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Slashback: Solidarity, Friction, Dreams
Good reason to stay on the 3rd coast, Bruce. Steven Johnson of Feed writes: "hey man, here's an excellent one for you: Bruce Sterling on the thirteen causes behind the California power crisis. All about how it's the result of treating energy networks like information networks. Classic Sterling. Enjoy!"
No accounting for taste, but on a length / goodness ratio basis, this is perhaps my new favorite Sterling article ever, too. Bam.
I'll believe it when that inventory is replenished. Patrick writes: "It's off the front page so no one will see an update or comment, but [this site] has the official statement from Sega. FYI"
The points made in this statement still don't say that Sega will continue to produce Dreamcast consoles past March (or any other time), but do emphasize that Sega has no intention of stopping the supply of games for their console, and are "currently in negotiations" to provide games for Game Boy Advance and PlayStation 2. Also, the affirm previous reports that Sega is promoting the Dreamcast's architecture for use in PCs and other places.
aztektum points somewhat more directly to the Sega statement (in Japanese, that is), with a link he claims was found on IGN.
The Wailing Walls have ears. Adam Alexander, webmaster of Dulux Consumer Support, writes to assure Slashdot readers that despite his site's name,"My site is not an advertisement for the company; in fact many parts of it are very critical of the company. The purpose is to help people who have already ordered the product in getting the product or getting a refund. My site discourages new orders at this time, at least until the old orders are taken care of."
As the introduction to that site puts it, the page "has been created to serve as a central location for interaction between people who placed orders for a Dulux DVD/MP3/Karaoke/Game Player and would like to share customer service or product information."
That sounds pretty smart. Any class-action lawyers around?
I would not name a daughter this. PSUdaemon writes "Back in November there was a post about Pengachu. A project to provide cheap wireless internet in a handheld. The handhelds are designed with the Linux coder in mind. With ports for an external keyboard and mouse, you can take your projects anywhere. There is a Web Page now with lots of details and pictures. Unfortunately I couldn't find a link to buy one..."
I'd like to suggest a slogan for the wildly successful spin-off this project deserves to spawn: "It's from MIT, so it's got to be good!" Certainly a good step toward ubiquity.
Pengachu, I choose you!
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
I read somewhere that Sega never actually made any moeny on the dreamcast, only on the liscensing of games. It cost them something like $250 to manufacture and they sold it for 200. If anything this announcment means they will be making more money because they will only be making games
A rabbit in the hand is worth 4 in the cage
If profits are falling, yeah, cancel the most expensive thing. But what some people don't see is that this will drive up prices of the remaining stock of dreamcasts through the roof. People will be scrambling to buy one, just as the people in the 1930's were scrambling to sell stock. Retailers can and will make a fortune if production stops.
I am !amused.
even though there are some pictures, I don't see any concrete evidence that this will become anything more than vaporware.
;-)
I really would like to see a Linux based handheld that has built in wireless Internet but that seems like a pipedream for now.
Continued development of projects such as PocketLinux is where it's at AFAIAC but what do I know?
I think that if they ever do get this thing up to presentable status, they should hold a contest on a new name and mascot
Lining up to buy a DVD/MP3/Game/Karaoke player that looks like a chinese-forced-labor-camp-built electronic piano, paying a company you've never before heard of IN ADVANCE, and it's name is "Dulux" or "Hokka"? SUCKAZ!
Anyone who hasn't seen the shots of the product, take a look HERE, and giggle uncontrollably! I've seen better plastics on Walmart toasters. Hokka loogey!
Either that, or it's his subconcious...
"California's utilities have lost billions and billions. They owe it to people who (a) aren't Californian and (b) aren't kidding about collecting that debt."
I happen to live in Canada, and our local utility company is owed a fair amount of money for providing power to California. Unfortunatly the Californian utility we sold power to is now declaring bankruptcy, leaving our utility company screwed out of millions of millions of dollars (guess who's going to pay for that loss). So Californians and their utility companies aren't the only ones getting screwed over...
I think Tim's been spending too much time in solidarity...
- Ando
hey man, here's an excellent one for you: Bruce Sterling on the thirteen causes behind the California power crisis. All about how it's the result of treating energy networks like information networks.
Correct me if I am wrong - but werent Californians enjoying fine, reliable, reasonably-priced utilities before they deregulated?
Couldnt one argue that a utility should be held in the public domain? In times like these where prices are high the Utility companies take it up the duff - when wholesale prices are low they make out like bandits... its balanced. When the public owns the utility this is acceptable, knowing that the good comes w/ the bad and 'vica-versa'. But when the companies are owned by profit-hungry MultiNational cartels, they MUST have a profit, every quarter - and each quarter must be more profitable than the last... it is a little silly to assume they will act in the best interest of Californians... so, why again did you decide to sell off your once reliable, affordable public utility?
Sega used to be a great company, it really was
Back in the days when Sega and Nintendo were in the biggest war ever, and it was all "do or die"
But now when i look at Sega, I wonder to myself, what went worng?
No offense to anyone, but Sega was truly too arrogant, not only did they fail to understand the industry that they were involved it, but they failed to understand the gamer
who here actually wanted to buy the Saturn for $400?? ... exactly....
Look at Nintendo, sure they came out with a cartridge based system, that cost more and blah blah blah
but they still turned out alright ...
Hopefully the future will be much brighter for Sega and related
I mentioned before that you can find the so-called game dvd player at a more reputable site: http://www.lik-sang.com/ under the name Shinco 868.
I don't really mind double posts on
"Cisco moved heaven and earth to make sure there was no ugly power plant near their sparkly new headquarters..."
i don't know who was behind this fiasco. i suppose it may have been Cisco, but i do know this, one of the reasons this power plant was cancelled was because the groups that opposed it claimed that there was... (get this) "no need for additional power in this area." can you believe that crap. i live near that area and received many flyers in my mailbox opposing this project. the power plant itself was a natural gas burning plant, one of the cleanest fossil fuels available.
i'm all for environmentalism but misinformed environmentalists like the ones who got this project cancelled are actually causing more harm than good. they are damaging the environment and their own cause.
Might it be possible that the black outs in california are caused by one of the many particle accelerators there. I remember reading about a fusion lab in california which used in one day the same that a city used in a month. This demonstrates that not only does fusion not produce electricity, but causes blackouts in Calfornia. :)
p.s. I'm not actually serious
A rabbit in the hand is worth 4 in the cage
I think the #1 reason, and the one Mr. Sterling lists as unlucky #13 is:
13. This is unlucky 13, the grand finale. Californians feel lambasted, defrauded, and bamboozled by Old Economy "pirate generators" such as (let's name names here) Reliant Energy, El Paso Energy, Dynegy, Duke Energy, AES, Southern, Calpine, and Enron. But Enron in particular is George W. Bush's favorite company in the whole wide world. James W. Baker is Enron's lawyer. The Pirate Generators own Washington. The Information Superhighway is suddenly yesterday's news, somebody else's concept, all hype and ozone. The NASDAQ is in the tank, while the utility sector is the new darling of Wall Street. Furthermore, it very much galls the new administration that the homeland of Reagan is currently run by Democrats. An economic crunch in California is the prelude to a political assault from Washington.
The deregulation of the utilities in California is the legacy of Pete Wilson. I expect the Republicans are not too appreciative of California, even though we generate a larger percentage of the GNP than any other state... but we voted for Gore. I'm investing in a generator...
Thalia
Bruce's article is good and shows a lot of different viewpoints on the California "power crisis" ... but maybe if Bruce was more involved with everything that is going on, or if he talked to some people about it ... in a nutshell, PG&E is scamming everyone and outright threatening blackouts if they don't get their way (and they have had rolling blackouts here). San Francisco, in particular, is the only city in the entire country that is federally mandated to have cheap, public power... so PG&E has spent a lot of money to keep that law out of its way. And there's so much more. PG&E can go to hell, and there is a growing ratepayers strike happening in the SF Bay Area. For more information that is more specific than what Bruce writes, check out the SF Bay Guardian coverage or SF Independent Media Center coverage. The corporate media is just reciting press releases from PG&E and Gov. Davis.
bjord.org
news from the revolution
i'm not aware of any Ca. power utility that is declaring bankruptcy. So. Cal Edison has suggested that it's a possibility if an alternative isn't found but as far as i know its not happening yet. which utility co. were your referring to?
i do agree with you, that this abysmal situation affects more than just Ca.
utility companies are not loosing as much as they would like you to think.
my providers(So. CA. Edison) parent company is making a fortune selling to other places besides california, something they could not do before "deregulation".
shortly before deregulation took effect, Edison positioned So. Ca. Edison so that they would not be liable for the loss's incrued by So. Ca. Edison.
What an amazing coincedence!
Edison knew this was going to happen. you don't say we won't raise prices, then sell your product supply(your ONLY product supply) to someone who is not bound by contract not to raise prices and not expect your cost to go up. Plus edison (among others) had shut down several power generating plants for "un-scheduled maintainence" just before this happened.
I can't wait for me to invent cold fusion...
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Seems like a hoax to me - click on the "Pengachu Inside" link. Quantum Computer Module with Pengachu Interface? I don't think so. QC isn't even feasible for normal use right now.
Due to the power crunch in the Bay Area, San Francisco has had to turn off its giant fog machine for the time being.
Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I'll never know.
Ummm...I don't understand. Are they not allowed to make a profit? I can't understand how it is ok for them to pay $.35 for a kilowatt hour of electricty, while being able to sell it for $.07 .
PG&E is scamming everyone and outright threatening blackouts if they don't get their way (and they have had rolling blackouts here).
PG&E has very little control over the blackouts. The Cal Iso calls them up and says, "You need to free x Megawatts of power, now." PG&E has no choice, but to free that much electricty, or the whole system crashes. Look on you PG&E (or SCE or SDGE or whatever your utility is) bill and it will tell you a number. When (insert your favorite/least favorite utility here) is given the blackout notice, they just go in order, from 1 to however many blocks there are. That's required by the Public Utilities commission!
Doh!
Perhaps my Canadian-ness has neglected to educate me on the wonder and awe that is 'Bruce Sterling'. Should I know who this guy is?
Anyways, after reading his article I've come to the conclusion that it is in fact possible to discuss the internet in an article related to power consumption and a bad, quickly-fluctuating economy; that is, if you don't actually make any correlation between them at all.
"Canadians really love the Internet. In almost all parts of Canada, home Internet connectivity is growing as fast as yesteryears Cable television and pre-era Radio License sales. But what may surprise some Canadian Clothing Retailers, is that while clothes may sell fast; they are not the Internet bubble of bit communications. That is, the internet is made up of a slurry of routing, and computational machinery, constantly sending and receiving tiny electrical signals; Where as clothing is made up of fabric.
Fabric in Canada has nothing to do with the internet, now I will speak about fabric.... etc."
Who is this guy?
Ace
It's incredibly ironic that:
A. Californians elected GOP legislators who, fed by fat cat Texan-owned firm campaign contributions, pushed through deregulation.
B. The world's largest wind energy power facility is being built in Oregon and Washington state, while California refuses to build any power plants.
C. The first company I ever worked for (as a Power Engineer, actually), Cominco, is selling the power generation from their private dam to save California's butt, since they can make more money selling them hydro power than smelting non-ferrous minerals (yes, that includes gold and silver, but is mostly lead and other alloys).
D. Washington State dams are running flat out shipping power to California to the point that many of the lakes behind are drying out - this during our worst snowfall year in a decade when we have cold temperatures that force us to use energy.
and, last, but not least
E. The feds still try to get you to believe that the answer is to build coal plants, when anyone worth their salt could show you 4.5 cents per KW hour costs to build wind energy plants that have close to zero apian kill ratios and allow the land to be used for farming and other purposes. And even at current pricing, natural gas is still cheaper to use, if you would just build it, than coal. Especially sulfur coal - and I've seen what happens if you're crazy enough to use that -the Trilateral Commission forced Cominco to install scrubbers on all its stacks due to sulfur and lead outputs.
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Ok, folks. Please listen.
The PS2 isn't that great a system. In fact, check the specs on it. Stop looking at polygon count as the end-all-be-all of a console system. It's not. Quite frankly, the PS2 has been a major dissapointment.
So what if it has DVD capability? I can get a dvd player for $99 and a Dreamcast for $188. I can't get a PS2 and when I can it's like $250-$300. So I break even. The PS2 is by no means a "deal."
Gimme a break. Compare graphics. The PS2's grainy, aliased Dead or Alive 2 makes the DC version look like pure gold.
The PS2 suffers from something huge, low video memory. The dreamcast has tons, has a great display architecture and is easy to code for. I know PS2 developers who complain a hell of a lot because it's a very hard system to work with. There are a ton of games for DC. GREAT games, games like Grandia 2 and Soul Caliber.
So many people have bought the hype of PS2. You're saps. The PS2 is a dismal failure. The X-box, if it's even 3/4 of what MS says it is, is going to clean house. And lots of games that were only going to be released on PS2 are now on X-box as well. So there goes the exclusive titles. The only developer Sony really has to back them up right now is Square, which admittedly is a damn fine company.. but it's not enough. I don't buy a system just for square games.
I haven't talked to a single PS2 user, online or in person, who is really satisfied with the box. And there are no cool periphers yet for PS2, nor are any ones coming out in the near future! The DC has a keyboard, mouse, modem, ethernet card, light guns, even a fishing controller!
Gimme a break folks, I am ready to weep over the loss of one of the coolest consoles I've ever owned, the Dreamcast. Sega just didn't market it agressivly enough. Just a few "comparitave photo" commercials showing the jaggy lines of a PS2 title vs the smooth anti-aliasing in 640x480 (through the awesome vga adaptor for DC) would give people concrete evidence about the comparative qualities.
- Paradox
Man of the C!!!
Slashdot. It's Not For Common Sense
There have been two "Linux distributions for handhelds" stories in the past couple of days. One is called Pengachu, which sounds similar to Pikachu, and the other Pocket Linux, which could easily be confused to be "Pokelinux". WTF is going on?
"Watch these suckers jump when I get root." - l33t j03
I'm guessing this will drive down the price of the Dreamcast. Always wanted to try putting BSD or Linux on the DC, and maybe lower prices will let me buy one just for that purpose (use it as a dns server or something similarly non-intensive).
Today's sig brought to you by http://www.swankypimp.com
I agree that the big deregulation was a huge mistake, and Pete Wilson should be pelted with mashed potatoes, but, here are a couple of factoids to make us Southern Californians look better. 1. Los Angeles city generates most of its own power with its city-owned utilities, and as such, really isn't suffering in the current crisis. 2. There is no threat of blackouts in So Cal at the moment, even in those area not covered by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. We could send power up north to help keep San Fran alight, except that the just isn't enough wire capacity between North and South to transport it all. 3. A lot of the power generated in So Cal is from windmills, and many of the desert towns like Palm Springs are almost self sufficient through the wind farms. Besides, those Northern Californians have always though they were so special, and didn't want to be associated with us Southlanders. Ha ha.
That DVD player threw me for a moment...
Here in the UK, it's late (well, early now I suppose), I'm tired and over-caffeinated, and Dulux is a kind of paint...
Sterling does mention that CA's energy usage is well below peak summer usage, but it bears repeating. The "shortage" is totally artificial, with generating companies shutting down generating capacity for "maintainance" at an unprecedented rate. Ever seen "Chinatown"? Remember the "water shortage" caused by deliberate dumping of reserviors into the ocean? Same deal here.
What we have here is a choice example of what happens when regulated industries get to write their own regulations by proxy.
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
Cato Institute, a libertarian think take said that California's deregulation was screwed up and would be a fiasco in 1996 when it was proposed. So much for this being a failure of free markets, more like braindead bureaucrats.
Story Is Here
Sega DreamCast is sold at a loss right now (and always has been). The market was supposed to be dominated by their higher quality games.
I'm sorry, Sega, but you didn't get anything out there that made me want a DreamCast! However, if Sega could get out that 'killer app' for DreamCast soon, they could hold the market from the PS2, at least until the X-Box comes out.
The PlayStation 2 has _no_ good games out for it (a few fighting games, but... blah), so Sony has dropped the ball on this as well.
If the strategy hadn't been "get something new out there, quickly" they would have had better success. Look at the Nintendo 64. It's a ridiculously stupid console and it uses a _cartridge_ system.
But Nintendo had Mario 64 out with their console, and it was playable and enjoyable (if a little dumb). It is my opinion that the N64 system is doing better than Sega (with games like Zelda 64, 1 & 2).
In other words, the hardware vendor needs to team up with its software vendors to get their products out when the time is good, even if that isn't ASAP.
I don't care if your gaming system will make me breakfast. It's a gaming system. Get me some goddamn games.
-k.
Maybe it's just a name they put on it in an attempt to marketeer.
Maybe it's like "blast processing."
The Dreamcast is going to beat Indrema in becoming the first open-source (I know, but I want your attention) gameplatform. OpenBSD is, as far as I can tell from the mailing list, near to support the ethernet adapter. NetBSD might be a strange platform for SEGA to have running on it's hardware, since NetBSD's license states that you can redistribute binary only. But once the driver is done, it will also (my guess) be awailable for you Linux guys ;) Somebody write an X server for it, and I'm in. (It will even be supported by kylix)
The Onion has a cute piece on the California power outtages.
Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I'll never know.
What you've identified as wrong with Sega 5 years ago is now identifiable with Sony - PS2, out for a year in Japan, still has crappy games, is expensive, and is hard to develop for.
What's sad is that the issue of whether or not console makers "understand the gamer" may not be relevant anymore - these days it seems that all that matters is whether or not a company is big enough (from selling things like TVs and monopoly operating systems) to acquire a monopoly by wiping out their competitors through advertising and bullying of retailers. If such was not the case, then we wouldn't be seing shows on CNN about how "emotional" the Saturn2 is.
Let's pray for Nintendo GameCube (GameCube = spiritual Dreamcast2, on account of ease of development for and dearth of preliminary superhype for).
Umm, you know, a major cause of the power shortage is the air conditioners and the heat damage last summer. The is caused by climactic change, AKA global warming. Global warming is one thing the environmentalists have been fighting for years and years. Its a building power plants to power air-conditioners to fight the warming from other power plants is a nasty cycle, one that ends with this solar system having 2 planets that look like venus, instead of one.
There are two political issues colliding here, which cause some confusion. First is the recent power crisis, which is the result of flawed deregulation, which is (seen as) the result of PG&E lobbying. Second is the longstanding problem in accounting for the output of the Hetch-Hetchy reservoir. It seems that San Francisco acquired the rights to the output of this reservoir 80-90 years ago, but, for some reason, city residents have always had to pay PG&E for their power, while, somehow, PG&E has been reselling the output from the dam to other customers.
Given the fact that PG&E has its headquarters in SF, and the general sorry state of the city's politics, it's easy to conclude that something shady went on here.
For San Francisco, it seems the easiest way out of the power crisis is to reassert ownership of the Hetch Hetchy output and get PG&E out of it. The dam was built to supply power to the city at a fixed cost indefinitely, and being forced to pay spot rates for the same juice is ridiculous.
---- "If we have to go on with these damned quantum jumps, then I'm sorry that I ever got involved" - Erwin Schrodinger
Um, the inventory is replenished. In fact, it's over-replenished. Which is why it's a good idea to suspend production. Why crank out more units into your inventory than you ultimately plan to sell? There's still plenty of life left in this platform. And with any luck, SEGA will put all of their top-notch software development resources behind the leader of the next-next generation console war.
You know, a year ago I went to San Francisco for Macworld. So I go into this Starbucks (to be trendy; it didn't work), and they spilled a coffee all over me!!!
So.. I'm *glad* they've run out of power! I hope they rot in darkness!
[I'm so sorry for posting this....]
-Bitter CA-Visitor
The next comment I write will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
Sorry for your bad experience in Quebec, but it's probably the worst example of Canada. In fact if the Quebecer Separatists have anything to say about it, it wouldn't even be part of Canada! Try visiting something on either side of Quebec and you'll be in for a suprise :) Try Ottawa or Halifax :)
-Graham
Was there ever a book written about the Nintendo Sega Wars? That'd be really interesting I would think...
Sega lost.. but in the end, Nintendo did too.. 70 million Sony's later....
:-)
The next comment I write will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
A few towns from here sits a large power plant.
It's called the Berwick Nuclear Power Plant.
It emits absolutely no CO2. It emits large clouds of H2O.
It contributes nothing to global warming.
Maybe you enviromentalists should stop bitching about how everything hurts the environment and look at the people whos pockets are being emptied because you didn't want a power plant.
This government buys heating oil for the Northeast; why is it okay for national politicians like Bush to simply ignore California?
We should secede!
Public Utilities Fortnightly, which is perhaps a bit less well-read than Sports Illustrated, had a good article in its January 1 issue. Basically, it noted that last summer's electricity crunch (which was not quite as acute as this winter's) was apparently caused by the Independent System Operator (ISO), the organization that intermediates between generators and distributors (PG&E, etc.).
Last summer ISO set very high margins for spare capacity before declaring a shortage. WHenever they declared a shortage, spot market prices skyrocketed. Even if the supply wasn't any tighter than what used to be considered normal. Shortages are in the generators' interests.
It could be massive incompetence, but it's potentially much worse, a cartel among producers. ISO allows the generators to have the kind of cartel that OPEC couldn't create. OPEC countries frequently cheat on their quotas. ISO monitors production and reports what each generator puts out. So if a generating company (Enron, Duke, whatever) happens to be holding back in order to raise the price, and another one boosts production to make some quick bucks, the holding-back generators know it. That prevents cheating, and keeps the supply down and the price high.
The article at pur.com is not available online to nonsubscribers, alas.
Call we please call it it mis-regulation, not de-regulation? When the utilities have to ask for price increases, they're not deregulated.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
The economist has a much better article here
You can't blame your power company for selling outside the state. They are being forced to sell power at a fraction of the cost, so naturally they want to minimize losses and sell as little as possible in CA. Don't forget that their stock holders could sue them for doing anything else.
First is the recent power crisis, which is the result of flawed deregulation, which is (seen as) the result of PG&E lobbying.
I used to be a PG&E shareholder(I sold my stock 2 years ago). Around 5 to 7 years ago, PG&E sent me a letter informing me of the proposal for deregulation and urged me to write my state senator and assembly representative to inform them of my opposition to the de-regulation efforts. I received at least 2 of these letters, and I wrote my state rep(being the good little shareholder that I am). From this, I don't see how PG&E wanted de-regulation. Why would they want me, the shareholder and person they are ultimately responsible to, to oppose de-regulation when, as you say, PG&E was "lobbying" for it?
I believe the whole de-regulation issue was shoved down PG&E's throat by do-gooder politicians just aching for votes. The California plan is a disaster, but I see no reason why PG&E should be soly blamed for something they didn't even want.
Trust an economist to get economical issues correct. I mean, who else could even come close?
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
A. Californians elected GOP legislators who, fed by fat cat Texan-owned firm campaign contributions, pushed through deregulation.
My recollection is that the California Legislature has been majority Democrat for about ten years now.
A simular argument can be made for solar -- it's most efficient where there's a high amount of solar radiation (i.e. no cloud cover). That's why they're not building solar power plants in Oregon and Washington! Wouldn't work very well in SanFrancisco either, but seems like it would be a natural for the Mojave...
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Let's see.... wholesale electrical prices have gone up by a factor of 15 (FIFTEEN!) times. I can't think of too many causes of that outside of pure supply and demand GREED. Let's see. Suppose your utility jumped on the greed bandwagon and sold X units at only 10 times normal. I would hazard a mathematical guess that if you got paid for only 1/10 of that amount, you would break even. And I betcha did get paid for more than 1/10. In other words, you made out like the bandits you are.
I have no problems with capitalism, supply and demand, the marketplace, etc. But when pure greed gets rewarded by said marketplace driving a utility into bankruptcy...sounds like justice!
Gosh my heart bleeds for you scumbags.
--
Infuriate left and right
It generates lots and lots of heat, and that has to go somewhere. Also, isn't water vapor also a (unimportant) greenhouse gas?
Now here's something I wonder...how much does all the waste heat from our energy usage affect the climate...not just the things people do that alter how much heat we keep from the sun.
Last August Popular Science magazine reported that a 100 square miles of solar panels would provide for all the electricity needs in the US.
y =S OLAR+-+THERMAL+and+Solar+Two&display_type=tiled&ma x_display=20&search_home=searchpix_visual.html
The article (sorry, can't find it online) suggested filling a small piece of Nellis AFB with panels spaced for easy servicing and so they don't interfere with each other. Or replacing existing power plants with panels as they come offline. Of course this would probably only be feasible in the southwest.
As I understand solar technology, the current 'state of the art' is solar thermal - a bunch of panels all reflecting to a central "tank" filled with a salt/magnesium liquid compound that heats up and is used to generate steam, which in turn generates electricity.
Picture here:
http://www.nrel.gov/data/pix/Jpegs/00036.jpg
For lots of pics go here:
http://www.nrel.gov/data/pix/searchpix.cgi?quer
Sun->heat->steam->electricity.
PopSci has a tendency to stretch their stories for the dramatic, but if this is even remotely true we need to implement this technology asap.
> You can't blame your power company for selling outside the state. They are being forced to sell power at a fraction of the cost, so naturally they want to minimize losses and sell as little as possible in CA. Don't forget that their stock holders could sue them for doing anything else.
Just a reminder that the CA legislation that set this situation up was pushed by the utilites, not evile government bureaucrats, and it was rammed through the legislature almost without the public knowing what was going on. The day after the vote all the CA newspapers said was that residential consumers were going to get a 10% rate cut out of the deal... They forgot to mention that the utilities got a $28.5 billion bailout as part of the deal.
I don't know whether the utilities deliberately set up a scam, as geekoid suggests, or whether they merely miscalculated the probable outcome of the screwing they gave the citizens of CA; either way, I'm having a bit of difficulty working up any sympathy for them.
And what solution do the utilities want now? Another bailout, of course. Even people who think regulation is evile should realize that deregulation designed by the utilities is never going to yeild a satisfactory solution.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
[rant]As a BC resident, I say again, Fuck you, California. First, you drive our natural gas prices through the roof, causing our poor old ladies who can no longer afford their heating bills to freeze their little fannies off in our Canadian winter. Now, you buy tons of our power, and stiff us for it, all the while begging us not to stop giving more to you. Goddamn surfer-boy Golden State assholes.[/rant]
I've got news for you: our power comes from hydro dams, and it's been a dry year. Every megawatt-hour we sell you is one less we'll have in the summer. Not only have we been stiffed for over $200 million, but we may have to buy power or be facing brownouts this summer because we depleted our hydro reserves to save your asses. BC Hydro is a government-owned corporation, so that $200 million comes straight out of our pockets. You people are thieves on a state-wide scale.
Don't give me any bullshit about the money being owed to us by private companies instead of the entire state. You've made it effectively impossible to build power plants in your state (especially nuclear plants). Your half-assed deregulation forced those companies out of business, so the blame lies with the voters. How the hell did you think it would work to deregulate the wholesale supply of power, but not the sale of power to consumers? Has anyone there heard of economics?
Moderators: Yes, this is inflammatory, but it happens to be how I feel. It's also true, to the best of my knowledge. If you happen to be from California, I'd much rather hear your side of the story than just see a "-1: Inflammatory" or something.
One more message to everyone in California, especially L.A. Go out and rent "Trigger Effect" (assuming you still have power for your VCR). You'll understand when you watch it...
"-- even though Cisco's main products, Internet routers, suck voltage like steel mills. " I keep seeing journalists publishing statistics about how much power the "internet" is consuming. Where Can I find some actual numbers? Having worked in steel mills, I can't believe that all of the routers in California take as much power as an average mid-west steel mill. And they suck current/power, not voltage.
I didn't do it, and if I did, you can't prove it. Bart Simpson
They need to start building some nuclear power plants again, hippies be damned.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Finally, all those Y2K people who wholed up with food, water and GENERATORS in California finnally really are having the last laugh.....
I hate to see people go through these kinds of problems, even if they are people I don't like very much.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
What you described was socialism. No countries have ever really tried a Marxist government yet. The USSR was not communist, despite the lip service to the contrary - it was 100% socialist. The "workers" did not control the factories - the government did. BIG difference. The first myth of Marxism is that it's possible.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
We _will_ be going to war soon. Bank on it. :(
Knowledge is like ignorance.. too much can be just as bad as not enough.
Umm, actually, I'm all for nuclear power... its you economic shmucks that want to build gas and coal 'cause they're so much cheaper. Stupid economists.
lol
me != economic shmucks - I'd rather have a nuke plant than a coal plant =)