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posted by martyb on Wednesday July 22 2015, @12:07AM   Printer-friendly
from the hard-up-for-a-date? dept.

Growing emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are threatening the effectiveness of radiocarbon dating, according to new research. The dating method has been used for decades to accurately determine the age of a wide range of artefacts. But using fossil fuels pumps a type of carbon into the atmosphere that confuses the dating technique. Scientists say that by 2050, new clothes could have the same radiocarbon date as items 1,000 years old.


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  • (Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Wednesday July 22 2015, @03:41PM

    by Hairyfeet (75) <{bassbeast1968} {at} {gmail.com}> on Wednesday July 22 2015, @03:41PM (#212357) Journal

    I think its obvious what the big future fuel source will be and that is hydrogen. After all you can make it from sea water, its abundant all over our solar system so it'll be good for space travel, doesn't pollute, it just makes sense.

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  • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday July 22 2015, @04:55PM

    by Immerman (3985) on Wednesday July 22 2015, @04:55PM (#212397)

    Nope. All that remains to be done to make it a good energy SOURCE is to work out a way to make it that doesn't consume more energy than burning the hydrogen will produce. Which is physically impossible.

    Hydrogen has potential as an efficient energy STORAGE medium, assuming the difficulties in actually storing it can be overcome, but the energy has to originate somewhere else. Leading hydrogen production candidates seem to be catalytic solar panels or microbial bioreactors. Either way the energy is coming from somewhere else: either directly from sunlight, or from the chemical energy stored in the plant matter used as microbial feedstock.

    Fossil fuels are relatively unique a a fuel in that they are an actual energy SOURCE, at least on human timescales - though in actuality they are an energy storage medium that was mostly "charged" millions of years before humans came on the scene. Coal for example is believed to be the remains of trees and other woody plants that built up for about 50 million years in the window between when plants evolved cellulose and when molds first evolved the ability to digest it.