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Computing a Winner, Fusion a Loser In US Science Budget
sciencehabit writes "President Barack Obama has released a $3.901 trillion budget request to Congress, including proposals for a host of federal research agencies. Science Magazine has the breakdown, including a big win for advanced computing, a big cut for fusion, and status quo for astronomy. 'In the proposed budget, advanced computing would see its funding soar 13.2% to $541 million. BES, the biggest DOE program, would get a boost of 5.5% to $1.807 billion. BER would get a 3% bump to $628 million, and nuclear physics would enjoy a 4.3% increase to $594 million. In contrast, the fusion program would take a 17.6% cut to $416 million—$88 million less than it's getting this year. Although far from final, the numbers suggest another big dip for a program that has enjoyed a roller coaster ride in recent years. In its proposed 2013 budget, DOE called for slashing spending on domestic fusion research to help pay for the increasing U.S. contribution to the international fusion experiment, ITER, in Cadarache, France.'"
The Association of American Universities has issued a letter disapproving of the amount of research funding. The Planetary Society has broken down the proposed NASA budget.
Lets see how this comes out of the congressional sausage factory before we get too excited. Much of the spending is going to be contested. Budgets are also common places to stick unpopular riders, so there will probably be a few nasty surprises snuck in.
Fusion... we dont want that to get in the way of OIL
I think it is rational to reduce fusion research. Solar, wind and breeder fission reactors are likely to be cheaper than fusion power.
For a guy who pissed away billions on failed solar companies, you'd think he could cough up some decent coin for fusion power research. But nooOOOOOoooo...
Now we won't have any because all money goes to advanced computing = NSA's decryption center. :(
I wonder how much the explosion in computing budget, something not precedented by any actual increase in opportunity in the market or the technology ecosystem, is driven by a desire to enable NSA data-collection, something that our "freedom loving" president aggressively supports.
The only recent "big" thing is big data, like Hadoop/Couch/non-RDBMS.
What is the DOE going to do with all that budget? They are going to buy big computers, and do thing with them.
Is in investment in big data going to have a higher chance of payoffs for those folks who are spying on grandma? I don't see why not.
Are they spying on grandma? Of course they are. Of course they are. They can't not spy on grandma. When they say "they have protections" and "rule of law" they might, possibly, be talking about yesterday or today - but they have the data for tomorrow. They have no right and no substance when they talk about what might not be done to the data tomorrow. Like all weapons too horrible to use - it is only too horrible to use until it isn't.
The IRS would never target political parties, or religious groups, right? the NSA arguments come from the same source and report to the same powers.
Pointing to a Huff Post article that misrepresents costs is ignorant. Just sayin.
Pointing to a Huff Post article that misrepresents costs is ignorant. Just sayin.
Which costs does it misrepresent?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
and give the money to our own domestic fusion researchers. If ITER ultimately leads the way to a marketable fusion reactor I am sure we can either licenses the tech or let foreigners build the plants - far cheaper for the tax payer while supporting our own alternative research.
While most will hear politics I see a good move.
On big projects we move away from a cowboy Fusion project to the fundamentals of the same physics, In layman's terms, we stop putting a lot money into attempting to build our own project when we already fund and work on the same joint effort with other countries. Any money in Physics with emphasis on nuclear physics is a win for all the fields. So we don't have a home grown mega donut in the near future. What we do is make a wiser investment into tech that will get us there with more knowledge of the project when we do fund it. Let the private sector pump money into it, that is were the same folks doing the Obama-bashing wanted to do business in the first place. I say that not so much for the politics as science is more important then the halls of congress. It's the big companies like GE, Exxon, BP, Boeing etc that have the potential to gain from it in the future they need to pay forward this time.
We need science and tech multiple arenas now because we changed the world. Other countries have move to computing and non-fusion physics to grow where the US has been for decades. Many countries have pushed hard to gain computing advances to get ahead of what we had going for so long now. Just look at the number of computer trojen and viral intrusions we are seeing from international sources than before we released Stuxnet. Now we are forced to move forward on something that I only hope will take us places in physics that we are not getting to now. If we can get physics and computing down in 10 years then return with federal dollars to boost what the private sector has been working on then we might have a small sun burning in Sandia labs or on Boeing campus producing gigawatts of competitive energy.
The world is controlled by two things: Those who create, broker and distribute energy. And those who create, broken and distribute capital (debt instruments known as modern currency).
The last thing the people in charge of the world would like is cheap or free, limitless energy.
Dont kid yourself, the scientists do little jack russel terrier flips and jumps for money, and if the money brokers of the world dont want cheap and free energy, guess who is not getting funding.
Legalize the constitution. Think for yourself question authority.
It makes sense to cut in traditional fusion research. Indeed, by now it is clear that the best and cheapest practical fusion energy reactor for the foreseeable future has been found in the form the gravity stabilized fusion reactor called Sun. With declining costs solar panels already compete with conventional nuclear reactors. If the trend continue to ~2020 even coal and oil might be seen then as too expensive in regards of solar energy.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/21/air-conditioning-military-cost-nasa_n_881828.html
So? I agree that NASA should have a larger budget in proportion, but if you're going to have a military so big, I don't want everyone to have heatstroke in the desert.
Or let's look at a source that doesn't specialize in enema tasting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...
25% federal budget goes to Medicare and Medicaid, 23% to Social Security (totalling 48%).
Defense spending is 18%.
I'm sure the numbers are skewed more towards Medicare/Medicaid and Social security for Obama's 2014 proposal.
Now go back to your hole and stop getting news from the biggest shitrag in the world.
Oh yeah and let's not forget that it was OBAMA that cut NASA's budget and cancelled the shuttle program. You're worthless as a human being.
25% federal budget goes to Medicare and Medicaid, 23% to Social Security (totalling 48%).
That's misleading. Social Security is paid for with Social Security withholding-- it actually pays more into the budget than it pays out.
Likewise, Medicare is paid for by a separate fund, which goes into the medicaid trust fund..
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Seriously? Computing can handle itself. Just don't piss off the community which is willing to output most research for free. The US government should be looking at curtailing copyright laws so that people can study and learn from older technologies, in order to produce better, more stable technology for the future. These increases in budget are modest at best anyway. If the USA were serious, they'd cut the defense budget, quit threatening countries they don't belong in and start contributing to the ivory tower in a more meaningful way by reallocating those funds to real research.
We know it works - the tricky bits are scaling it down and keeping it under control.
Oh yeah and let's not forget that it was OBAMA that cut NASA's budget and cancelled the shuttle program. You're worthless as a human being.
Not quite true-- in fact, it was Bush (the George W. one) who cancelled the shuttle program. Obama actually added one more shuttle flight (STS 135) after the proposed cancellation last flight. By the time Obama got into office, they had already shut down the program-- it was a matter of just flying the stocks remaining. (the last flight that Obama added was, basically, using up the last of the tanks.)
The reason Bush put forth to cancel the shuttle program was to use the savings to fund a new vehicle development program named "Constellation," but the funding for Constellation kept getting cut-- it never was enough to fund the program that they had proposed.
The DOE (yes, not the DOD) is currently refurbishing as many as 2,000 submarine-based W76 warheads at a cost of roughly $2 million each.
Make of that what you will.
Set your phasers on "funky"!
All this talk of millions, billions and trillions as if they were drops in a bucket, and yet I still know very few people who earn enough to support themselves let alone families or school. I imagine all these people thinking "Retirement savings? HA! First need to eat today!" This is all as their wages are going down compared to the price of rent and food, while their taxes are going up.. Most are just glad they have parents who's retirement they can leach off of.
Hmm, the humour and sarcasm seem to have been be lost on you.
Commissioned PV is under $1.25 a watt. If you don't understand what that means, then you should go look it up.
A "watt", for solar, means one watt of electrical production at noon on a cloud free day.
Since peak power usage (in the US) tends to be in the afternoon, that's excellent up to about 10% market penetration Above that, you need energy storage, which is currently not cost effective, although there are several systems that are coming along in the future and look good. However, storage adds to the cost-- it's no longer a dollar a watt if you have to operate and pay for a storage system.
Solar is also less effective in winter (shorter days) and in locations with significant overcast.
Solar is great-- for some utility applications. The true answer is, there is room for multiple approaches to technology development.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Breeder reactors may very well work out well. We'll see.
Wind power is a very nice supplement to use when it's windy, so it works well in addition to base power in certain geographical areas. Wind is NOT base power simply because it's not windy all the time. When it happens to be windy, you can dial back your natural gas or nuclear generation (base) for an hour.
Solar electric is great for locations where you can't easily run a power line, like a vacation cabin in the wilderness. However, it costs over ten times as much as natural gas or hyroelectric. Your monthly electric bill is probably around $150 right now. If you switched to solar, it would cost $1,500 / month. That just doesn't work. Direct solar preheating, on the other hand, works well in many locations. (Let the sun warm your water before it goes to the water heater.)
For electricity and vehicles, there are two / three choices for base load - fossil fuels or nuclear. Fossil fuels can be divided into traditional (coal, heavy oil) and cleaner (natural gas).
Maybe they should get their shit together, build something realistic for the long term, and start selling the electricity then. If I invented a magic device that created gold, I'd probably be selling the gold. Just saying.
Their budget is 100's of millions of dollars and yet they want more $ to continue doing the mediocre work they're doing with laser and tokamak research.
Instead take 100 million and give it out to 10 different types of Fusion projects at 10 million a piece, including the Dense Plasma Focus and Polywell. Because the conventional approach hasn't worked in 50+ years. And at this point they should be ashamed of their continued failure.
Solar electric costs ten times as much as hydro or natural gas. So if everyone was using solar power, instead of paying $150 / month for your electric bill, it would be $1,500 / month. If paying $1,500 / month for electricity is your definition of "did work" you must be that filthy 0.0001%, mega wealthy.
Yes, I'm aware that if you're the only one using solar, politicians will force al of your neighbors to pay the bill. Subsidies "work" when 1,000 people are all subsidizing one guy. We can't all subsidize ourselves $1,500 / month though.
If you enjoy solar, talk about the solar that DOES work - direct solar (pre)heating, for example. Let the sun warm your water before it heads to the water heater. THAT works. Solar electric, not so much, though it is a good way to power a low end calculator.
Since you brought up the actual numbers, I figured I'd add those in. So we have:
Nuclear 7 cents
Natural Gas 3.5 cents
--------
Solar 35 cents (10AM - 4 PM only)
Wind 5 cents (when wind is between 30-40 MPH)
The two groups are separate because the top two are base power - reliable sources available all the time.
The bottom two are supplementary power - they are available SOMETIMES, and when they are available you can reduce the generation from the base power plants.
"Likewise, Medicare is paid for by a separate fund, which goes into the medicaid trust fund."
Trust fund?????!!!!!!?!?!?!?!
WTF are you people smoking?
THEY HAVE SPENT ALL THAT MONEY. MULTIPLE TIMES OVER. AND THE WILL NOT STOP DOING SO EITHER.
There is no trust fund. The money is gone, they stole it and spent it. We are 17T in debt. Soon interest on the debt will exceed what we pay JUST FOR DEFENSE.
And what floors me is that you lot just stand there saying "more please!".
Math - how does that work?
$100 million is nothing compared to the scope of the problem. The Manhattan project was around $25 billion over about 4 years. The Apollo program cost $170 billion over about 15 years. The reason why fusion hasn't worked yet is simply because it hasn't been funded to those levels yet.
How can they do this now when fusion is only 30 years away?!?!
The point, I believe, is what does having a military that big actually do for us? Let us beat soundly upon a bunch of cobbled together resistance in a desert country nobody cares about except for their oil, giving the local terrorist groups a massive shot in the arm with our abuses and cowardly combat tactics? (Yeah, sure, drones and airstrikes may be more efficient in terms of friendly lives spent and the corresponding social backlash back home, but from the opposite perspective what sort of man slaughters people without even giving them a chance to fight back?)
Cut the military 20% and you wouldn't change our strategic position notably, while freeing up tons of funds that could be spent on things that may actually help the country. We'd still be spending more on the military than the next many, many countries combined, most of whom are allies.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
And the conversation goes something like this:
"We must make sure those little shits have no private communication and Exxon dominates energy production. If those dirty unwashed masses where every to gain political control and self sufficiency it would be the end for all of us."
You don't need any energy storage as long as your base power can supply all your needs. Period. If nuclear, hydro, natural gas, and coal can provide all of power, you don't need to store ie solar. Which is good, becuase there is no feasible means of storage. How much wind or solar you have has ZERO effect on that. Sometimes wind will make no power, either because it's not windy enough, or it's too windy. So you need the reliable sources to provide 100% during those times.
I see you've "rebutted" the DOE price survey by pointing to a blogger as your source. LOL. Garfield, the cartoon cat, says your're mistaken.
$50 million of the budget is for a non-standard tokamak, non-laser project, the NSTX. Another $30 million goes to plasma and other design research. They already have a couple projects on the scale you suggest, including RFP and stellerator work, plus separate money for diagnostic development and international collaboration that also goes into such machines as much as tokamaks. The problem with funding 10 projects at the $10 million level, is that there are several already claiming they are ready for the $100 million level. The result is that while they fund dozens of projects across different budget scales, they have limited choice in who can become bigger to keep going, and have to dump those they chose not to become bigger. You can't keep funding smaller projects at $10 million each, as then there will be diminishing returns and they won't actually go toward a workable reactor.
The only two citations I see in that article are a) the solar energy association and b) the head of a solar company. If their claim is in any way hinted at by any DOE report , it's too bad they didn't cite that report. I have a guess as to why they didn't cite anything. I wouldn't be surprised if DOE had run a projection on the scenario that taxpayers might subsidize solar more, so one person using solar would pay less because his neighbors are effectively paying the outrageous cost. They could have also done a "what if" analysis of what would happen IF solar electric magically became feasible.(Starting with 24 / 365 sunshine).
THEY HAVE SPENT ALL THAT MONEY.
Who are "THEY"? The people running Medicare? No, that's not right.
The point is not that "we're fine"; we're not.
The point is that trotting out Social Security and Medicare as examples of why our budget is broken is misleading. These programs are funded through separate withholdings, withholdings that exceed the cost of said programs. Perhaps these programs are "too much", and we should decrease their scope along with their respective withholdings. Perhaps they're "not enough", and we should increase their scope along with their respective withholdings. Perhaps they're "just right", and we should leave them alone. In any case, these programs have very little to do with our current budget woes, as the funds to pay for them are being collected just fine.
That the money collected specifically for these programs is instead misappropriated or borrowed against is no indictment of the programs themselves. Yes, the money has already been spent. No, the money has not already been spent on these programs. You can start pointing at social welfare programs as the primary drivers of deficit spending once you show me how gross tax receipts are sufficient to cover defense spending and all the other shit that's paid for out of the general fund. I say that as someone who works in the defense industry.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
DOE says the national average is 35 cents. .?
I don't know where you got 11 cents. Is that the marginal cost at 1PM on a sunny day in Southern California? Is that the panel manufacturing cost, ignoring installation, trackers, distribution, etc
You keep posting that, a blogger who starts his post with "change all the numbers, because solar is way more effective than the manufacturers rate their systems to be". That blogger WISHES solar was only twice as expensive. The DOE price survey says solar customers actually pay ten times as much.
"The point is that trotting out Social Security and Medicare as examples of why our budget is broken is misleading."
I didn't mean to say that and didn't think I did, nevertheless I completely agree.
That said, Social Security and Medicare are themselves poor solutions to the problems they are supposed to be addressing, and at that they are only the tip of the proverbial iceburg.
The government from end to end is inefficient, corrupt, wasteful and evil. There are things it should be doing that it does not (protect the borders, enforce laws equally, recognize and protect the citizens individual liberties and rights) and there are untold numbers of things it should not be doing that it does (NLRB, DOE, DOA, let's see, how long can one go on?).
That we are 17T in debt is enough to stand on it's own. Our childrens children have been sold off into slavery.
But no, I am not blaming SS or Medicare alone for all of this wrongdoing. Does that help? :-)
Could be that controlled fusion is imposable and a $trillion a year in research would not produce it. Or the oil companies are spending tens of billions a year to stop it. Either way, fusion ain't happening.
> I see you've "rebutted" the DOE price survey by pointing to a blogger as your source.
Yes, I quoted me. A professional in the PV field.
The DOE report in question is based on numbers that are approximately five years old. That's how long it takes them to put reports together. In the last five years, the price of PV has fallen seven times. When you divide by seven, you get my number.
But what's really telling is that the post in question shows you how to do this calculation yourself using up-to-date numbers. But clearly you didn't bother to use the two minutes it takes. Are you really that lazy, or just don't want to admit you might be wrong?
> You don't need any energy storage as long as your base power can supply all your needs. Period
Incorrect, trivially so. If your base load power cannot throttle, when you can't use it all you need to dump it. There are a limited number of places you can do this, and when they run out you have to shut down the plants.
Nuclear is a good example. Most reactors can throttle about 15 to 25% within a 24 hour period, and somewhat less than that on a day-to-day basis. Yet daily power use varies at least 50% practically everywhere. So if you had a 100% nuclear base load supply, you'd have to find somewhere to dump about 30% of it every day.
And that really is like dumping 30% of your money into the turbines, which is precisely why fission represents a fairly small percentage of most supplies, including here in Ontario which has one of the highest penetrations at a little over 50%. If we go any higher, we have to start dumping power. France has pushed this to 75% through a fascinating system of rotating fuelling, but even then they've had to shut down parts of the network during heat waves.
Natural gas is a wonderful dispatchable source, as is hydro and to somewhat less extent, coal. A grid consisting of as much PV, wind and hydro you can make, with NG filling the rest, appears to be the future in North America at least. Such a system is sustainable, low cost, and much lower carbon than the one we had five years ago. And it's not just "nice to have", it's the fact on the ground: coal and nuclear plants are being turned off as I write this, while NG, PV and wind compete for title of "fastest installed".
Let us beat soundly upon a bunch of cobbled together resistance in a desert country nobody cares about except for their oil
That's a HUGE "except" right there, until we're weaned off the stuff in the next few decades (hopefully).
but from the opposite perspective what sort of man slaughters people without even giving them a chance to fight back?
You can't seriously think that's the terrorist perspective. In asymmetric warfare, the smaller group rarely gives the bigger group a chance to fight back, or they'd be destroyed pretty quickly. Most tactics in asymmetric warfare involve hiding before the enemy can retaliate, and using surprise attacks to your advantage. Not to mention terrorists have no problem attacking people who have no capability to fight back (women and children, wounded people in hospitals, etc) even if you did give them the chance.
We'd still be spending more on the military than the next many, many countries combined, most of whom are allies.
I haven't read a study about this, but common sense says that comparing our dollars to China's dollars and Iran's dollars doesn't make sense because they have different purchasing power. One of the big costs in the military, even today when it's so driven by technology and equipment, is manpower. If China's soldiers cost 1/5 what we pay, then we may be outspending them but not necessarily getting more for it. You can't necessarily use economy-wide purchasing power parity figures either because I suspect a lot of military expenditure falls outside the normal economy, especially in some countries.
The Social Security Trust Fund and Medicare Trust Fund are illusions.
In both cases, the money goes into the General Fund to be spent, and is "replaced" with an Interest Free Intragovernmental T-Bill.
Which means that when SS/Medicare start spending more than they take in (within ten years, unless they raise SS/Medicare taxes on you young people), the Trust Funds will redeem those T-Bills, which will be paid for by borrowing from the public or raising taxes.
Note that if the Trust Funds did not exist, when SS/Medicare start spending more than they take in, they will be paid for by borrowing from the public or raising taxes.
If the net effect of something existing is exactly the same as the net effect of it NOT existing, it can safely be assumed that it doesn't actually exist.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
We are constantly faced with cuts in our domestic programs/R&D.. If you ask me we are just cutting our own throats.
Wouldn't it be easier, and more beneficial to the USA, to cut all the BS foreign aid to everyone else?
Advances in computing can lead to advances in fusion research. This may be a short-term loss for fusion, but net gain in the long-term.
An addendum, proving the point:
The DOE is currently estimating installation prices in 2018, you can see their numbers here:
http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/electricity_generation.cfm
If you look at the number for PV, you'll see they predict $130.4/MWh at 25% CF. So that's $32.6/Mw, essentially. From that they estimate a total all-in cost of 144.3. Systems are going in at half that all over the place. First Solar just signed a PPA at 5.6 cents/kWh for 20 years in Nevada, which implies an installed cost of 85 cents/W.
If you compare that number to others on the same chart, even the DOE is saying things are pretty good. For instance, they say "Advanced Nuclear" is 108.4. So basically they're saying PV is expected to cost just a little more than nuclear in 2018. They predict wind will be significantly less expensive.
Yes, I'm aware that older DOE reports have much higher numbers for PV and wind, etc. Which simply shows how quickly things are changing in this field. It is also VERY telling when you take their predictions over the last 10 years and graph them.
In both cases, the money goes into the General Fund to be spent, and is "replaced" with an Interest Free Intragovernmental T-Bill.
Wrong, the debt that the Social Security Trust Fund purchases is not interest-free. You can see that here: http://www.ssa.gov/oact/progda...
If the net effect of something existing is exactly the same as the net effect of it NOT existing, it can safely be assumed that it doesn't actually exist.
Even if the special issue bonds were interest-free, that criticism wouldn't make sense. That would mean the Trust Fund is giving the government interest-free loans, and then being paid back later. That is completely different than if they didn't save the money to begin with, but still had to be paid back later when they're out of money.
The Trust Fund will run out of money one day and we'll have to cut benefits or divert general funds to pay make it up or raise SS taxes, but that is quantitatively different from if there was no Trust Fund to begin with.
but from the opposite perspective what sort of man slaughters people without even giving them a chance to fight back?
Well, such things are useful to winning wars though there are plenty of examples throughout history of that not being a sufficient condition for victory. But there is also the other side of the coin, what have these people subject to slaughter done to deserve a fair fight?
There's only one budget. There are no "separate" funds. Social Security doesn't actually pay more into the budget than it pays out. And no one in government has ever done a proper accounting of these programs.
That's misleading. Social Security is paid for with Social Security withholding
Mostly... it's also paid for with interest on the debt that Social Security owns. I'm not sure what percentage of public debt is held by the SS Trust Fund, but I'm sure it's not negligible.. and about 6% of the overall budget goes to interest in general.
it actually pays more into the budget than it pays out.
For now, but it's projected to run out and then become a burden on the general tax revenue. Or result in a SS tax increase. Probably both, plus reduced benefits.
Yay, my generation gets to pay more than any generation before it, and get either the same or worse benefits than previous generations! Awesome deal! I love social safety nets that fuck over future generations!
And bonus: these taxes are specifically excluded when people say "the poor pay no income tax". The poor actually pay a fair bit of tax, and as far as your paycheck is concerned, the "withholding" line looks just like the "FICA" lines. At low wages, the former is tiny, while the latter is quite large. On a rich person's paycheck, the latter is capped so that it comes to practically nothing. Or they'll be paid in forms other than paychecks, so that it IS literally nothing.
But when your goal is to "prove" that the poor are all lazy degenerates, only the former line counts as "taxes" and the latter is ignored.
The US is a net exporter of oil. Granted we weren't when we started pounding sand, but that choice has always be a strategic and environmental one.
>but from the opposite perspective what sort of man slaughters people without even giving them a chance to fight back?
I'm not speaking of the active terrorists, I'm talking about all the civilians getting slaughtered by our machines. Or more to the point, their surviving friends and families whose impotent rage makes them prime candidates for recruitment into the terrorist ranks. Remember, Al Qaeda was a mostly-irrelevant organization in the final stages of collapse before our entirely disproportionate response to their last gasp on 9/11 supplied them with a massive influx of new recruits.
As for the terrorists, I imagine they feel much the same way about our cowardice - they may hide as much as possible, but they still put their lives on the line with almost every attack.
> ...If China's soldiers cost 1/5 what we pay, then we may be outspending them but not necessarily getting more for it...
The days when men won wars are mostly over - in a conflict between Major Powers it'll be all about who has the best and most hardware. And those costs aren't dramatically different around the world.
As for the difference in expenditure, Wikipedia if anything lists the least extreme numbers I've seen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...
for reference/ tldr : 2013 expenditures as estimated by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
US: $682 billion usd
China: $166 billion usd
next 13 nations combined: $585 billion USD
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Why don't they just crowdfund fusion research?
If Star Citizen can get 40 million, I suspect Fusion research could get a LOT more.
-
Computing research can help advance and perfect the Panopticon; Fusion would only damage Big Oil's profits and power.
Pretty clear choice for 99% of politicians.
It does.
We may disagree on which agencies fall outside the purview (or should, at least) of the federal government (I, for one, think the DOE is pretty awesome, and I'm glad that my tax dollars help support it), we can at least agree that shit is broken, and it's not really because of old people or sick people.
The shit that our elected officials do with the money we give them can not be morally defended. If I spend my whole life paying into Social Security, when I'm 70 is not a good time to tell me that all of the money has been shuffled over to totally unrelated programs and that I'll be eating cardboard for the [brief] remainder of my life. It's one thing if there's simply too many old people and not enough people in the workforce to support them; it's another thing entirely if the money is being squandered elsewhere.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
> Since peak power usage (in the US) tends to be in the afternoon, that's excellent up
> to about 10% market penetration Above that, you need energy storage
40%
http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/03/variable-renewable-power-can-reach-40-percent-capacity-very-cheaply/
40% is a rather selective reading of that article. The article you link states:
"Now, the International Energy Agency has weighed in with a report on integrating renewables. It finds that, as long as intermittent power sources are under 10 percent of the total energy use, they can essentially be added for free."
That's pretty close to what I just said. (The article is talking about wind plus solar, while I was discussing solar alone). It goes on to talk about higher penetration:
"The report lumps wind and solar into a category it terms "variable renewable energy" and then it says "Things start to change as the fraction of power generated by VREs approaches 20 percent, and there are definitely new challenges as it reaches 30 to 40 percent."
So: I said solar is excellent at market penetration up to 10%, and this article says for solar plus wind together the cost changes at power fraction up to 20%, with "new challenges" as it reaches 30 to 40%.
I'd say we're saying the same thing.
As for the 40% you quote, the article says "that would require substantial reshaping of the rest of the grid--something that's much easier to do outside of mature economies."
The U.S is a mature economy, so that part isn't talking about us.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
The Trust Fund will run out of money one day and we'll have to cut benefits or divert general funds to pay make it up or raise SS taxes
Or we could, you know, get rid of the cap. I have yet to hear a coherent argument explaining why regressive payroll taxes are a good thing for this country.
A tax with two brackets:
$0 - $117000; 2.9%
$117000+; 0.0%
I'm sure it's this way to encourage job creators to, um...
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
I note that you can tell more lies but you can't actually answer my question. That's because you're worthless as a slashdotter.
I can afford the karma hit I'll take from your pathetic friends if I continue in this vein, so I shall. I get more upvotes in a month than you've ever had.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Let us beat soundly upon a bunch of cobbled together resistance in a desert country nobody cares about except for their oil
That's a HUGE "except" right there, until we're weaned off the stuff in the next few decades (hopefully).
We are actively preventing weaning ourselves off the stuff right now. Point the first, the USDOE proved in the 1980s that you could make biodiesel from algae cost-effectively by the time biodiesel hit $3/gallon with the most basic of technologies. Point the second, a patent war between GEVO and BP/Dupont's shell company Butamax is currently preventing us from being able to purchase Butanol, a cleaner-burning 1:1 replacement for gasoline which can be made from any organic material. Point the third, the federal government actually sued California to prevent us from instituting more stringent emissions standards which would have increased the demand for vehicles which use less or no oil.
We have the technology right now to sharply reduce and eventually (in a decade, not decades) eliminate our need to burn petrochemicals for energy. We are actively preventing it, presumably to preserve profits for entrenched interests.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Your link says that's the predicted cost to the utility to build a solar plant. That is, not including distribution costs, etc.
The actual retail price is 35 cents, compared to 3.5 for natural gas.
Even your link says "solar electricity doesn’t really compete" with other sources.
> This is the DOE *prediction* is for 2018
Finally you said something honest! All this time you've been saying 11 cents, comparing it to the 3.5 cent actual retail price of natural gas. I'm glad you're now being a little more transparent - some people PREDICT that one day the cost to build new solar plant may come down. Other people predict Bitcoin will make them rich. I'm not betting on either.
Nanosolar scammed / lost half a billion of our money, Mt Gox did the same. Similarly for Solyndra and all the other bitcoin scams / losses. The one difference between Bitcoin and solar is that Bitcoin is available 24 hours a day.
but from the opposite perspective what sort of man slaughters people without even giving them a chance to fight back?
Uh, anyone who wants to win a war?
I support regressive taxes in general because it makes all people at least somewhat aware of what stuff costs.
Considering things like the EITC were invented to offset payroll taxes for the poor, I don't think you can say it's entirely regressive.. it's just that the numbers appear on different pieces of paper so some people don't connect them. It's still regressive for some people (guess who... the middle class of course!) but not for the poor.
Personally I think the concept of Social Security is utterly stupid and should be abolished. The vast majority of people don't even understand what it is. It's billed as a forced savings program... and you can see how effective that idea is when you read comments from folks nearing retirement who say dumb stuff like they have "paid into the system" and therefore they "earned" their full benefits. They honestly don't know that people starting their careers today pay a higher rate than they did when they started their careers. They honestly don't know that the money they saved largely went to pay for existing retirees... who paid EVEN LESS into the system than they did.
Oh yeah, forgot to add.. after abolishing Social Security, old people with no income could go on welfare.
Social Security actually is a welfare program since poor people get a disproportionately high benefit compared to what they paid in.. it's just not called welfare because back when it was originally proposed, most people were still properly ashamed at not pulling their own weight.
I'm not speaking of the active terrorists, I'm talking about all the civilians getting slaughtered by our machines.
That's what people say, but it's impossible to know for sure what drives terrorism recruitment. If we were sending in troops on the ground to do hand to hand fighting and getting our asses whooped by terrorists who still used dirty tactics, I personally don't think it would make one whit of difference. There would still be civilians getting killed (perhaps fewer). There would probably be more disruption (more invaders, take longer, less ability to target precisely). The local populations would still be Muslim and the war would still be cast as the foreign infidels fighting against the noble lions of Islam.
I mean all you have to do is look at how Pakistan reacted to the secret CIA program that found Bin Laden. That didn't kill innocent people... in fact it helped vaccinate their country. Did they say "Oh wow what awesome humanitarian tactics, we approve!! Please start doing this more instead of drone strikes this is so cool." Nope.
Remember, Al Qaeda was a mostly-irrelevant organization in the final stages of collapse
It's true that al Qaeda was off our radar.. that's largely because the US public did not give two shits about the Middle East or any Muslim countries prior to 9/11. That stuff was Israel's problem and India's problem and Russia's problem... and we kinda sorta thought maybe they deserved it for their own actions. Kashmiri Muslim terrorists were still thought of as freedom fighters or rebels. Same with Chechens, Palestinians, etc.
Al Qaeda was receiving state support from the Taliban in Afghanistan before 9/11. There is also a large chance that they received funding from the Saudis and from Pakistan, both of which have interests in keeping terrorism alive and well, if at a low buzz inside their own borders. I haven't heard the argument you're making that al Qaeda was in the final stages of collapse, I'm curious what evidence you have of that.
The days when men won wars are mostly over - in a conflict between Major Powers it'll be all about who has the best and most hardware. And those costs aren't dramatically different around the world.
What if those costs are more different than you think? For instance, what do you think Iran's army pays for gas and oil? What does China's army pay? Even if ultimately the cost is the same due to opportunity costs, that would mask the true military expenditure. For instance, if China (which is an oil importer) says "Here in China, the army pays $0.10/gallon for gas. If you sell gas here, you have to do that" then they report $0.10/gallon gas in their military expenditures... but obviously they are getting more value for that.
The US military establishment has shit tons of money and most of the budget operates transparently and within the overall economy. I mean we know that when they buy gas, they are paying market price. When they build an airbase, they probably acquired the land through the market, or eminent domain which is supposed to be a fair price. What do you think China does when they build a new airbase? What cost is recorded?
Don't get me wrong, I'm definitely not saying that the US doesn't have more military capability than other countries. I'm just saying that I think the differences are somewhat exaggerated because the US is a really expensive place to do stuff. Our Navy gets sued over stupid shit like SONAR hurting whales and dolphins. In China they execute activists who cause problems. All that stuff has an impact too, it's not just dollars that we need to look at.
I've been fascinated with algae production of biodiesel for a decade now. I'm curious, the DOE proof of concept that you're talking about.. is that in 1980's dollars or today?
From what I've heard there have been plenty of commercial attempts to produce biodiesel from algae and they have failed.
"Human beings are worthless; only property matters" seems to be a pretty accurate summary of conservative mindset.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Anyone who isn't a complete monster? Because fair fight is for sports, and if that's what killing people is for you, then that's what you are.
Don't use deadly force unless the other option is even worse, and if it's worse, don't risk it by giving your target a change. If you have some personal issues you need to solve through "honorable" bloodshed, go play Counter-Strike or paintball or something. Don't take that shit out on real people with real bullets, and if you do, don't think that letting them shoot back makes you any less of a murderer.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
"If you switched to solar, it would cost $1,500 / month. "
Please do some research before spouting off with this nonsense. Since there is abundant info on the net showing how pitifully misinformed you are, I'm not going to even bother citing from the enormous body of info to the contrary.
For DIY real world system prices, try Sunelectronics. http://sunelec.com/ I have no affiliation with this outfit. They have panel prices in the 75c/watt area. They used to have system quotes for grid tie residential that were some of the best around.
I'm in the Mojave desert. There is solar going in all over the place. LOTS of it. EVERYWHERE. It works.
I get called by scammers all the time, trying to sell me overpriced systems, capture the tax credits, and line their own pockets. Do your research. You can zero a meter for several thousand gross for a SFR. Despite the scams, politics, corruption and fear mongering, PV works, and will only get better over time.
My 2p.
study
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Well, that's an interesting point you have there. I'm going to think about that one.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
How exactly does putting your own life on the line in order to kill people make you more of a monster? We're not talking about "good sportsmanship", we're talking about murdering people from the opposite side of the planet. Throughout human history if you wanted to kill me, you had to expose yourself to the chance that I would kill you instead. I might be out manned and out gunned, but I had at least a slim chance to kill my attacker and exact a measure of vengeance for my fallen comrades. War was a human endeavor.
Today a "soldier" can kill people by the dozens or hundreds, without ever risking anything more than having his weapon platform destroyed. You really think that's going to somehow make him *less* of a monster in the eyes of his victims?
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Or on Apollo fucking one in the mid 1960s onwards.
I really hate the sort of argument style where someone deliberately pretends to be stupid to set up a bait and switch. It's not some sort of high school mass debate here. It's a discussion and nobody needs to win.
Like I said: if you can afford to treat war as a game where you take unnecessary risks for the sake of honor or sportmanship or whatever, you can afford to not fight it in the first place. It's not risking your life that makes you a monster, it's fighting a war that you can treat as a goddamn sports event that does it.
Like I said: if you have to kill them, not giving them a chance is just common sense. And if you can afford to give them a chance, why are you killing them in the first place? The victims are just as dead, whether you kill them from the other side of the planet or up close and personal.
This kind of romanticising of war doesn't do you any favours.
Dunno, but I do know if someone could kill me from the distance but instead gives me a "fighting chance", then whatever reason he had to want me dead in the first place is clearly not really that important to him.
Also, why do you care about what the victims think? Both Nazis and the Japanese Empire - and modern Japan, to an extent - claimed being victims to the bitter end. Does this have some connection to the American justice system's obsession of extorting confessions?
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
R&D into Fusion is -not- "too big [in $$$ spent] to fail"
I don't get WHY we've embraced high-cost Fusion
for as long as we have, ie, while continuing to ignore
-proven- Energy from Thorium's cost-effectiveness,
energy-efficiency & very low waste production advan-
tages over sloppy current (ie, "Nuclear 1.0") nuclear
technologies, especially after Fukushima's proof of
its relatively unsafe nature.
CURRENT "best" nuclear reactor designs give only:
a. excessively high construction (& financing) costs
b. low levels of safety, even w/best human operator
c. high costs for (solid) fuel-rods (zero $ in LFTRs)
d. 1% of fuel-rods' energy used, when pulled out
e. costly reactor down-times to change fuel-rods
f. much more costly spent-fuel waste by volume & $$
g. higher proliferation risk, due to plutonium in waste
h. high cooling-water usage (also restricts location)
i. low temp. output means inefficient electricity gen'n
j. costly security req'ts dictate fixed-location plants
k. reputation for poor decision-making, at each step
EfT's Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors offer us:
a. lower construction costs (low operating pressure)
b. intrinsic safety (they're"walk-away safe")
c. no needs for any fuel-rods at all
d. about 99% fuel utilization: & can eat "spent-fuel"
e. shorter shutdowns possible, but unnecessary
f. much less waste produced; reduces "old" waste
g. reduced proliferation risk; no weapons grade Pu
h. needs NO scarce water (locate "anywhere")
i. high temp. output means efficient electricity gen'n
j. cost-effective factory-made & modular options
k. genuine pride in design excellence & efficiency
Community-driven push for new LFTR-enabling
regulations & gov't support for R&D funding for
Energy from Thorium (LFTRs), more modular
LFTRs (meaning less need for costly grid infra-
structure & transmission costs & energy losses).
In short, an opportunity of a Lifetime for cheap,
reliable, safe, & "peace-conducive" energy, that
would get us back on-track towards "increased
quality of Life for the next generation."
So, "Nuclear 2.0" Energy from Thorium (LFTRs) :-)
seems good to me.
I am just surprised the president decided to follow the law this time and actually submit a budget - ok it is legally late but what can you do when a president refuses to follow this and many other laws?
When nations go to war, it's almost always for one of two reasons: "I want your stuff" or "You can't have my stuff". You can also get caught in the middle of larger conflicts where you are attacked "So *they* can't have your stuff". There's occasionally feuds that break out as well, but even those tend to break down into a long-simmering tit-for-tat of "I want" and "can't have". What I'm hearing you say is that saying "I want your stuff" to a massively inferior opponent and sending a robotic horde to claim it without any risk on your part is somehow acceptable, and I find that concept appalling.
In the case of the Middle East, the US has been fighting a combination of "So they can't" and "I want" battles since the World Wars at least - more political and black-ops than open warfare, but the aggression is there nonetheless, as is the price paid in the blood of the populace. Then some podunk terrorist cell manages to organize the most successful set of attacks in US history, and the US uses it as an excuse to launch a military assault against the home country of some of the attackers and a neighboring country that was completely uninvolved for claimed reasons that have since been shown to have been intentionally falsified. The locals are understandably skeptical of our motives, resentful of our disregard for civilian life, and aware that "their" governments have been heavily beholden to the US since long before we openly conquered them and installed a government more to our liking, that's backed by a seemingly permanent occupation force. Thus many patriots are tempted to join the "You can't have it" factions in a guerrilla war against the invaders, who are hiding behind their robots while massacring civilians to get at their resistance targets.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Storage, renewable energy, base power etc. Have nothing to do with each other at all.
Adding 'period' to your sentences only makes sense if you are able to make a profound statement, which you did not.
Sometimes wind will make no power, either because it's not windy enough, or it's too windy. So you need the reliable sources to provide 100% during those times.
That is just nonsense.
Read something about weather or climate.
Oh, sorry. My fault. My appologizes. You live in Gibraltar, Monaco, Andorra? Your country has only one single 1km x 1km big wind farm? Sure, now you are fucked, that punny wind farm won't work if you have a 50km diameter wind still eye above your punny 5km x 5km diameter country. On the other hand your nuclear plant is not affected by this wind still area. Oh? Andorra, Monacco, Gibraltar (insert any other european dwarf nation) has no single nuclear 'base load' plant at all ... ... oh? Period, that was not your period erm point, or?
Running black outs and brown outs and burn outs are your doom.
Well, Orwell and Huxley where right, the newspeak and gedankenkontrolle is so hard that we never hear about this stuff. Luckily the casinos and banks in those countries are immune to power failures
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
With all your questions and 'numbered' points, I suggest you go back to school.
That will answer most of your points.
Regarding fission: waste storage, reprocessing and decommissioning comes immediatly to mind.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
A watt of solar power is a watt of solar power.
No.
Solar panels are rated for capacity in "peak watts". That means: the solar panel will produce one watt under an illumination of 1 kW/m2. 1 kW per square meter is, roughly, the intensity at noon on a cloud free day.
If the illumination is not 1 kW/m2: it will not produce one watt.
It means nothing in regard to day time or cloudness.
If it is cloudy, a 1-kW solar panel will not produce 1 kW of electrical output. If it is after sunset, a 1-kW solar panel will not produce 1 kW. Time of day and cloudiness determine the power output.
E.g. no one prevents you to build your 1kw plant to point to 15 O'Clock and have the right angle to produce '100%' of its rated yield in September and April.
That is correct. You can chose which way to tilt your panel, which will set what time you produce peak power. It's not always best to tilt at the angle to maximize integrated power.
Noon is only relevant if you are so stupid to point your plant right now to due south at 12:00 in July. (And the energy difference of a proper angled plant for 15:00 in September or 12:00 in June is less than a percent)
For a tracking collector, that's probably about right. For a fixed-tilt collector, the loss is a bit more than that. The output goes as cosine of the angle, times the air mass factor (which to first order we can neglect). Since the sun moves 15 per hour, going from noon to 15:00 you lose by cosine of 45, 0.707 (about 30%).
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
You're blabbering nonsense words in week old threads. Take your meds so you can put together a sentence.