this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2025
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Science Memes

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 hours ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago

Dare to dream.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 hours ago

The point is that it's a passive process, not an active one. No need for pumping.

Water is so much denser than air that you do get more exposure time per unit time.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 17 hours ago

I guess Trump could add a new canal to the Red Sea, as per an old proposal involving nukes to dig it. Considering this administration, I wouldn't be surprised at all.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

I've got my fingers crossed for a Snowpiercer set up.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I think y'all are missing the point here.

It's really to justify the production and testing of an insanely large planet altering weapon that would create a really cool firework.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The only way to convince conservatives to fight climate change is if we do it with guns and bombs

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

If it gets the job done, I'm willing to make that compromise.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 day ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 17 hours ago

I think they underestimate a military's desire to use all of the things that go boom.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago

Ah. I suppose building an 81 gigaton nuclear weapon wouldn't be small.

Let's fire up the antimatter then!

[–] [email protected] 57 points 2 days ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 65 points 2 days ago (3 children)

wow, and the bomb only needs a yield of 1620 times the largest nuclear bomb ever deployed.

[–] [email protected] 52 points 2 days ago (3 children)

"Nuclear explosions are inherently unsafe"

Well, he warns about it.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

And states the main problem, with a deep ocean detonation, would be fallout.

I'm not sure that's right. The shockwave of a bomb that insane could easily have seismic and tsunami effects. Probably be the biggest mass of dead fish floating at the surface, too.

Should probably talk to some geologists first.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 hours ago

Give some ear plugs to the whales

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Nuclear explosions are inherently unsafe…

…but fuck them fish!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

"Barren seafloor"

"That's what we call your mom Kevin!"

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Thanks for the link, interesting read! I know that a good paper is succint, but honestly, I thought that making the case for a gigaton-yield nuclear explosion to combat climate change would take more than four pages...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 22 hours ago

Study conclusion: YOLO

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 2 days ago (3 children)

I mean… if we’re being honest, the long-term effects of global thermonuclear war would be (very eventual) carbon sequestration in tens to hundreds of millions of years, and then we’ll renew our oil reserves! We of course won’t be around to use them, seeing as we’ll have been sequestered into the oil.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Can we get new oil actually? I thought we now have organisms that can break down every organic matter and thus it can not really accumulate anymore?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

There's an abiotic pathway that creates new oil geologically. It's a very small amount.

The theory is popular in Russia, where it's claimed to be the main way oil is produced. That's complete bullshit. It turned out there is some, but not enough to matter.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Oil actually comes from aquatic life (mostly plankton) that sinks to the sea floor and gets buried, squeezed and heated. Oil still forms today, but it's a process of millions of years.

Coal is formed from plants, and that does indeed require something doesn't eat it first. Swamps, for example, help a lot, letting the fallen trees sink down where most stuff can't eat it. Peat can also form into coal. Coal forms even slower than oil though, and it's much rarer, but it also doesn't require an ocean, so it's often more accessible for us land-living humans

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Coal is much rarer than oil? I have to look that up, I always thought there is far more coal.

Nope, there is about 3x more coal than oil.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

IIRC, all that coal comes from plant material from before there were microbes that can break down cellulose. Meaning that while it's possible to regenerate oil over millions of years, coal cannot.

So yes, there may be more of it now, but when we burn it, it's gone forever.

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 2 days ago (3 children)

The only way that works is if all the oil execs are in ground zero.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 2 days ago (13 children)

Seems half-baked. Well unbaked really. They make a shit ton of assumptions that I’m not sure are true.

For example, why do they assume 90% pulverization efficiency of the basalt? Or is that a number they just pulled out of their ass?

And does ERW work if the pulverized rock is in a big pile on the sea floor? Or would we have to dig the highly radioactive area up and spread it around the surface?

And does the radioactive water truly stay at the site of the explosion? Or will it be spread through the entire ocean via currents?

Cool concept but, like, maybe we should check the assumptions a little harder?

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 days ago

Some people would literally rather nuke the planet than take a train to work...

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Every proposal to save the world ultimately comes back to the plot of The Core

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 day ago

Just spitballing here. These grand ideas good/bad practical/or not are the beginning of mankind learning how to geo engineer planets or moons. I'll be long dead before I get proven right or wrong so it's easy to spitball

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 days ago

Uh oh. What an apropos American way to go.

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