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I *still* think that Cryocoolers are the way to go. You can't tell me that a Stirling or Pulse Tube cryocooler would cost that much more to mass produce than a regular AC unit. Not to mention that the engine load would drop to an unnoticable amount in comparison to today's AC units. Even the EPA's own documents mention Stirling coolers as an acceptable solution! :-)

But lets leave coal bashing aside for a moment. It's a solid fuel which causes reasonably little damage in it's extraction and transport. (As opposed to burning it which is a nightmare)

compare that to widespread sludge farms to grow your bacteria?

or wind farms destroying the skylines and slaughtering migratory birds?

Haven't we already debunked the "bird slaughtering" stigma enough in the last few articles on windfarming? (link here (PDF) IMHO wind farms are quite beautiful.

I gave you a link. How many more do you want? I'll get you as many as you need. There are no people in the literature who "think radiation is a more or less negligable effect" - the tiles were designed *specifically* to be radiative - that is why they have such a large surface area.

Look, is it really worth my time to baby-step you through Space Shuttle 101? If references aren't good enough for you, ask a NASA scientist (but first search for "tiles" to see where they already discuss it). I'll quote some of the answers that they've given:

"Jessie from Jacksonville, Ill., age: 14 asked the following question of Mission Specialist Andrew Thomas

Question: Why doesn't the space shuttle burn up on its way through the Earth's atmosphere?

Answer: The space shuttle, Jessie, is encased in some very fine silicon ceramic tiles, which are able to take a very large amount of heat. And they absorb the heat and radiate it back out into space so that the space shuttle does not burn up due to the friction of the atmosphere. "

Congratulations, a fourteen year old now knows more about the shuttle tiles than you. Bet that makes you feel great?

Here's another:

"Rachiel fengstad, of Lethbridge Alberta asked the following question of Linda Ham, lead flight director

Question: What properties of ceramics are the most useful in space shuttle technology?

Answer: The light weight and quick heat dissipation rate of the shuttle's ceramic tiles are pretty useful qualities. Also, quite a few electronic components make use of ceramic packaging which is a good insulator. Original Response"

One of the answers refers to the TPS information page . From the overview:

"The HRSI tiles protect areas where temperatures are below 2,300 F. These tiles have a black surface coating necessary for entry emittance (second definition)."

you can't damage it with your fingernail at all

Mechanical properties of FRCI-12 tiles (why do I have to do all the work for you?). Tensile strength - 107 psi (737 kpa). For comparison, a study of bridge concrete failures when testing a repair method found the average failure tensile strength to be just over 500 kpa (concrete starts out higher, but decreases with age). In short, it has the tensile strength of old concrete (but is far, far lighter). Yes, what we really want is hardness, but I don't have time to hunt that down.

extremely cheap

June 27, 2000 QuestChat with George Raiche, Research Scientist, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
"RE: [Bertus] Sorry I send the same question twice...How much does one of this plates cost about in dollars??
To tell you the truth, I don't know how much one tile costs. The material costs are very small--the real expense was in the research costs to invent the tiles. Also, the labor costs to inspect and replace the tiles are far greater than the material cost. It's like repairing a car--the labor charge is usually much more than the parts."

If you have any more questions, ask NASA (I gave you the link) or actually do a web search yourself - I'm not your babysitter.

The Register has an article about how radioactive tritium "glowring" keyrings cannot be imported into the US since the authorities have placed an embargo on the civilian use of radioactive material.

More details on Tritium.

Given these restrictions, we probably won't have nuclear powered laptops, but it will help make space probes lighter.

...seeing as a tritium battery would only irradiate you if it broke open, take your pick. Would you rather:

A) Have a freshly-maimed lap full of delicious, toxic, viscous, burning battery acid; or
B) Inhale the rough equivalent of breathing a couple months' worth of naturally-occuring tritium?

Take your time. This one's a toughie.

How does tritium affect people's health?

As with all ionizing radiation, exposure to tritium increases the risk of developing cancer. However, tritium is one of the least dangerous radionuclides because it emits very weak radiation and leaves the body relatively quickly. Since tritium is almost always found as water, it goes directly into soft tissues and organs. The associated dose to these tissues are generally uniform and dependent on the tissues' water content.

How does tritium change in the environment?

Tritium readily forms water when exposed to oxygen. As it undergoes radioactive decay, tritium emits a very weak beta particle and transforms to stable, nonradioactive helium. Tritium has a half-life of 12.3 years.

How do people come in contact with tritium?

People are exposed to small amounts of tritium every day, since it is widely dispersed in the environment and in the food chain. People who live near or work in federal weapons facilities or nuclear fuel cycle facilities may have increased exposure. People working in research laboratories may also come in contact with tritium.

How does tritium get into the body?

Tritium primarily enters the body when people swallow tritiated water. People may also inhale tritium as a gas in the air, and absorb it through their skin.

What does tritium do once it gets into the body?

Tritium is almost always found as water, or "tritiated" water. Once tritium enters the body, it disperses quickly and is uniformly distributed throughout the body. Tritium is excreted through the urine within a month or so after ingestion. Organically bound tritium (tritium that is incorporated in organic compounds) can remain in the body for a longer period.

In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency requires detergents in gasoline.

Actually, diesel automobiles (such as the VW TDI, Peugeot 307 and SMART car) are typically amongst the lowest greenhouse polluters according to the Government of Canada and the EPA. Even urban particle count measurements have automibile diesel engines scoring well compared with gasoline engines. You are most likely confusing the modern diesel automobile with older trucks widely used in the transportation industry. I'd be quite interested in the 'stark facts' you suggest. Perhaps you can post a link?

The fact that you, or a rat, can deal with a small number of radiation-induced ionizations (and any ill effects therefrom) does not mean that your ability to deal will scale with the intensity of the dosage in a linear fashion.

You, and the rat, have cellular level mechanisms for repairing that kind of damage, and it's when those mechanisms break down due to overload or other circumstances that you get, for instance, cancer.

Melanoma, skin cancer, is caused by prolonged exposure to UV (ionizing) radiation that affects some of the fastest-growing, hence most susceptible, tissue in your body.

However, the radiation from your cell phone does not cause the same kind of ionization effects.

Rather, it's more likely to warm the tissue near the broadcast unit. If a cell happens to be warmed too much, some of the proteins might cook.
That won't cause cancer.

For more information, look at http://www.epa.gov/radiation/understand/ionize_non ionize.htm ... they have a nice chart to explain it to you.

So... yes, it's bad science.

What's really sad is that, if the above numbers pan out, this vehicle would actually be more fuel efficient than most cars in the US today, not just the worst of the SUVs.

2004 Average: 20.8 MPG

At approximately 112000 BTU/gallon of gasoline that's about 33kWh/gal. In California where the prices are about $0.12/kWh electric, it costs you about $4.00/gallon saved. With gas prices at about $2.40 in CA that's about $1.60 extra per gallon saved.

For those of you who say "fuel savings at any cost" consider that most of the california electricity is generated by burning natural gas, and that there are considerable losses involved in generating and transmitting the electricity.

Nothing to see here at the moment. Wait until the price of gas goes to $5.00 and then buy some solar panels to charge your car (or at least net-meter your electricity).

Not to mention Radon levels.

Colorado probably isn't the best place to live if you are worried about radiation.

The energy industry isn't even the worst. Sites like this show just how useful Americans consider their drinking water as compared to truly important things like, say, family television and missile defence pipe dreams.

And before anyone points out "They don't only have to pay a piddling sum in fines, they have to pay $x million to fix the problem"...there never should have been a problem in the first place. None of these places is operating at a loss, I guarantee you. That's like saying "He's a much better person then you- he has to fight every day against the urge to murder someone, and you don't even have to try!"

> How many of the 'Independants' get their money from (or are members of) GreenPeace, the Audobon Society, the Sierra Club and other environmentalist organizations?

And how many get their money from industries that produce greenhouse gasses?

>

Next question, How much study has there been over whether or not the warming will actually cause harm? Not from an "All warming is bad standpoint" but from a "this are is getting warmer, lets figure out what will happen" point.

It's already wreaking havoc among plants and animals, sometimes with a direct economic impact, because the earlier spring thaw is throwing the interaction between species out of sync. For some species, things like pollination and food supply depend critically on the relative timings, and the warm-up is happening too fast for them to adapt. (The adaptation isn't necessarily evolution; it can be things like moving the species' range closer to the pole. But forests don't walk very fast, and the mobile species that depend on them can't very well migrate without them.)

Then there's things like rising sea levels resulting from warming; for details check out some maps.

More generally, we've built our habitations and infrastructure on the basis of the world as it is, and as the rug metaphorically shifts beneath our feet the social and economic disruptions are going to hurt like a mother. Reorganizing our entire agricultural system to adjust to changes in rainfall, replacing hydroelectric power generation lost for the same reason, moving our coastal cities and their inhabitants, etc., isn't going to be cheap or convenient. And when the whole world starts having those kinds of problems, all simultaneously and extending over decades, the urges of the 'haves' to stay 'haves' and the 'have-nots' to merely survive, is likely to cause an increase in armed conflicts that will make us think the War on Terror was the Good Old Days.

The large majority of researchers are planting themselves on ground that humans are at least partially to blame for global temperature rising. A few scientists disagree, which is fine, and that's how science works.

Clueless. No, that's not how science works. Do we study integrals and derivatives in calculus because most scientists agree on them? No, they are fact, and they work independently of any scientist's personal opinion or bias.

Here Creationists are very popular due to religious and political leanings, even though virtually every reputable biologist states that evolution happens, and is responsible for the way life has developed over the last 4 billion years.

Did you just say virtually every reputable biologist? Who are these biologists? Who declared them reputable? Concensus -- aka politics -- again. It amuses me how your post accuses opponents as being politically motivated, the whole time wearing the same left-wing blinders yourself.

As another poster raised the subject, here's some food for thought:

Global cooling
Global warming

So...which is it?

"If you break it down to raw physics, how much energy does it take to heat at 1 acre/foot of water 1 degree celcious. Light is easy to produce, energy of the amount the sun or even the earth produces is beyond our foreseeable grasp."

Man you are thick. The problem from all the gas flaring isn't the heat produced, its the voluminous quantities of CO2 it produces. CO2 is a green house gas, which increases the propensity of our atmosphere to trap the Sun's heat and as you said yourself the Sun showers the earth with lots of HEAT. The fact that man is adding CO2 and methane to the atmosphere on a continuing basis is almost certainly contributing to increased trapping of the Sun's heat, increasing the Earth's temperature. Get it yet?

Another illuminating example of Man's capacity to alter our climate, which is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt is ozone depletion. Its an amazingly good example because it too is caused by human activity releasing gasses, chlorofluorocarbons, in to the atmosphere, not huge releases, but billions of tiny releases by aerosol cans, refrigerators and air conditioning leaks. If we had taken your approach, denial, and hadn't banned the problem gasses we might well have destroyed the ozone layer that shields us from ultraviolet radiation and we would have all died and taken much of life on this planet with us.

"I will, but I recall a Syrian actually being an enemy combatant. I do plan to look into this as I really would like to see what came of the trials."

Here is one transcript from a man who was in the famous nude pyramid. He was an Iragi civilian being held for theft/looting and he is beyond a shadow of a doubt protected by the Geneva conventions on treatment of civilians in occupied countries, and they specificly band sexual humiliation. He is so ashamed he is is suicidal.

"I'm certain there are and I am content with covert missions and interrogations involving torcher."

WTF is "torcher"? You in favor of setting people on fire too? All I can say is you are sick, and I've had enough, you belong in my Foes list next to my allstar list of right wing wackos many of them think torture is cool too.

Probably should point out the obvious hypocrisy in supporting toppling Saddam because he tortured people and then saying its OK for the U.S. to torture people too.

The only thing I wish for you in life is that someday you land in dark, dank prison cell and spend a few years of your life being tortured every day, you deserve it.

"No, I'm no holding no war or information against you, nor have I committed any crimes punishable in such way."

Like I said many of those people in Abu Graib were being held on suspicion of theft/looting. They hadn't been charged with anything, they hadn't been convicted of anything, so by your lame ass standard I can accuse you of theft and come over and arrest and torture you. Whats your address?

Later dude, your posts aren't worth the bandwidth. Probably should consider not posting your B.S. for the rest of the world to see. Your embarrasing, you give Americans a bad name and they don't need any help in that regard.

"For now, it remains an accessory or luxury item."

A similar system is also used on the so-called 'invisible fleet' of trucks that move government equipment & radioactive/hazardous materials on our roads.

It broadcasts all sorts of information including speed & if someone attempts to open the cargo area.

The vehicles can also be shut down remotely.

Look for the device when you see sort of plain looking 18-wheelers driving past you on national highways. There will be a white dome attached to the roof of the cab on many of them.

The most likely place you'll see them would probably be around Yucca Mountain, Nye County, Nevada.

Does anyone ever stop and think, "gee, where did all the fireflies go?"
or the frogs, chipmunks, birds, salamanders, butterflies, ... I could go on.
How many people know what a firefly is these days? We've decimated our ecology by removing the natural vegetation from our front and back yards in some stupid quest for the perfect lawn: uniform, monoculter, weed and pest free.
Then we wonder where all the wildlife went (we killed their homes and removed their food) or why the summers keep getting hotter every year (we've replaced shading, cooling trees with lawn and concrete, or why the air quality sucks so badly and little Timmy has lung cancer and has to breath from a fucking oxygen tank (we've polluted our lawns with chemicals pushed from an industry that doesn't give a fuck about your kids - only your money).
These genetic monstrosities (if they were ever to become even remotely possible) do nothing to restore the ecosystem that we and our animals friends rely on to survive.
Get educated about the environment and the small part you can do to restore the remaining fragments. Even your little patch of lawn can make a difference.
wild ones
green landscaping
plant conservation alliance

Here is a good resource on global warming from EPA and National Science Foundation though there estimates are little lower, 6 celsius is there upper end over the next century. The most impressive thing about this web site is that its created by people in the U.S. government, the Bush White House hasn't shut it down and they haven't fired the people who created it, so shhhhh don't tell them about it because they must know its there because they really hate anyone who says stuff like this.

One of the more interesting sections. Those of you who've been through the big rains on the West Coast and the big snows on the East Coast should note that intense rainstorms and presumably snow storms are a potential indicator of global warming as the oceans evaporate off more water as they warm.

"Global mean surface temperatures have increased 0.5-1.0F since the late 19th century. The 20th century's 10 warmest years all occurred in the last 15 years of the century. Of these, 1998 was the warmest year on record. The snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere and floating ice in the Arctic Ocean have decreased. Globally, sea level has risen 4-8 inches over the past century. Worldwide precipitation over land has increased by about one percent. The frequency of extreme rainfall events has increased throughout much of the United States."

"Increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases are likely to accelerate the rate of climate change. Scientists expect that the average global surface temperature could rise 1-4.5F (0.6-2.5C) in the next fifty years, and 2.2-10F (1.4-5.8C) in the next century, with significant regional variation. Evaporation will increase as the climate warms, which will increase average global precipitation. Soil moisture is likely to decline in many regions, and intense rainstorms are likely to become more frequent. Sea level is likely to rise two feet along most of the U.S. coast."

A few things that you may have missed:
1) Record high temperatures in Europe causing drought and an estimated 35,000 deaths.
2) Global mean surface temperatures have increased 0.5-1.0F since the late 19th century. see here
3) Sea level has risen 4-8 inches over the past century, not good for coastal habitats (Same source at #2).
4) The Larsen B Ice Shelf Collapsed dumping some 720 Billion Tons of Ice into the sea.
Based upon these, arguing that nothing has or will happened is a little foolish don't you think?

As others have pointed out the term Global Warming connotates a rise in average temperature overall not a rise in every local temperature. The 'fact' that it may or may not be colder in some parts of the world now than it was previously does not disprove the theory by any means.

If you have references for your assertions I would be glad to see them.

From tsunami to Kyoto not impacting the environment at all to dropping emissions, to overblown disaster movies, scientists resigning various environmental organizations, and other speeches. People are even connecting the environment to the tsunamis, which have nothing to do with the environment, and everything to do with Earthquakes that are going to happen anyway. Lets get some perspective here.

One word: Octenol

Hm. I'd heard previously that blood type also had something to do with it. But it doesn't, apparently. http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20041111.html I'm the type of person that gets nailed three times by one mosquito, and they Always come to me first. They'll pass by three of my coworkers just to get to me... it's pretty effing irritating. I also seem to be more resistant to poisonous spiders, scorpions, and hornet stings than I am to a simple mosquito or flea bite. When I first landed in Hawaii, one nailed me on the back of the hand, and it swelled up to about three quarters of an inch higher than normal, and spread across the entire topside of my left hand. So, needless to say, any research that gets rid of them without coating me in oils that provoke my allergies or smoke that carries evil odors... makes me happy. Onward, researchers! My blood and skin are at stake! If anyone else has the same huge problems with them that I do, check out this link. It'll probably help. http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/factsheets/mosquito. htm

Why would you advertise blocking WiMax as a good idea? What happens when my friendly *COUGH* *Evil!* Telco installs WiMax in my neighborhood and the previous owner of my house painted it with this stuff. On top of that does anyone remember lead based paint?

I think your login pretty much says it all about your posts.

"Do you really believe a couple billion bags of cells with delusions of intelligence can change the weather of an entire planet?"

I think you don't have to look much further than the undisputed fact that those meat sacks nearly destroyed the ozone layer with aerosol cans and Freon. Not exactly weather but its pretty much the same concept, technology induced global calamity. If we hadn't taken measures to stop it, it would have also eventually wiped us just from the ultraviolet end of the spectrum instead of the infrared.

"It changed before we existed, and will keep changing once we are gone."

Thanks for conceeding my point. I guess we can hope that once we wipe human kind off the face of the planet with a global population/climatic disaster that the earth will right itself in a hundred million years or so. I just don't think its fair that we will probably take out a whole bunch of innocent species with us.

Here is the same link I posted from the EPA/National Science Foundation posted to rebut the other ostrich in this thread. It takes balls for anyone in the EPA or NSF to still be saying this stuff publicly because their boss has made it abundantly clear his faith based approach to climatology doesn't have any room for the possibility of human induced global warming. Of course then Little George and most of the people in his administration are Born Again's and are sitting around waiting for the second coming, the rapture and to be called to sit on the right hand of Jesus. If you have that kind of an outlook on the world I guess it doesn't really matter if we may crater the Earth's climate in the next hundred years. Heck maybe a run away climate is just part of the fireworks to punctuate acting out the Book of Revelations.

"Venus has an atmosphere of about 95% CO2. It is physically impossible for humans to create anywhere near that level of CO2 here on Earth."

You also don't need anything close to that to devestate life on earth. If we push up the Earth's average temperature 10-20 degrees Fahrenheit that will be enough to cause a massive disruption in our climate and lives. 10 degrees is within the range currently estimated by the National Science Foundation for the next 100 years especially if we make no attempt to check green house gas production.

"Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide have increased nearly 30%, methane concentrations have more than doubled, and nitrous oxide concentrations have risen by about 15%."

"Since 1979, scientists have generally agreed that a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide increases the earth?s average surface temperature by 1.5-4.5C (3-8F). More recent studies have suggested that the warming is likely to occur more rapidly over land than the open seas."

"Global mean surface temperatures have increased 0.5-1.0F since the late 19th century. The 20th century's 10 warmest years all occurred in the last 15 years of the century. Of these, 1998 was the warmest year on record. The snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere and floating ice in the Arctic Ocean have decreased. Globally, sea level has risen 4-8 inches over the past century. Worldwide precipitation over land has increased by about one percent. The frequency of extreme rainfall events has increased throughout much of the United States." **Reference California this week.

"At first, the cooler oceans will tend to absorb much of the additional heat and thereby decrease the warming of the atmosphere. Only when the ocean comes into equilibrium with the higher level of CO2 will the full warming occur."

"The conservationist looks for the best way to solve an environmental issue taking into account as much science as is possible. The environmentalist already knows what the right way to solve an issue is and finds the science to back him up. I think this is why you got upset that I mocked your assertion that cow farts are causing global warming."

I'm sorry but your rhetoric throughout this thread shows you are anything but a conservationist and you don't give a rats ass about any of the science involved. Your approach to the science is the ostrich approach, stick your head in the sand and hope for the best. I'm giving you reference after reference, and you give me denial, tangents and empty rhetoric. A conservationist isn't going to pick fossil fuels and nukes as the only two viable energy sources for the planet.

Nuclear is an option but it comes laced with problems in particular safety, especially in an age where they are inviting terrorism targets, waste disposal and the obvious fact the U.S. wont stand for most places around the world having it due to the weapons proliferation problems. One little accident with a big nuclear plant and you poison a vast area and they simply aren't fool proof no matter how good the design.

Why is this only obvious to me? Why can't I buy a honda civic with a diesel?

Because you don't realise but some state governments do that diesel exhaust causes lung cancer?

long term retrospective study

It's the microparticulates that are the problem. Figure out a way to filter them cost effectively, then OK.

You do realise we're talking about a device that generates a number in sync with the server, and not a simple ascii file, right?

This, not this. (or this)

And if it hits Hanford or Yucca Mountain?

It's a floorwax! No, it's a dessert topping. Stop, we're both right. (though UVB and UVC, from what I infer, are ionizing because they cross the 1e-7 meter wavelength mark, so you're, like, more right).

the sea level rise and more violent storms are being caused by God to punish us and the solutions are religious ones, not ones based on reason.

Please pay more when you are reading, often one sentence builds on an idea initiated in the previous one. The science predicts the sea levels will rise and storms will get more violent, and the statement was discussing what people will blame it on if they reject the science.

Sea level rise Beware, there are some scientifical terminalogies here.

If you can't do that, then you're just fucked, eh?

What an odd statement.

Scientists are urging people to get ready for the effects of and perhaps try to reduce the pace of global warming because we're all "fucked" if we don't.

Take a look at some of the research and data on how much naturally radioactive particles are released into the atmosphere through burning of fossil fuels...

According to this Report to Congress on Wastes from the Combustion of Fossil Fuels, radioactivty in fossil fuels is not a problem.

The report says (page 44) that because the radioactive elements are not burned, they concentrate in the ash instead of spreading in atmosphere.

As for the danger of the ash, the report says:

EPA has reviewed radionuclide concentrations in coal and ash in connection with other regulatory programs (EPA 1989a, 1989b, 1995c). One of these studies examined potential exposures of worker and nearby resident to radioactivity from ash released from coal pile through wind and runoff erosion. Exposure from direct contact, inhalation, and ingestion were estimated to fall below natural background radiation exposure levels even for a worker standing on the ash pile.

The report concludes that the risks from non-radioactive elements in coal (selenium, arsenic, aluminum, and boron) are of much more concern.

since when does a fossil fuel power plant produce radioactive waste? :)

heh heh. Actually coal plants do produce radioactive waste. Instead of putting it in a container and storing it, they disperse it in the atmosphere.

Look at this link

Notice that you get more than 3 times more dose if you live near a coal plant than if you live near a nuclear plant. (If you live within 50 miles of a nuke plant you get 0.009 mrem as opposed to 0.03 mrem if you live within 50 miles of a coal plant.)

Well, sweetie, the microwave uses a device called a magnetron to generate microwaves--radio waves with a frequency of about 2.45GHz. These "microwaves" are absorbed by various molecules in the food, causing them to vibrate faster and heat up. Microwaves are non-ionizing radiation; they don't have enough energy to knock electrons out of orbit.

On the other hand, irradiation to kill pathogens in food is generally done with gamma radiation from a radioactive source, such as Cobalt 60. While gamma rays are also radio waves, they are of much higher frequency than microwaves: over 30 exahertz or so--that's 30,000,000,000GHz. As such, they have enough energy to knock electrons loose from orbit, and are known as ionizing radiation. Food irradiation is also done with X-rays, which are still ionizing radiation, but less energetic than gamma rays.

Now come eat your dinner, it's getting cold!

(look it up: vehicle fuel economy peaked in the 80's, and has been going down ever since)

This sounds like bullshit, but I'll follow your advice and look it up.

(minutes later)

Wow, you're right! This is OT, but for those interested, read through this report from the EPA.

A short quote: "Since 1975, the fuel economy of the combined car and light truck fleet has moved through several phases: (1) a rapid increase from 1975 to the mid-1980s, (2) a slow increase extending into the late 1980s, (3) a decline from the peak in the late 1980s, and (4) since then a period of relatively constant overall fleet fuel economy. Viewing new cars and trucks separately, the three-year moving average fuel economy for cars has increased 1.0 MPG since 1991, but that for trucks has been relatively constant."

Maybe the anti-SUV crowd has a point, after all.

Another problem with your "theory" is that you have obviously never studied atmospheric chemistry. The reason that you see the thinest is more complex than simply where CFCs are produced, especailly considering CFC's dissolve throughout the atmosphere in about a year.

The EPA has an EXCELLENT site http://www.epa.gov/ozone/science/hole/whyant.html that responds (with nice hard irrefutable science) to the misinformed statement above.

"yet you yourself are following these scientists (have have just as much data against them as with them) as though they are you own personal Saviour."

Please see the Science article I referenced in another posting. You'll see that this statement is false. Multiple independent studies have shown that humans are having an impact on the climate, and there seems to be wide agreement among scientists. Hell, even the EPA has a website up about it.

"The last ice age, volcanoes, and the billions of years that this planet has been in existence, yet some scientists using an incredibly short span of history believe they can suddenly prognosticate what impact we humans are having on a planet whose age is so large a number that we can scarcely wrap our minds around it say we're suddenly about to impact it more than all of the previous time combined".

Oh, the planet will balance itself and recover eventually. We just may manage to impact our environment enough so that it won't be very livable for us!

But hey, relax, kick back with a beer, and enjoy your oceanfront property in Kiribati!

"Thanks to this progress, today's air is the cleanest most Americans have ever breathed," said Administrator Mike Leavitt. "Now, EPA is taking up the challenge to accelerate the pace of that progress into the future."

Nobody is denying that work needs to be done, but progress is being made.

The official EPA Global Warming website is located at: www.epa.gov/globalwarming/

Oh my word. That's the first time I've heard "reuse" to mean "reuse the recycled materials" Ugh. If it was taught that way, yeah it makes sense. I've heard a lot of variations, it's bizzare.

"Reduce, Reuse, Recycle", as I was taught was the idea that you reduce your consumption of materials which produce waste, you reuse whatever waste you can... from keeping old margerine containers, bringing shopping bags back to the grocery store, using scrap paper... finding creative uses for stuff which would have been thrown out, like dead computers, or choosing to buy reusable stuff instead of disposable stuff, like a metal travel mug instead of a paper cup... then finally if you can't avoid producing the waste and you can't find a use for the waste, then recycle it.

Every township seems to have rolled out recycling at a slightly different time. Recycling hit my local area around 1989.

Generally accepted U.S. propaganda is currently in support of my flavour of brainwashing:

http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/muncpl/reduce.h tm

Now I'm not saying all this to try and get into a dick-waving contest with you...

Sure you're not.... *backs away slowly*

According to the EPA, the current US carbon monoxide level is almost 35% less than the 1990 level, nitrous oxides are about 20% less than the 1990 level, sulfur dioxide is about 30% less than the 1990 level. We seem to be regulating ourselves just fine, thank you very much.

And besides that, does anyone think that this will carry any more bite than those "stern warnings" from the UN on genocide in Africa? Please.

Ah yes, pollution credits. The US EPA tried this once.

Actually, I thought it was much longer than just nine years ago and I thought it got pulled because people didn't like the idea of the trading ("bribing to pollute" was another way of putting it).

Since I don't seem to remember anything correctly, can others shed some more insight on this and how it'll foreshadow trading under the Kyoto treaty?

Yeah, there are differences, but there are a lot of parallels too.

How about the Union of Concerned Scientists including many Nobel Laureates and Phd's in environmental sciences?

Or the Bush administration itself which accepted it is likely the case in 2002?

The general scientific position is that it exists. The potential consequences of doing nothing seem to suggest its prudent to take action.

The real problem with Yucca Mountain is the water table issue and the fact that most of these waste materials are extremely toxic. Nuclear reactors do not produce large amounts of isotopes "hundreds of thousands of times more radioactive" than "natural" uranium. And if they did, the half-life for them would be extremely short. The reason it takes millions of years for these waste materials to become functionally inert is because they are alpha emitters with very long half-lives. In other words, they do not produce large amounts of dangerous radiation. As they decay they will hit stages of greater radiation, but remember, alpha particles cannot even penetrate the layer of dead skin cells covering our bodies. A sheet of paper is strong enough shielding. Beta emmiters are somewhat more dangerous, but not significantly so. Additionally, while alpha particle radiation can still cause mutagenic aberrations if it can get passed your clothes and skin; the real danger is application to an open wound, inhalation, or ingestion of the radioactive materials. Not only does this allow the alpha particles to damage sensitive internal organ tissue, but the materials themselves are highly toxic. This is one of the reasons that radon (the end product of the uranium in the earth naturally decaying) in our basements is such a concern. Radon being gaseous enters our lungs where the alpha particles can actually do damage.

Chernobyl's problem was not the release of radiation into the atmosphere. That is disapated very rapidly by prevailing winds and does not affect the surrounding area significantly (not from a single event such as that). The problem with Chernobyl was that when the top blew chunks of radioactive debris like pieces of the graphite cooling system rained down over the surrounding countryside and got into the ground and the water supply.

Most of the deaths in Nagasaki and Hiroshima were caused by the shockwave and the subsequent fires, not the radiation. This is not to say that there weren't many people killed by radiation, there were. But those individuals dying of cancer caused by those blasts are the individuals that were present at the time of the attacks. Both areas are still thickly settled and do not have higher than normal cancer rates outside of the population of the bomb drop survivors.

Additionally, far larger amounts of the same materials used and produced in nuclear power production (including uranium 235, uranium 238, and thorium among others) are pumped into our atmosphere every day by coal burning plants. In fact, if we took all the radioactive materials we send into the air every year and put them in nuclear reactors, we'd be able to make more energy that the coal plants that put them into the atmosphere did during the same timeframe.

On top of that, if breeder and pellet based plutonium reactors were actual in service we could use the waste from standard light water reactors to feed breeder reactors whose waste would feed the pellet based reactors. Drastically reducing the amount and lethality of the nuclear waste that we'd ultimately have to store.

Uranium-238 Decay Series

Nuclide Half-Life Radiation
U-238 4.468 109 years alpha
Th-234 24.1 days beta
Pa-234m 1.17 minutes beta
U-234 244,500 years alpha
Th-230 77,000 years alpha
Ra-226 1,600 years alpha
Rn-222 3.8235 days alpha
Po-218 3.05 minutes alpha
Pb-214 26.8 minutes beta
Bi-214 19.9 minutes beta
Po-214 63.7 microseconds alpha
Pb-210 22.26 years beta
Bi-210 5.013 days beta
Po-210 138.378 days alpha
Pb-206 stable

Indeed, I took the cell numbers as functionally equivalent to module efficiency (ie mirrors can be 98+% efficient). But reading the literature, It's clear that cheap is the goal (cheap focusing elements). In fact, the production price for multijunction concentrators being discussed is 12-50 cents/Wp. WOW! $0.12/Wp for 30 years is $0.0015/kWh! (of course this doesn't include BOS, but even with, its amazing)
Commercial Efficiencies:
Entech - 30% net concentrator efficiency, 33% cells (2001)
Sharp - 28% net concentrator efficiency (FYI-uses non imaging optics)
Sharp - 17.4% MODULE efficiency (not cell)
Sunpower - 16.5% MODULE efficiency (21.5% cells)

Now take into consideration that the spectrapower cells Entech is using are now up to 37.3% (2004) efficiency, which will increase module efficiency to 33.5% from their 2001 announcement (which is in line with a claims of the VC I spoke with).

So at 30% efficiency (using published value) we need to increase our land base values by 33%. So All US ENERGY Needs from 13,491 Mi^2 or 5% of TEXAS (including shading at an average of 1800 kwh/m^2/year).

Thanks for calling that one, I'll update my database of facts. I haven't been reading the solar journals very closely over the last 4-5 years as the company I am working for is developing storage technologies, so I put most my time that technology and market trends therein (which we will get to).

Correct.
There is a thriving industry removing Underground Storage Tanks (USTs). Nifty lingage on the dangers of gasoline-USTs can be found here and here and here

What's cool is that LUST is the acronym for Leaking Underground Storage Tank.

Live near Boulder Colorado? See the active LUST sites near you!.

The mercury evaporated into the atmersphere by burning of coal is casting hazard to most of the industrial countries. And it must stop.

From this point, wind power is better than fossil power anyway.

I think it's time for USA to take responsibility for all the global pollution it causes and admit the long term consequences.

We have been for a long time now. http://www.epa.gov/airtrends/econ-emissions.html

I find it very sad that USA still refuses to ratify the Kyoto treaty

No, the treaty is just horribly flawed.

The coincidence is that humans have built many of our power plants along the rivers, because of (1) available cooling water to drive the steam reactions, and (2) potential transportation of fuel along the waterways. The red line of pollution in the USA on that map corresponds to the Ohio River, where most of AEP's old coal power plants live. Of course, the EPA has been tracking all of this for some time...

The Kyoto Treaty is about CO2(and its affect on the Greenhouse Effect), NOT NO2.

NO2 comes from general combustion of hydrocarbons.
The US produces a lot of CO2, but less NO2. Why? Catalytic converters. We Have not yet been able to create a catalytic convertor that can crack a CO2 molecule :) ....so the US will still be a large producer of that pollutant.