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1. Obtuse template names
2. No "Are you sure you want to send "(contents of template") as a live message?
3. No "this was only a test, "ignore previous message..." template indicates that no one thought this through until it became a production system.
4. Testing on live a production system.

But at a higher level, why is this-- as our duffer in chief calls it, "...purely a state exercise?" Isn't national security a national issue-- provide or the common defence or something like that? Apparently not in Hawaii, Puerto Rico, California or those pesky blue states.

If in this age of de-federalizing and privatizing, POTUS wants to pass the buck and treat this as a state issue, why does the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency have that "DOD" prefix? Imagine if we spent $80 million (roughly the DOD's ED expenditure) on a national emergency communications system and as a condition for consuming public RF bandwidth and government-subsidized internet infrastructure, the communications cartels (Comcast/TimeWarner/AT&T/Verizon/Disney...) would provide a channel for this information.

The other option is to follow the "every man for himself!" libertarian approach of the Trump fork of the Republican party. In which case, I'd like to direct you to our subscription-only missile warning communications service where for a monthly price of $59.95 per family member ($25.95 for pets), you too can receive notification of impending doom. (Ask about our premium $99.95 astrology-assisted version where you'll receive missile notification 14 minutes earlier than all of your neighbours!)

Only insofar as their regulations only apply intrastate and do not affect any interactions across state lines.

I don't suppose you have a source for that. Because here are two examples of states having regulations that specifically apply to interactions across state lines:

Hawaiian Plant Industry Division Regulations

CDFA Plant and Animal Laws and Regulations

The big island has one, but the other islands aren't (actively) volcanic anymore.

Considering President Obama doesn't have a birth certificate, it would be difficult for him to release it.

He has a Certificate of Live Birth which is not the same as a Birth Certificate. It is a secondary document given out when the Birth Certificate is lost/stolen/destroyed/whatever.

I worked with a guy who was from Hawaii. He too lost his Birth Certificate and only had a Certificate of Live Birth. According to Republicans, he wasn't a U.S. citizen.

Looks like I missed North Dakota, Hawaii, Arizona, New Mexico, Connecticut and one from Minnesota, that's just mentioned in their journal.

>If they were interested, they'd have voted without it being mandatory Nope. A lot of those people would have voted were it not for voter disenfranchisement, having to work (yeah, your employer has to let you vote, but they don't have to pay you while you're gone, and they don't have to give you any extra hours to make up the time missed while voting), not having an address (you didn't forget about the homeless who can't vote absentee and usually can't even register because they don't have an address, did you?).

This assertion above is incorrect. Here in Hawaii, you are guaranteed two hours away from work. Furthermore, you will be paid for those hours upon furnishing the receipt from the polls to your employer. Rights vary by state. My cursory glance at the first list shows that blue states tend to offer the same, with Texas being a noteworthy addition. However, most 'red' states that permit such reserve the right to determine the hours that the employee may go.

Source: http://www.findlaw.com/voting-...
Source: http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/... (Hawaii Revised Statutes, 11-95 Employees entitled to leave on election day for voting.)

Not according to this, this or this. You are correct that there is only one coal fired plant in Hawaii, which put out 14% of the State's total electricity, but there are 17 oil fired plants. According to this 75% of production is from oil, 14% is from coal. According to this less than 0.25% comes from biofuel.

Do you have any reference to support your idea? Perhaps you should try Google and check your figures before posting.

Common sense, first of all. Does it harm someone or something? Could it easily harm someone or something if misused? Does it interrupt any other government function? Have you ever heard of someone getting in trouble for anything similar?

When the answer to any of those questions is "yes", it warrants further investigation. Go to a library. Ask the librarian for help. They actually do far more than just point out books. Often, they can help you with understanding the law in question (though note that they are not authoritative sources of legal advice... those are lawyers).

Don't just assume that laws are complicated. Here's a few examples of laws chosen nearly at random. They're all pretty simple to read, though a few of them require skipping over large definition sections or clarifying clauses. In fact, consider this a challenge: Find me an American law that can't be understood with high-school reading skills.

I just heard the other day about a coalition of Hawaiian natives buying back as much land as they can for the locals.
This drama is not nearly over yet...

Yes, it's called the State of Hawaii. They have their own seal and flag and all sorts of cool stuff.

Anyone wonder how all of this land came to be for sale ? And, how good his title is?

In the old Hawaiian monarchy set up by Kamehameha, the King owned all of the land. In the "Great Mahele" (division) of 1850, private land ownership was introduced, with 1/3 of the land going to the crown, 1/3 to the commoners, and 1/3 to the chiefs (the "ahupua" land, really a type of shared commons). Due to failure to follow through with paperwork, only about 1% of the "commoners" land was actually allocated to commoners. (I believe that there are only 4 acres on Lanai, out of 40,000 or so, that are actually available for fee simple purchase by the likes of us - that would be the old commoner land.) This old map shows the division into Crown and chief lands after the Mahele. This article describes how Claus Spreckels (a sugar baron) got fee simple for the entire island (minus the 4 acres, and some state land). Of course this was corrupt, but note the corruption appears to have occurred before the 1893 coup d'etat that destroyed the old Hawaiian monarchy and delivered the country over to the USA as a territory.

Does he have good title? I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, etc., but my guess would be no, not to all of it. The courts and political system in Hawaii tend to look very favorably to claims from Hawaiian natives about land ownership. There is an entire state bureaucracy, the Department of Hawaii Homelands, dedicated to returning crown lands (and other state lands) to Hawaiians. The DHHL has a land use plan for Lanai, which is full of more facts and maps about Lanai land history and ownership for those who are interested.

Here is my guess how this will proceed. Ellison will develop this and that and eventually do something that will seriously piss off Lanai locals, and then will be enveloped in clouds of lawsuits and political agitation until he sells the land. Having heard stories of the way he runs business meetings, and having had some dealing in Hawaii real estate at the Federal level, I think that predicting a collision is a good bet, and it would be highly unlikely to end favorably for Mr. Ellision.

Your reading comprehension is a little lax.
Your confirmation bias is a little strong.

"News" from MSNBC as citation? Please. You can do better.

I picked a well publicised quote from a representative of the Hawaii Attorney General's office, Surely if Mr Wisch was misquoted on such an important issue, you can find the story where he explains that he was misrepresented?

Here's a letter published by the State of Hawaii outlining their policy of no longer providing copies of original birth certificates (since 2001), would you trust the State of Hawaii as as valid source?

http://hawaii.gov/health/vital-records/Policy_Memo_5_15_2001.PDF

Look, I'm not a birther or Hillary Clinton supporter. The claims that Obama is being transparent are false. He could have made the call, period, full stop. The person who can call in drone strikes on US citizens abroad can make a call for a piece of paper.

RIght, "I'm not a birther, I just call into question any evidence you present that shows that Obama released a valid birth certificate that shows that he's a natural born citizen. But I'm not a birther, I just want to see *real* evidence, not news articles from mainstrem news sources and quotes from Hawaii officials. Unless King Kamehameha himself is reincarnated and proclaims that Obama was born in Hawaii, it didn't happen".

But back to your point, he did use his status to request the long form even though it was against Hawaii records policy - finally in April 2011 he got tired of being harassed for not providing the long form so he asked the state of hawaii for special consideration and they complied. But that doesn't mean that the original official birth certificate released in 2008 was invalid.

but you haven't said what releasing school records would do
I don't need to state what they would do, but since you asked, I want to see how brilliant he was. Or wasn't. I'm looking for the moment when people paused for a moment from saying Bush was so stupid because his grades were better than Al Gore's.

Oh sorry, I thought you thought releasing his school records would somehow legitimize his citizenship or his fitness to be president, but you don't even pretend that it has some relevancy, you just want to satisfy your own curiosity. Which is fine, but not really a reason to criticize him for not releasing something that has no relevance to his ability to do his job.

I would worry more about your ISP being forced to cache (for 2 years) all the same information for the government or their employers to use then google using your habits to form better directed ads..

http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/measure_indiv.aspx?billtype=HB&billnumber=2288

all it takes is this legislation to gain footing in a few states, then the rest start caving.

Google watching you really should be the least of your online privacy worries..

Honestly, all of these things are already banned under current careless operation/due diligence laws. I'm assuming most States have those.
Would you rather they just made a policy (instead of a written law) for law enforcement to declare cell phone use while driving as careless operation and start issuing citations?

The radio, passengers talking to you, thinking about other things, cell phones, etc are all correlated (but causation not proved) to increased accidents.
Citation: http://hawaii.gov/lrb/rpts05/cellcar.pdf

I'm sure distractions affect people differently and it's a shame to punish those people that can text message on their cell phone and drive perfectly at the same time (surely they exist!)
The problem is that you drive on public property, with a license, and your (in)ability to operate your motor vehicle has the potential to harm many others.

In a perfect world I think revamping driver's ed classes and license tests to include better education on cell phone dangers would be the best solution.
Sadly, it's not a perfect world and it may be worth a few additional rules to try to help save lives.
This is of course assuming that the populace will even follow said rules and that the rules don't become a big money funnel/ticket scheme or impossible to enforce.
It may be a lost cause and then we'll just have to one day accept that people will die because of convenience.

I can think of legitimate reasons for cell phone use in car (emergency calls [911, doctor, pregnant wife, etc]) and maybe even hands free operation if it's not proven a serious risk.
I personally turn my phone off when I get into my car. I know it's a distraction and if family/friends need help desperately while I'm on the road then I cannot help them anyway. Anything not desperate can wait/is not worth the increased risk.

No, he produced a certificate of live birth. These are provided to anyone, and you can get them saying you were born wherever.

Citation please. In Hawaii as in most states, birth certificates are called "Certificates of Live Birth". Don't ask me why they chose the name. I'm sure your local government has names for things that could be much simpler. As such not anyone can get them.

The long form birth certificate signed by the doctor who delivered him was not produced until May.

Yes that is true but my point is when you ask for a "birth certificate" in your state or in the state of Hawaii, your state will give most likely give you a simplified printed form with no doctor's signature. For purposes of proof of birth for citizenship, that simplified form is all that is required. And that is what Obama provided. Birthers focused on irrelevant details like the certificate appeared to be printed by a laser printed therefore it was a forgery ignoring logic that when you ask for an fresh copy of a state record, states these days do not hand copy such records; they print them on modern equipment.

Are you such an Obama fanatic that you missed this? It was pretty big news.

Are you such a denier that you missed my statement as well as statements by the State of Hawaii that confirmed multiple times that they have the original on file.

October 31, 2008: Dr. CHIYOME LEINAALA FUKINO
"Therefore, I as Director of Health for the State of Hawai‘i, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawai‘i State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures."

So either Obama forged a birth certificate, put it for the world to see, and the Republican led state of Hawaii ignored that felony, and then lied about having the original on file in some grand conspiracy of your design
or
Obama was born in Hawaii.

No, he produced a certificate of live birth. These are provided to anyone, and you can get them saying you were born wherever.

Citation please. In Hawaii as in most states, birth certificates are called "Certificates of Live Birth". Don't ask me why they chose the name. I'm sure your local government has names for things that could be much simpler. As such not anyone can get them.

The long form birth certificate signed by the doctor who delivered him was not produced until May.

Yes that is true but my point is when you ask for a "birth certificate" in your state or in the state of Hawaii, your state will give most likely give you a simplified printed form with no doctor's signature. For purposes of proof of birth for citizenship, that simplified form is all that is required. And that is what Obama provided. Birthers focused on irrelevant details like the certificate appeared to be printed by a laser printed therefore it was a forgery ignoring logic that when you ask for an fresh copy of a state record, states these days do not hand copy such records; they print them on modern equipment.

Are you such an Obama fanatic that you missed this? It was pretty big news.

Are you such a denier that you missed my statement as well as statements by the State of Hawaii that confirmed multiple times that they have the original on file.

October 31, 2008: Dr. CHIYOME LEINAALA FUKINO
"Therefore, I as Director of Health for the State of Hawai‘i, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawai‘i State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures."

So either Obama forged a birth certificate, put it for the world to see, and the Republican led state of Hawaii ignored that felony, and then lied about having the original on file in some grand conspiracy of your design
or
Obama was born in Hawaii.

No, he produced a certificate of live birth. These are provided to anyone, and you can get them saying you were born wherever.

Citation please. In Hawaii as in most states, birth certificates are called "Certificates of Live Birth". Don't ask me why they chose the name. I'm sure your local government has names for things that could be much simpler. As such not anyone can get them.

The long form birth certificate signed by the doctor who delivered him was not produced until May.

Yes that is true but my point is when you ask for a "birth certificate" in your state or in the state of Hawaii, your state will give most likely give you a simplified printed form with no doctor's signature. For purposes of proof of birth for citizenship, that simplified form is all that is required. And that is what Obama provided. Birthers focused on irrelevant details like the certificate appeared to be printed by a laser printed therefore it was a forgery ignoring logic that when you ask for an fresh copy of a state record, states these days do not hand copy such records; they print them on modern equipment.

Are you such an Obama fanatic that you missed this? It was pretty big news.

Are you such a denier that you missed my statement as well as statements by the State of Hawaii that confirmed multiple times that they have the original on file.

October 31, 2008: Dr. CHIYOME LEINAALA FUKINO
"Therefore, I as Director of Health for the State of Hawai‘i, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawai‘i State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures."

So either Obama forged a birth certificate, put it for the world to see, and the Republican led state of Hawaii ignored that felony, and then lied about having the original on file in some grand conspiracy of your design
or
Obama was born in Hawaii.

No, he produced a certificate of live birth. These are provided to anyone, and you can get them saying you were born wherever.

Citation please. In Hawaii as in most states, birth certificates are called "Certificates of Live Birth". Don't ask me why they chose the name. I'm sure your local government has names for things that could be much simpler. As such not anyone can get them.

The long form birth certificate signed by the doctor who delivered him was not produced until May.

Yes that is true but my point is when you ask for a "birth certificate" in your state or in the state of Hawaii, your state will give most likely give you a simplified printed form with no doctor's signature. For purposes of proof of birth for citizenship, that simplified form is all that is required. And that is what Obama provided. Birthers focused on irrelevant details like the certificate appeared to be printed by a laser printed therefore it was a forgery ignoring logic that when you ask for an fresh copy of a state record, states these days do not hand copy such records; they print them on modern equipment.

Are you such an Obama fanatic that you missed this? It was pretty big news.

Are you such a denier that you missed my statement as well as statements by the State of Hawaii that confirmed multiple times that they have the original on file.

October 31, 2008: Dr. CHIYOME LEINAALA FUKINO
"Therefore, I as Director of Health for the State of Hawai‘i, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawai‘i State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures."

So either Obama forged a birth certificate, put it for the world to see, and the Republican led state of Hawaii ignored that felony, and then lied about having the original on file in some grand conspiracy of your design
or
Obama was born in Hawaii.

No, he produced a certificate of live birth. These are provided to anyone, and you can get them saying you were born wherever.

Citation please. In Hawaii as in most states, birth certificates are called "Certificates of Live Birth". Don't ask me why they chose the name. I'm sure your local government has names for things that could be much simpler. As such not anyone can get them.

The long form birth certificate signed by the doctor who delivered him was not produced until May.

Yes that is true but my point is when you ask for a "birth certificate" in your state or in the state of Hawaii, your state will give most likely give you a simplified printed form with no doctor's signature. For purposes of proof of birth for citizenship, that simplified form is all that is required. And that is what Obama provided. Birthers focused on irrelevant details like the certificate appeared to be printed by a laser printed therefore it was a forgery ignoring logic that when you ask for an fresh copy of a state record, states these days do not hand copy such records; they print them on modern equipment.

Are you such an Obama fanatic that you missed this? It was pretty big news.

Are you such a denier that you missed my statement as well as statements by the State of Hawaii that confirmed multiple times that they have the original on file.

October 31, 2008: Dr. CHIYOME LEINAALA FUKINO
"Therefore, I as Director of Health for the State of Hawai‘i, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawai‘i State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures."

So either Obama forged a birth certificate, put it for the world to see, and the Republican led state of Hawaii ignored that felony, and then lied about having the original on file in some grand conspiracy of your design
or
Obama was born in Hawaii.

And you have the audacity to call others idiots when you don't have a clue about US History? Hawaii was the last state admitted to the Union, in 1959.

First off, wind power is a great supplement, not a replacement. It suffers from too much variability to be a reliable power source, and therefore replace fossil fuels.

True but geothermal is a reliable and steady energy source. It's also available in many places. Iceland, in the Arctic, gets a lot of energy from geothermal sources. California gets 4.5% of it's energy from geothermal sources. In Hawaii the Big Island gets 20% of it's energy from the Puna Geothermal Venture which supplies geothermal energy. Heck even the Philippines harvests geothermal energy. Mexico has 853 MW of installed geothermal energy.

That energy does not depend of sunlight or the wind. It is a steady source of energy. New York state has the webpage Geothermal Heat Pumps with contacts that can install both commercial and residential systems.

at least with nuclear power, the pollution is contained.

No it's not. Mining is not contained. Neither are leaks, spills, and other releases. Such as the tritium spills at Exelon Nuclear-owned plants in IL.

As for your road tax solution, who cares if we pay it with income taxes or fuel taxes?

I do as do many others. Only those who use the roads should have to pay for them. If a person does not directly pay for something they have no idea how much it costs for one Now if you have to pay say 10 cents a mile, in addition to gas costs, unless you're wealthy you will pay attention. And I say that as someone who loves driving and will not give up my car unless I have to.

Everyone uses and benefits from the roads.

And they will pay for it, but not with income taxes. You may walk or ride a bike everywhere but as long as you buy items you will still pay for the roads. Sellers raise their prices to cover their expenses, they are in business to make money afterall. Heck even when you order a physical object online, you're paying. Say you order a printed book from Amazon you pay shipping and the shipper pays for the roads.

Falcon

This is nonsense.

Reasonable proof? Even the Hawaiians are saying that his birth certificate is not that of a native born Hawaiian. Notice the difference between these two "Certificate of Live Birth"? http://honolulu.craigslist.org/oah/pol/1236913553.html

The highest government official in Hawaii charged with maintaining public health records, Dr. Chiyome Leinaala Fukino, Director of Health for the State of Hawai'i, has officially issued a determination based on his personal examination of Obama's original birth certificate that he was born in Hawaii. You can read the official statement yourself.

As I said, Obama provided a Certification of Live Birth, NOT a Certificate of Live Birth, the difference is that the Certificate of Live Birth "is a more complete record of your birth than the Certification of Live Birth (a computer-generated printout). Submitting the original Certificate of Live Birth will save you time and money since the computer-generated Certification requires additional verification by DHHL" (Source), if the state of HI requests an original Certificate of Live Birth, why shouldn't we be allowed to see it? as I said earlier, it wouldn't take very long and it would be much easier than all these lawsuits.

Aaron Z

what they really need is an inter-island grid. That way they can use big island's geothermal power, maui's wind power and solar on all islands.

Plans have been made to attach oahu, maui, molokai and lanai and build about 400MW of wind power.

A quick search turned up a story on Duane "Dog" Chapman, a supposed bounty hunter who was wanted in Mexico. I hadn't heard of this until I looked it up so I can't guarantee any facts. He was arrested by US marshals and held pending being extradited to Mexico (some TV show's coverage). It looks like they'll extradite him unless his supporters can convince the Mexican government to drop the charges (resolution here).

I also have another one of a foreigner being sent to the US -- so it's not just Australia -- not that that's a good thing.

Some conjecture that I can't back up follows: I've read that the US rarely agrees to send their citizens overseas, rather just denying the extradition requests when they are in the courts.

For a more thorough evaluation on the posiible environmental impact as well as more details on OTEC research in Hawai'i:

http://www.hawaii.gov/dbedt/ert/otec/

It seems from the OTEC Fact Sheet that the site isn't actually operational any more. Digging deeper on the SSP website also finds some reference to the Hawaii site.

Methanol has 35% the energy content of gasoline. Ethanol has 59%. Ethanol's two carbons yield double the CO2 (Greehouse) gas product as methanol's single carbon, but it ultimately produces only 85% the CO2 as does methanol, per "vehicle mile traveled" (95% of gasoline).

However, that table shows that ethanol produces 130% the "CO2 equivalent" (overall Greenhouse effect) waste gases as does gasoline per VMT. Considering the larger volumes of less-potent fuel to be produced, transported and filled into tanks, each operation with its own per-transaction energy consumption, the "Greenhouse efficiency" of ethanol seems significantly worse than that of gasoline. I'd like to see energy budget numbers on the transformation of methanol or ethanol into gasoline. If it costs less than 1/3 of the alcohol's energy content, it seems like we should be using alcohol fuelcells only for efficiently powering the ethanol->gasoline industry. And rolling out high-efficiency "gasoline cells" for our end-user devices, like MP3 players and cars. Considering the energy we'd save by reusing our vast existing gasoline infrastructure, we might be better off stuck with gasoline indefinitely. Though getting rid of the expensive desert tracts we currently convert into gasoline, in favor of, say, amber waves of grain (corn, sugarcane), might be the best way to save our planet for ourselves.

Pure hydrogen fuel cells are efficient. Other types of fuel cell are not particularly efficient because the process of turning the fuel (LPG/ethanol/methanol/whatever) into hydrogen is not particularly efficient and generates large amounts of heat.

Non hydrogen fuel cell systems are barely any better than internal combustion engines and are actually poorer than gas turbine based generators.

The best bet is still to send the fuel to an efficient power station like a small localised combined cycle gas turbine (~ 55%->60% efficient) power plant, then take the "waste" heat from that system and use it to produce a distributed heating and distributed cooling system. The overall efficiency of the generation system then reaches around 85%. Use the electricity to charge a battery electric vehicle which have very high efficiencies (90%+).

Oh, and you aren't limited to just corn or sugarcane. There are other species which can provide good feedstocks for ethanol production:

http://www.hawaii.gov/dbedt/ert/ethanol/

I would be inclined to send the biomass directly to a power plant which can use it to generate electricity and basically not bother to try to produce ethanol at all.

I don't claim any expertise here.

I did get a BS in ocean engineering, but never practiced and it was a long time ago.

Here are a few links though:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=hawaii+ocean+ cooling+deep+&btnG=Google+Search

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/09/09 10_040910_deeplake.html

http://www.aloha.com/~craven/coolair.html

http://www.hawaii.gov/dbedt/ert/otec_hi.html

and finally:

http://science.slashdot.org/articles/03/03/24/2351 234.shtml?tid=134

all the best,

drew

Waves are cool, but don't forget ... OTEC (Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion)

My father was a primary designer on this, so I had the "real scoop" on what was going on there in real time, it was real exciting stuff back then!

Mini-OTEC, 1979

In 1979, the first successful at-sea, closed-cycle OTEC operation in the world was conducted aboard the Mini-OTEC, a converted Navy barge operating in waters off Keahole Point.

This plant operated for three months, from August-October 1979, and generated approximately 50 kilowatts of gross power with net power ranging from 10-17 kilowatts.

Its turbine generator produced a gross output of up to 55 kW. About 40 kW were required to pump up 2,700 gallons/min of 42F water from 2200-ft depth through a 24-in diameter polyethylene pipe and an additional 2,700 gallons/min of 79F surface water, leaving a maximum net power output of 15 kW.

This was a joint effort by the State of Hawaii and a private industrial partner.

More linkage: NREL's OTEC site

Google

A very thoughtful comment on fusion was made to me recently by a person who observed that it might prove to be the worst thing that ever happened to us if we succeed in using nuclear fusion to generate electrical energy because this success would lead us to conclude that we could continue the unrestrained growth in our annual energy consumption to the point (in a relatively few doubling times) where our energy production from the unlimited fusion resource was an appreciable fraction of the solar power input to the earth. This could have catastrophic consequences.

Today, human energy consumption is 411 quads per year, or 4 x 10^20 Joules per year, which works out to a power of 1.3 x 10^13 Watts.

About half the sun's power is absorbed by the earth's surface, so solar energy heats the earth with about 690 Watts per square meter. Multiplying this by the cross-sectional area of the earth gives 9x10^16 watts, or about 6400 times the human energy use.

Following Bartlett's reasoning, we see that in nine doubling-times, human activity will amount to 10% of solar warming---a significant, if not mind-blowing fraction. In 13 doubling times, human activity will match solar heating.

If we increase energy consumption at 10% per year, it would take about 90 years to achieve this. It's worth noting that per-capita GDP scales nicely with energy consumption, so if we were to sustain 10% world per-capita GDP growth for a century, we would need to increase energy consumption in this way, even if population stabilized.

Doubling the sun's heating would increase the temperature of the earth's surface by a factor of the fourth root of 2 (Stefan-Boltzman law), or a bit less than 20%: It would warm up from 288 K to about 350 K, or around 150 F. Decidedly uncomfortable, but many orders of magnitude less warming than would be required to turn the atmosphere incandescant.

Bartlett's point was not that we really need to worry about making the sky glow. It was that even if we had a completely free energy source and stopped population growth, we'd still need to think about using energy wisely. In that, he's right.

In theory, the sales tax to be paid by the customer is 4%, and the business pays 4% of what is collected, resulting in an effective tax rate of 4.167%. In reality, all business just charge the customer the full 4.167%.

Technically, it's not a sales tax at all, but a General Excise Tax.

This page has some further information: http://www.hawaii.gov/dbedt/hecon/he98sp/compare.h tml

Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion, or OTEC would produce both electricity AND fresh water (from condensate). Building an OTEC plant big enough to be worthwhile would be an enourmous construction expense, though. Payback for return on investment would take forever, but there would be no pollution produced.

There's a wind farm at South Point on Hawaii's Big Island.

The look really cool from far away but when you get get close to
them, they're pretty nasty. These are big Mitsubishi units. Granted
these mills have not been maintained as well as they could but they're
rusty and leaking lots of oil all over. Many are not working, with pieces
missing; blades, access panels and such, which looks like they are just
scavenging the broken ones for parts. Politics played a large part in getting
them built but the farm has changed hands and they are dying from neglect.

They do sound very cool when you're under them, a big stereoscopic whirr.

It uses about half of the created energy (through a normal Carnot cycle) for pumping (about 120kW). The other half is not quite competetive, but with the nutrient rich and cool water, fish farming and air conditioning can be done, heaving the whole investment to a black zero (or better).

I leave the exercise of finding the link to a Karma-hungry reader.

More info here, and here

And an OTEC history here

It uses about half of the created energy (through a normal Carnot cycle) for pumping (about 120kW). The other half is not quite competetive, but with the nutrient rich and cool water, fish farming and air conditioning can be done, heaving the whole investment to a black zero (or better).

I leave the exercise of finding the link to a Karma-hungry reader.

More info here, and here

And an OTEC history here

Ahem: google anyone?

I know I am lazy - but the link you mentioned was third in the search results.

Oh, and thanks for the fish... free karma I mean ;-)

• Ugly but Informative
• Great Description page
• a Vendor who sells OTEC and other enegry harvesting alternatives. Has some nice diagrams.
• Pedestrian newspaper article.

I leave the exercise of finding the link to a Karma-hungry reader.

Just eaten, sorry

plone.org just linked to great little promo video by someone at the Government of Hawaii (Windows Media Format). [ low bandwidth | high bandwidth | 1.7MB .AVI ] showing the features of their new website built with Python, Zope, Zope CMF Plone skin, etc. All open source, of course.

plone.org just linked to great little promo video by someone at the Government of Hawaii (Windows Media Format). [ low bandwidth | high bandwidth | 1.7MB .AVI ] showing the features of their new website built with Python, Zope, Zope CMF Plone skin, etc. All open source, of course.

The original source for the CO2 data is the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. You can get raw, hourly atmospheric CO2 readings directly from their website. They've recorded a straightline trend of increasing CO2 for forty years.

The info I was originally citing was a bit dated, but the payback time varies greatly- this study: http://www.siemenssolar.com/Paybackstudy.pdf has a wide range, but this look: http://www.archrecord.com/CONTEDUC/ARTICLES/01_01_ 1.asp has estimates ranging up to 40 years for payback on an installation in New York.

But even in Hawaii, which traditionally has some of the highest electricy rates in the US, this report http://www.hawaii.gov/dbedt/ert/pv_hi.html states advantages and disadvantages- notably:

1. Photovoltaic-produced electricity is presently more expensive than power supplied by utilities.

...

4. Batteries need periodic maintenance and replacement.

5. Some of the materials used in the manufacturing of PV panels are toxic.


Most of the references I found when googling the topic were positive when they were trying to sell you PVs, and neutral otherwise- look at the sources of the articles- Siemens has a great interest in you buying their PVs. Really, it gets into the classic case of shifting the pollution to a lower-rent district- not really providing a global solution.

With PVs, not every place is the same- KWh/year of sunlight at installation location, PV conversion efficiency, energy costs, area available all have an effect on the final cost. No payback time estimate is valid unless this data is included. I'll maintain my original proposition- PVs don't make sense if you're trying to save money on energy for the average home.

I think you're thinking of Puerto Rico, or the US Virgin Islands. I'm pretty sure Hawaii (like Alaska) is a "real state". FWIW, hawaii.gov Calls Hawaii the "Aloha state".

The Mount Pinatubo eruption emitted 42 Megatons of CO2. On the other hand, in 1990, Hawaii emitted 16 Megatons of CO2. As far as I'm aware, the notable emission from Mount Pinatubo was not CO2, but the fact that it created the largest stratospheric SO2 cloud ever observed.

This isn't my area of specialty, so I may have misinterpreted something. My references for my assertations are Pre-Eru ption Vapor in Magma of the Climactic Mount Pinatubo Eruption: Source of the Giant Stratospheric Sulfur Dioxide Cloud regarding Mount Pinatubo, and Table 3.4 - CO2 Emissions in Hawaii by Fuel, 1990 from the Hawaii Greenhouse Gas Inventory.
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The Mount Pinatubo eruption emitted 42 Megatons of CO2. On the other hand, in 1990, Hawaii emitted 16 Megatons of CO2. As far as I'm aware, the notable emission from Mount Pinatubo was not CO2, but the fact that it created the largest stratospheric SO2 cloud ever observed.

This isn't my area of specialty, so I may have misinterpreted something. My references for my assertations are Pre-Eru ption Vapor in Magma of the Climactic Mount Pinatubo Eruption: Source of the Giant Stratospheric Sulfur Dioxide Cloud regarding Mount Pinatubo, and Table 3.4 - CO2 Emissions in Hawaii by Fuel, 1990 from the Hawaii Greenhouse Gas Inventory.
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