small nuclear reactors, perhaps of the type used in submarines, very reliable. These shelters can be of vast size, and designed to operate separately as their own ecosystem, like a space ship that doesn't have to be boosted into space.

The conspiracy theory references to DUMBs, or Deep Underground Military Bases, no doubt have a kernel of truth to them. It just makes sense. There are many threats to the human race, including nuclear warfare. The B movie dramas covered them all long ago. All that's needed is a geologically stable area and tunneling equipment and a huge multi story cavern can be dug out. Part would be designed for living quarters and machine shops but the vast majority would be dedicated to growing foodstuffs. Likely there would be some animals sustained as well. As the rest of humanity plunges towards oblivion following an extinction level event these underground survival shelters would be occupied and brought up to capacity. I'd guess there are some dozens around the world.

At the end of the event, some decades right up to tens of thousands of years in the case of irradiation of the surface, humanity could emerge onto the surface once again, if people chose to.

Of course when Jesus returns that's the end of that.
 
CavLancer said:
Overpopulation of humanity is leading to the extinction of many species. Humanity itself however is in little danger. While the carrying capacity of the Earth may fall well below a billion some humans will almost certainly survive anything but an impact which destroys the Earth itself. No genetic bottleneck of the past can be used for comparison due to our scientific progress. More governments than just ours in the US have been preparing underground shelters. These shelters should be able to provide fresh food with LED grow lights running off small nuclear reactors, perhaps of the type used in submarines, very reliable. These shelters can be of vast size, and designed to operate separately as their own ecosystem, like a space ship that doesn't have to be boosted into space.

The conspiracy theory references to DUMBs, or Deep Underground Military Bases, no doubt have a kernel of truth to them. It just makes sense. There are many threats to the human race, including nuclear warfare. The B movie dramas covered them all long ago. All that's needed is a geologically stable area and tunneling equipment and a huge multi story cavern can be dug out. Part would be designed for living quarters and machine shops but the vast majority would be dedicated to growing foodstuffs. Likely there would be some animals sustained as well. As the rest of humanity plunges towards oblivion following an extinction level event these underground survival shelters would be occupied and brought up to capacity. I'd guess there are some dozens around the world.

At the end of the event, some decades right up to tens of thousands of years in the case of irradiation of the surface, humanity could emerge onto the surface once again, if people chose to.

Of course when Jesus returns that's the end of that.
Click to expand...

Establishing the entire technology ladder necessary to maintain an operating nuclear power plant in some underground burrow is extremely unlikely. That submarine propulsion plant is indeed very reliable...and it stays that way by pulling it into a shipyard at regular intervals.
 
Hygro said:
We're in a mass extinction right now and it's happening unusually fast. Extinction events take tens of thousands of years for all the species to dwindle out in a negative feedback loop.
Click to expand...

We are kinda not sure if we are in a mass extinction now or not. Yeah, species are going extinct way fater than they were during the previous mass extinctions, but we probably wouldn't found any traces of this extinction in a (hypotetical) future fossil record. We reconstructed the history of Earth based on not-that-good fossil record and maybe the extinction that's happening right now is common in earth ecological history? We just don't know.:dunno:
 
Timsup2nothin said:
Establishing the entire technology ladder necessary to maintain an operating nuclear power plant in some underground burrow is extremely unlikely. That submarine propulsion plant is indeed very reliable...and it stays that way by pulling it into a shipyard at regular intervals.
Click to expand...

If you put thousands of people under ground having a few to maintain the power plant might have been thought of by somebody. :dunno: Look up 'Rickover reactor' to see just how easy it would be.

The "technology ladder" is essentially zero. All one needs is to run water through the thing. If anything the reactor can be better looked after on land than in a cylindrical boat under water. Parts cannot be manufactured on the sub like they can in a machine shop in an underground complex. If one is down just fire up another. The government can afford.

Lets say they also have knowledge of what's coming.

Lets see...this would have to be extinction event level.

Info generated by monitoring Yellowstone often gets lost.

As the solar system travels through the plane of the galaxy planetary tidal effects might be effected, or if the electric universe theory is correct it might change pretty much anything. See: Increased volcanic activity. The other planets in the solar system are also being effected. See: Global warming on Mars. Change of wind speeds on Venus. Jupiter changes its spots.

Who knows? Alien invasion? The WoW signal was from an invasion fleet approaching our solar system? :dunno: If so the good news is that they are slow.

The end of the Holocene? Although unless we went into a Snowball Earth event I doubt the return of glaciation on levels previously experienced could be considered extinction level.

Missing bio weapons? Naturally occurring pandemics? Widespread terminal hiccups? ;)

Who knows what the government knows?
 
CavLancer said:
If you put thousands of people under ground having a few to maintain the power plant might have been thought of by somebody. :dunno: Look up 'Rickover reactor' to see just how easy it would be.

The "technology ladder" is essentially zero. All one needs is to run water through the thing. If anything the reactor can be better looked after on land than in a cylindrical boat under water. Parts cannot be manufactured on the sub like they can in a machine shop in an underground complex. If one is down just fire up another. The government can afford.

Lets say they also have knowledge of what's coming.

Lets see...this would have to be extinction event level.

Info generated by monitoring Yellowstone often gets lost.

As the solar system travels through the plane of the galaxy planetary tidal effects might be effected, or if the electric universe theory is correct it might change pretty much anything. See: Increased volcanic activity. The other planets in the solar system are also being effected. See: Global warming on Mars. Change of wind speeds on Venus. Jupiter changes its spots.

Who knows? Alien invasion? The WoW signal was from an invasion fleet approaching our solar system? :dunno: If so the good news is that they are slow.

The end of the Holocene? Although unless we went into a Snowball Earth event I doubt the return of glaciation on levels previously experienced could be considered extinction level.

Missing bio weapons? Naturally occurring pandemics? Widespread terminal hiccups? ;)

Who knows what the government knows?
Click to expand...

I don't really need to look up 'Rickover reactor'...me and the admiral go way back. That's why I am comfortable saying there is a whole lot more to maintaining a reactor than you seem to believe. I stretched 'underway repairs' to include stuff everyone else was doing pierside, and I did stuff in remote ports that the manual said required a shipyard availability...but I have no illusions that there are very real limits.

"Machine shop"...this means tools and materials. You stocking infinite replacements? Tool steel doesn't grow under an LED light. You need mining and smelting.

"Just run water through it"...since water doesn't respond well to verbal commands, this means pumps. Pumps operate on tolerances, and they are full of wearing parts. Pumps also mean motors. Motors burn up...it's in their nature. That means replacement or rebuilding. Back at that mining and smelting...add fine wire extrusion, the chemical plant to produce insulating varnishes...and your mining and smelting operation better be producing copper as well as high quality steel. Of course motors mean generators and generators have their own maintenance requirements.

Assuming your cooling water (80% of heat generated in a naval propulsion reactor just heats up the ocean) is not purified fresh water better add nickel to your requirements as well. You need nickle alloys to stand up in heat exchangers exposed to salt water...and to some extent all non purified water qualifies as salt water. They don't call water the 'universal solvent' for no reason, it corrodes everything. Pure water involves distillation plants, which also have motors and numerous other wearing parts.

Growing food under LED lighting...excellent. How big is your stockpile of LED lights? Or are we bringing an entire semi-conductor industry into our hole in the ground? Probably should anyway, because all the control equipment for that reactor is full of chips, unless you go old school, in which case it is still full of transistors that don't grow on trees. I maintained a couple systems that ran on magnetic amplifiers, but those dinosaurs take way more maintenance and mag-amps have comparably short life spans so that's no winner.

Oh...forgot...your water running through it is tertiary coolant. Your primary and secondary coolants have to be pure water...plus carefully structured chemistry to minimize corrosion, scaling, and assorted other issues. Add a fairly complete chemical industry, using ores that are typically surface mined and not available underground.
 
What's the WoW signal? I only know about that WoW ingame virus, which is hilarious.
 
Timsup2nothin, certainly they will bring many replacements. After so long using the reactors I'm sure they have a pretty good idea what's going to break. Lets say they are expecting Yellowstone to blow. That's several years to get through before teams could go to mines and get industry up and running. Even in the case of a radiated environment older people such as myself could go out with the proper gear in areas where radiation isn't too bad. Not like working at Chernobyl all the time, nickel mines might not be ground zero.

Smelting, why not? Tons of nickel and other metals could be piled next to replacement parts for a thousand years or more. I have no idea about nickey but concrete gets stronger for the first thousand years before slowly falling off. How long before cosmic rays break down the metal in replacement parts? Looong time. Regarding LEDs, I'm sure the government ones wouldn't burn out for a very long time. In Chicago there's a firehouse where one of the original incandescent bulbs still burns because it wasn't made to burn out.

Certainly you must be a problem solver yourself. If the general gives you an order to build the thing to last 5000 years, are you going to go in positive you can resolve the needs of the folks maintaining human survival or are you going to raise issues and endless problems? No, you get the job done, yes? Ancient man survived that genetic bottleneck I mentioned with nothing but their wits. Certainly with billions to spend you could add to that somewhat, yes?

Many believe that 'can do' folks have everything set up already and are constantly expanding capacity and capabilities.

Hygro, the WoW signal was a signal believed to be received from outer space, clear as a bell though short. I suggest a search. Of course there are detractors who say various things, but decide for yourself. The guy who received the signal wrote "WoW" next to it. After that, nothing, or nothing that we know of.
 
Sorry, not a player. :D Prefer Civ...

You found it, what do you think?
 
If the general gives me an order to build a reactor to last 5000 years I'm going to point out that it is going to need to be refueled two hundred times and suggest he brush up on his subsistence farming. People will survive, but technology won't...beyond a very rudimentary level.
 
Only 200? Now there's some good news.
 
CavLancer said:
Only 200? Now there's some good news.
Click to expand...

Good news/bad news...

I suspect 200 refuelings (of the one reactor to last 5000 years) is about as many as have been done...total...in the history of naval nuclear propulsion. If there are 200 spare reactor cores sitting around somewhere it is a pretty amazing turn of events.
 
Always a problem. One reactor? Why not 10? Do they change cores of reactors on the surface now? So they will under ground.

National governments can do a lot. Anyway this is getting nowhere so...
 
CavLancer said:
Always a problem. One reactor? Why not 10? Do they change cores of reactors on the surface now? So they will under ground.

National governments can do a lot. Anyway this is getting nowhere so...
Click to expand...

Yeah, sorry to have rained on the parade.

They change cores of reactors in shipyards now...but you have to have a core to put in. One reactor being refueled 200 times is not made better by ten reactors, which would need to be refueled 200 times each. There just isn't that much refined and ready fuel on the entire planet...much less already made into fuel cells and just hanging around.

Far better to pin your hopes on isolated pockets of subsistence farming than on some sort of technology maintaining shelter plan, because beyond a very short term that just doesn't work. There is no magic technology that can operate without the entire ladder it stands on, and that isn't something you can put together on the fly in a shelter, or even with substantial preparation.
 
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