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The way to deliver solar power when and where you need it is the real problem, but at 50% nuclear they may actually have a better solution than many other countries.
Btw. Mainland France has between 1500 and 2800 hours of sun per year (4 to 8 per day). So 3 to 5 hours is a conservative estimate based on insolation.
https://www.currentresults.com...
Efficiency of the panels will drop by rougly 1% per year over 20 years.
https://www.engineering.com/De...
For windmills the issues are similar, but they may actually help a little (more wind on cloudy days).

I think you might want to re-evaluate that first statement. It's like all of them. It's not if, but when:
Brick Layers:
https://www.marketwatch.com/st...
Bridge Building:
https://www.engineering.com/Ed...
Concrete homes:
https://qz.com/924909/apis-cor...
Flat Concrete: Look for the automated one
https://www.forconstructionpro...

Shoes:
https://www.recode.net/2016/9/...
Clothing:
http://www.deviceplus.com/conn...

Electricians and plumbers might fair better for a while as well as seamstress's, but it's coming. Car repair might take a little while also, but look at where automotive building has gone in the last 100 years.

And how long before this one can pick up it's own tire?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Times are changing. The only safe jobs are with the Amish.

Also, the panels diminish in output over their lifetime,

Empirical results are that they have been degrading less rapidly than expected.
Expected was 20% capacity loss at 20 years (1% per year).
The actual measured capacity loss is 10% for panels manufactured before 2000, and due to quality improvements since then, its just 8% for newer panels (0.4% per year).

AND they probably won't last 20 years,

Empirical results are that solar panels are lasting far longer than 20 years.

Robots are easy because they vaguely look like (parts of) people

You're thinking of androids. Robot is a far broader term. Or will you deny the existance of Kiva robots

That's why I included (parts of). A Rhoomba fits this model. But it's harder to quantify how many skilled laborers were replaced by VisiCalc.

Robots are easy because they vaguely look like (parts of) people

You're thinking of androids. Robot is a far broader term. Or will you deny the existance of Kiva robots

You're taking very specific examples and suggesting there must be nothing of relevance at all, which is a blatant fallacy. You're simply trying to convince yourself you're right, when in fact you're completely wrong.

Pretty much the entire field of aerodynamic modelling of cars, pretty much the entirety of material science related to cars starts with things like Formula 1 and NASCAR and gets us where we are now - with ever more fuel efficient cars, due to using lighter materials, and due to being more aerodynamic and so on and so forth. I don't know why you also think the design of a birdcage frame is irrelevant to highway situations, understanding of crumple zones and so on and so forth is in itself an example of something that was driven by the need to protect drivers when racing cars.

As cars go faster and faster, and need to be more and more fuel efficient, learning about everything from heat dissipation, to wait minimisation, to energy conservation is always being led by racing because they're at that forefront of trying to win the race. Typically the transformation follows a clear pattern - technological advancements turn up in something like a Formula 1, or NASCAR vehicle first, then they end up in high end sports cars quite quickly, from there they move into common consumer vehicles.

For example, the fact most modern cars don't really rust much, if at all is precisely because they use more plastics, more composite materials and so on and so forth that simply aren't effected by rust because they're also lighter. These materials and use of them in motor vehicles stems from the need to get race cars faster by carrying less weight, this is a prime example of the sort of technology transfer that started out in racing, and moved to high end sports cars, and is now in just about every car you'll find in a car lot that was made in the last 10 years.

Even if a consumer car doesn't need to go as fast as many race cars, it can still typically gain efficiency instead of speed from those technologies, because more fuel equals more weight, which means you need a more powerful engine which will typically be heavier also meaning you get stuck in a loop of competing problems, unless you improve fuel efficiency. This is no different to the problem with consumer cars, only people don't want to max out at 200mph, they do at least want to go further on less fuel.

But you don't have to take my word that you're wrong, there's more than enough written on the topic from independent sources if you're willing to do a simple search. Here are some examples:

http://www.engineering.com/Lib...

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/...

Enjoy your cost savings at the price of lawsuits for security breaches.

All that is already figured in. I still don't know why nobody demands names. Lapdog press.

It's about energy density... I believe the number is not a typo...

I am not saying this facebook thing isn't a gimmick, just that someday it will be plausible. Or that there are other ways of measuring and mapping brain activity.

It would cheaper to use femtospacecraft than impacters to explore these regions. One CubeSat could act as a relay for dozens of femtospacecraft while the Lunar Flashlight lights up the territory.

In determining the probable cause of the accident, board members were focused on how well officials prepared for the worst. NTSB member Robert Sumwalt said Scaled Composites "put all their eggs in the basket of the pilots doing it correctly."

"My point is that a single-point human failure has to be anticipated," Sumwalt said. "The system has to be designed to compensate for the error."

Accusing the test pilot of being untrained and/or incompetent or whining about the risks of interlocks is both irrelevant and stupid. Single point operator failures should be designed out of any system that can cost a human life. That's why there are airbags, seat belts, and crumple zones in cars: because people fuck stuff up. If a new car that costs $15,000 can have these safety features then leaving equivalent features out of a spacecraft is engineering malpractice and possibly criminal negligence.

But no one will be held personally accountable. And whatever safety culture does result won't last. By the time there is a 20% staff turn over it will be completely gone. Why? Because: we're makin money here, if you don't get that then get the fuck out.

Just like in the Challenger disaster, when a technical person objects a manager will say "Take off your engineering hat and put on your management hat." And people will die and nothing will change.

Too late, Airbus is already thinking that...

http://www.engineering.com/Des...

Storage turns out not to be a big deal for an 80% renewable powered grid. http://www.engineering.com/Ele...

France does have big problems with summer heat shutting down reactors though. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05...

Everything works well with little extra storage at 80% renewable. You should think a little harder. http://www.engineering.com/Ele...

http://www.engineering.com/Ele...

Turns out, you are mistaken. http://www.engineering.com/Ele...

Renewables are "predictable and reliable"? This quote is all over the net in summaries of TFA, but it does not exist in TFA, nor even in Prof. Lombardo's original article.

It's great that Tesla is putting this effort in. Note that they have chosen a very special location - masses of sunshine, shallow and easily accessible geothermal, etc.. However, as usual - if the title of the article contains a question, the answer is in the negative - no, others cannot do this.

The expense is massive; Tesla is doing this primarily for political "green" points. It takes massive amounts of land. It requires a special location. Few other companies will be in a position to reproduce this.

And - to get back to my first point - renewables are neither predictable nor reliable. Tesla is not going off-grid, nor could they. There have been plenty of previous references on Slashdot to the actual (non-)reliability of wind farms and solar. Even geothermal has its limits, not only location, but for each location there is a hard limit as to how fast can you remove heat.

Storage could be nice and also substitute for transmission but it may not be as large a market as they anticipate: http://www.engineering.com/Ele...

You've made an error there. http://www.engineering.com/Ele... But why must we run the accelerator when the sun isn't shining? Low cost solar power takes the edge off this.

That seems to be a mistaken view. Not much storage is needed. http://www.engineering.com/Ele...

Really? http://www.engineering.com/Ele...

Solar and wind back each other up. http://www.engineering.com/Ele... It's nukes that go out for weeks at a time needing typically fossil replacement energy. Shut them down permanently and wind and solar and hydro will rush in to replace them. Look at Vermont, heck look at California which recently closed another nuke.

Turns out storage is not much needed at 80% renewable energy supply. http://www.engineering.com/Ele...

It's sad that 3D printing had become synonymous with FDM or glorified glue guns (GGG). There are lots of different technologies that fall under the umbrella of 3D printing.

Here's a gun that was 3D printed using DMLS (Direct Metal Laser Sintering) for the metal parts and SLS for the grips. It's both durable and viable.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
http://www.engineering.com/3DP...

Here's a few other 3D printing processes that are not FDM glorified glue guns:

SLS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

DMLS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...

LOM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...

SLA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

I don't know about "safe" but the original design for the Hyatt Regency walkway would not have been up to KC's building code.

source

The "nano structure batteries and super-capacitors" reminded me of these: http://www.engineering.com/DesignerEdge/DesignerEdgeArticles/ArticleID/6442/Superlative-Supercapacitors--A-Moonshot-Idea.aspx

Someone printed meat, I believe. But then they started with meat cells to begin with. So basically this would not solve the production problems of meat, but would allow you slurry the whole cow in the slaughter house and pipe it to the grocery store. Whole new meaning for the term "meat pipe."

There is a ton of activity in this area. I think there is a new sulfur based solid anode on the horizon for lithium batteries that is going to reduce cost, increase capacity four-fold and dramatically reduce charge time; see http://www.engineering.com/DesignerEdge/DesignerEdgeArticles/ArticleID/5834/Oak-Ridge-Labs-Scientists-Make-Lithium-Sulfur-Battery-Breakthrough.aspx and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium%E2%80%93sulfur_battery. I also think there is a new graphene technology that is going to make way better supercapacitors; see http://www.sciencemag.org/content/341/6145/534.abstract. The federal government is pushing this hard too: see http://www.anl.gov/energy/batteries-and-energy-storage.

Lee Iaccoca must be advising the Air Force...

This article on the Pinto defects explains it well
http://www.engineering.com/Library/ArticlesPage/tabid/85/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/166/Ford-Pinto.aspx

BENEFITS
Savings: 180 burn deaths, 180 serious burn injuries, 2,100 burned vehicles. Unit Cost: $200,000 per death, $67,000 per injury, $700 per vehicle.
Total Benefit: 180 X ($200,000) + 180 X ($67,000) + $2,100 X ($700) = $49.5 million.
COSTS
Sales: 11 million cars, 1.5 million light trucks.
Unit Cost: $11 per car, $11 per truck.
Total Cost: 11,000,000 X ($11) + 1,500,000 X ($11) = $137 million.

Trouble for ford was killing and maiming customers becomes a lot more expensive when its known you are aware of the problem.

presumably SEGA took this lesson on board and discontinued development.

Take the number of vehicles in the field (A) multiply it by the probable rate of failure (B) then multiply the result by the average out of court settlement (C). A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of the recall, we don't do one.

Yes, movies are cute and all, but let's not apply them to reality, okay? That's the logic Ford used when they decided to sell the Pinto rather than redesign it's gas tank. It's used as a case study for Business Ethics courses. It's not done that way normally for several reasons, not the least of which being what actually happened to Ford after their clever scheme was discovered.

Millions of dollars in lawsuits were filed and won against the automaker, including the largest personal injury judgment ever. And in the 1979 landmark case State of Indiana v. Ford Motor Co., Ford notoriously became the first American corporation ever indicted or prosecuted on criminal homicide charges. Though Ford was acquitted of reckless homicide in March 1980, the Pinto's reputation had plummeted disastrously; Ford ceased production of the car five months after the trial. -- from here

Their estimate of "average out of court settlement" turned out to be several orders of magnitude too low, and it destroyed their reputation too. Hardly a good deal, after all.

Stick to art. You are quite wrong. There are plenty of sites on the web that discuss this collapse: http://www.engineering.com/content/ContentDisplay? contentId=41009035

The original design was also a box beam created out of two C-sections. The biggest problem was that the design of the support rods was changed. In the original design, the support rods were continuous from the ceiling, to the upper bridge (4th floor), and then to the lower bridge (2nd floor). The upper bridge would have been supported by a nut threaded all the way up from below the lower bridge.

As built, there were two separate rods. One rod from the ceiling to the upper bridge. A second rod went from the upper bridge to the lower bridge. As designed, the upper bridge support beams only supported the weight of the upper bridge. As built, the upper bridge support beams now supported both the upper bridge AND the lower bridge. In other words, the design change DOUBLED the stress on the upper support beams.

An additional design problem was that the connections at the support beams should have had a cover plate welded over the box beam. The designed connection was vulnerable to a ripping failure of the weld.

I understand why the walkway was not built as designed -- the original design was basically unbuildable. The change from one continuous rod to two rods made sense. The problem was that the support beams and connections were not resized as required.

When I think of engineering mistakes, the Cypress Freeway comes to mind. A double-decker freeway built on soil that isn't solid in an earthquake-prone area is a disaster waiting to happen.

The former double-decker section of 880 has since been replaced with a new, single decker structure a bit to the west of the original alignment. The cost of that new, short freeway section was $1.13 billion dollars, more expensive than the costs of LA's Century Freeway (105), IIRC.

Tux can get the contract to pull the initial leads used to drag the larger lines then larger cables etc. Just give him a harness to attach the leads to and let him swim back and forth between mainland Italy and Sicily. Wonder if PETA would object and seek a suspension of Tux's labors? If the waters are too warm for him then the overclockers could work out a cooling system mod. Now if you want to use the actual OS for something then perhaps someone could set up a cluster to run simulations of oscillations under various conditions and designs. Anyone want to sine on for the project?

...as far as possible from the dangers of firing engines and falling debris, which were responsible for the accidents that destroyed the shuttle Challenger in 1986 and the Columbia in 2003.