Things are worse than that. This is not sludge, it is highly enriched uranium solution. It came from a bomb and was being diluted for reactor fuel. You do not want it in a jug, you want to keep it dispersed so that it does not react. The managers at the plant did not know that it was highly enriched. They thought that it was natural uranium. This is very poor materials control to begin with. They also had uncontrolled accumulation points so they were not following safe handling procedures. It sounds as if there are serious accountability problems at the plant and further problems are likely. At the least, if they don't know where the highly enriched uranium is, their counter proliferations efforts cannot be tracked and diversion of bomb grade material becomes a matter of time. Even if materials don't get diverted from the Tennessee plant, the example set makes it much harder to lean on the Russians about their fissile material security so larger diversions will happen there.
It is not OK to use secrecy to cover up incompetence. What we are seeing here is the use of a grey area, For Official Use Only, to skirt the penalties associated with classifing information for the wrong reasons. This appears to be a command influence problem because this kind of thing seems to be happening across the government. The office of the VP, for example, avoids classification review presumably with the tacit aproval of the president. This kind of thing weakens the country in so many ways that is hard to see how an actual enemy could do more damage. So, it is much more that just safety procedures, it is a culture of ducking responsibility through the use of unaccountable secrecy that needs fixing and it is very hard to see how the president would ever find the strength of character to start doing what needs to be done. Congress can do a few things, like reveal this incident, but it cannot foster a culture of integrity at the White House.
This one way outsiders become insiders. The insiders have already done quite a lot of work and they are currently working in more adavanced areas. The outsider, if he is committed, will eventually be persuaded of the fundemental soundness of the original work while finding a few more below-the-estimated-errors problems. There is a slight chance he'll find something that actually changes conclusions, but the chance is slight because scientists ususally have a pretty good sense of how far wrong they might be owing to error analysis and stick to what is robust.
Subsidies are an interesting question. All energy sectors get them. Here is a link that looks at the period 1943-1999: http://www.crest.org/repp_pubs/pdf/subsidies.pdf. Hyrdo is included, but much of the hydro capital investment happened before 1943. The Hover Dam was completed in 1935, for example. Non-market interest rates play a big role in hydro subsidies since hydro also plays a role in flood control, a government function. Wind gets a production tax credit which is not permanent while hydro appears to recieve a tax break in addition to production credits http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/partner/s tory;jsessionid=0D08A08E27326292C69011005A97F1DE?i d=49601. It seems to me that we can manage a subsidies accounting when wind reaches the market penetration of hydro. I suspect that owing to less favorable financing (private rather than public), wind will turn out to have the lower subsidy at that point.
There are two utilites in North Dakota where you could save money with solar. Don't know if yours is one. North Dakota does well for sunshine, an average of 5 peak equivilent hours per day. At least for Calvert Cliffs, the estimated cost for the new reactor is $2.50/Watt. Perhapshttp://www.tva.gov/news/releases/julysep07/ wbu2.htm you have been looking at delayed plant completion costs. On the other hand, solar and wind come in at about $1.30/Watt plus transmission for wind and inverters for solar. Nuclear also needs transmission plus fuel plus regulation costs (currently discounted). Wind is actually the cheapest right now even compared to hydro. Solar wins in terms of competing with delivered electricity despite installation costs. This is why the commercial sector is adopting it so rapidly. In terms of new construction in California: http://news.com.com/Solar+industry+targets+new+hom es/2100-11392_3-6187964.html.
Especially where air conditioning is used, utlilities get a big benefit from net metering. This is when thier whole sale costs are above their retail rates. So, their net metering customers are providing electricity at a discount and reducing costs for everyone. The cost of wind and solar is falling while the cost of everything else is rising, even hydro since its resource is coming in for more demand as water alone. The current situation on the Tennessee River is an example. It may still be a while before your utility catches on, but I expect you'll be seeing quite a lot of solar when it does. -- Improve you power: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html
Commercial installations can likely meet $0.06/kWh. They can get $1.30/Watt for thin film panels. Retail is about $3/Watt for the lowest cost panels so you would need to figure on using them past the 25 year guaranty by about 15 years, assuming $1/Watt for the inverter and a yard mount installation. We'll see what your new fuel surcharge turns out to be. For residential installations we don't go below $0.07/kWh.
Availability and relability are different. It is the lack of reliability that is driving up costs. You may want to check out what solar and wind actually cost compared to new nuclear power. We are hurting for peak capacity so you are making things a little skewed when you insist on your multiplier I think. In terms of surface area needed, the roofs of homes can generate 46% of all power consumed: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/08/roof-pitch.htm l. -- Better power: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html
You are not comprehending what is going on. The plant shutdown is requiring TVA to pay for electricity at the highest price. This eliminates any so called savings from nuclear power. On a reliability scale, nuclear power comes in low because it is not there when you need it most. This matches its detrimental economic and environmental impact. It is amazing how often people need anonyimity to put foward the arguement that coal is bad so nuclear is good. They must realize how sorry such an arguement is and be ashamed to make it.
I agree. I was reading the article saying that the intake was too warm. But, another article gives more detail http://www.decaturdaily.com/decaturdaily/news/0708 17/power.shtml saying that it is the down stream temperature that is considered important. So, if the intake temperature exceeds the maximum down stream temperature they are hosed.
Cooling towers are usually part of the design of a power plant, but they need to be run hot enough to to get a good energy flow rate and cool enough so that steam is properly condensed. Final cooling is usually handled by the river or tidal system. Apparently what is happening here is that the cooling towers can't do the last stage. More cooling towers might help but this increases costs so looking at other options for power generation becomes important. -- A better way: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html
The drought in the southeastern US has not yet been conclusively linked to global warming. The problems described in Europe have been linked. It takes time to get that stuff figured out and it was not until the most recent IPCC report (this year) that the heat wave deaths in Europe were strongly linked. The main problem is that TVA is overloading the capacity of the river system as it is by over reliance on nuclear power so that it is increasing costs for rate payers.
Because nuclear power involves such long term decision making, and many of those decisions were made before warming was understood to be a problem, the consequences of warming for nuclear power are likely to be worse than for other means of generation. This is tied to siting decisions which place many nuclear power plants in tidal areas which will be affected by sea level rise http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/08/cliffhanger.ht ml. But, changing flow rates and temperatures for river systems will also have an impact. Climate models probably need to be improved before they can be used well to assist in siting decisions so the investment risk for new nulear power plants is probably higher than it will be in a decade or so when models are better able to look at watershed-by-watershed level effects of warming. -- Reducing the cost of electricity: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html
According to the article, this is different from environmental requirements on the down stream temperature. This is a lack of cooling capacity problem. The the energy transfer rate for the waste heat is just not high enough with the river temperature at 90 F. -- Better electricity: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html
The cooling problem is a result of TVA's interest in building more reactors. Browns Ferry is now operating with two reactors instead of three because they recently added a reactor. They are also planning on adding a reactor upstream at Watts Bar http://www.tva.gov/news/releases/julysep07/wbu2.ht m adding to the heat load on the Tennessee River. So, next time, they may have to take two Browns Ferry reactors off line at seasonal peak demand. This makes electricity more expensive because it requires buying rather than selling electricity when it is most expensive.
But, the fairly natural solution to the problem, reducing summer demand through net metering of customer generated solar power, a solution being implemented in 41 states and DC, is hampered in the TVA service territory by TVA's net metering policy: http://www.tva.gov/purpa/net_metering.htm which is a billing period-by-billing period policy rather than an annual carryover policy used in net metering states. Adopting a reasonable net metering policy would allow TVA to become a summer time peak demand power exporter and gain by arbitrage, reducing the risk of higher overall rates it is building for itself by not paying attention to the capacity of the river system to handle the 60% of wasted energy nuclear power generation creates. --
Power when you want it most: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html
The person who found the problem is doing just that. We'll see what he comes up with. So far as I know, there is no such thing as a data analysis collapse, just iterations past the point of diminishing returns as in this case.
In fact, the better check is what occured. Methods (algorithms) were described in sufficient detail to allow the work to be reproduced. The data were made available. There has been no secrecy. An independent coding effort meant that problems were revealed which, as it turned out, had to do with the data sets provided. There may be symultaneous errors in both coding efforts, but this is less likely than if code had been released. Science takes work and if you are not willing to put in the effort to take an average yourself, then you are just making noise. If you do put in the effort, and you find a problem, if it turns out to be an improvement on the original work you'll be politely acknowledged as happened here, even when the problem makes no difference to the conclusions. Independent confirmation of results is crucial. Code comparision is only useful when there are independent code sets to compare. Code is usually only provided in a first publication when it is thought that it will have further utility in broader applications. Methods of taking an average do not generally rise to that level. These attacks on the scientific method by the Inhofe crowd just demonstrate their cynical distortions of science. -- Replace carbon with silicon: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html
He also cites the Seventh Generation Principle: http://www.precaution.org/lib/prn_bemidji_original .060706.htm. It is interesting to me we should be looking both forward and back in time here. About seven generations ago we see a discussion of what our attitude should be towards our tenancy in this generation while the indigenous people also credit their ancestors for learning a harmonious way of living on Earth. Our obligations run in both directions. To the past, to glean wisdom and build on it, and to the future, to provide an ever better example of how to live in harmony with the ecosystem and each other. -- Switch to solar: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html
What makes the most difference to all this is cumulative pollution. We see the effects now of CO2 emitted in 1934 (an other prior years). There are forcings from particulate pollution that can be cooling, and there has been a change in the level of particulates put into the atmosphere, but these are shorter term effects since the stuff does not accumulate. -- Get off fossil fuels: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html
I checked the link and you are correct. The spelling in the article is wrong. So, I guess the are saying they are the old fashion election systems now. Guess we know what progress will bring. -- Solar power with no maintenance fee: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html
Slashdot Mirror
Things are worse than that. This is not sludge, it is highly enriched uranium solution. It came from a bomb and was being diluted for reactor fuel. You do not want it in a jug, you want to keep it dispersed so that it does not react. The managers at the plant did not know that it was highly enriched. They thought that it was natural uranium. This is very poor materials control to begin with. They also had uncontrolled accumulation points so they were not following safe handling procedures. It sounds as if there are serious accountability problems at the plant and further problems are likely. At the least, if they don't know where the highly enriched uranium is, their counter proliferations efforts cannot be tracked and diversion of bomb grade material becomes a matter of time. Even if materials don't get diverted from the Tennessee plant, the example set makes it much harder to lean on the Russians about their fissile material security so larger diversions will happen there.
It is not OK to use secrecy to cover up incompetence. What we are seeing here is the use of a grey area, For Official Use Only, to skirt the penalties associated with classifing information for the wrong reasons. This appears to be a command influence problem because this kind of thing seems to be happening across the government. The office of the VP, for example, avoids classification review presumably with the tacit aproval of the president. This kind of thing weakens the country in so many ways that is hard to see how an actual enemy could do more damage. So, it is much more that just safety procedures, it is a culture of ducking responsibility through the use of unaccountable secrecy that needs fixing and it is very hard to see how the president would ever find the strength of character to start doing what needs to be done. Congress can do a few things, like reveal this incident, but it cannot foster a culture of integrity at the White House.
The accident that might have happened would have been similar to Japan's worst accident so far: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokaimura_nuclear_acc ident. Because liquids take on the shape of the container, a spill in the floor is not as important as the liquid accumulating in a narrow shaft. See this description: http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi ?dbname=2007_register&docid=fr04my07-111.t ter power: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html
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Be
The AC has a point though that slashdot does not do a lot of followup. For example this 2005 article: http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/2 8/1224245 has not really had a follow up to say that they have products on the market now: http://www.nanosolar.com/products.htm, or that this 2004 article: http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/2 2/1534212 about solar shingles is also seeing application in new housing now. Looking back, there are articles on ideas that have not panned out so far, especially in organic
solar technology. But, that does not mean that they won't.s -selling-solar.html
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Get solar power: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
Prices have come down a lot since 2002. Commercial installations a beating grid pricing and some financing mechanisms can get residential down to $0.07/kWh: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/08/tuppence-in-su n.html. This trend of lower prices should continue for a decade at least and will make solar cheaper than all other sources of power. Some business developments in storage may make the combination of solar plus storage as cheap as any other form of power as well: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html. Nice SolarFest blog entry.s -selling-solar.html
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Rent solar power: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
In a detector you are correct but in a power device you use the doping gradient because bias voltages leak, defeating the purpose.s -selling-solar.html
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Get solar power: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
Here is a link to the original notice in the Federal Register: http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi ?dbname=2007_register&docid=fr04my07-111 taken from the very much in flux list of civilian nuclear accidents at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_civilian_nucl ear_accidents. This is not the way that the NRC usually handles accidents of this magnitiude. The lack of awareness of supervisors of what they were dealing with is pretty amazing.s -selling-solar.html
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Get better power and save: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
This one way outsiders become insiders. The insiders have already done quite a lot of work and they are currently working in more adavanced areas. The outsider, if he is committed, will eventually be persuaded of the fundemental soundness of the original work while finding a few more below-the-estimated-errors problems. There is a slight chance he'll find something that actually changes conclusions, but the chance is slight because scientists ususally have a pretty good sense of how far wrong they might be owing to error analysis and stick to what is robust.
Subsidies are an interesting question. All energy sectors get them. Here is a link that looks at the period 1943-1999: http://www.crest.org/repp_pubs/pdf/subsidies.pdf. Hyrdo is included, but much of the hydro capital investment happened before 1943. The Hover Dam was completed in 1935, for example. Non-market interest rates play a big role in hydro subsidies since hydro also plays a role in flood control, a government function. Wind gets a production tax credit which is not permanent while hydro appears to recieve a tax break in addition to production credits http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/partner/s tory;jsessionid=0D08A08E27326292C69011005A97F1DE?i d=49601. It seems to me that we can manage a subsidies accounting when wind reaches the market penetration of hydro. I suspect that owing to less favorable financing (private rather than public), wind will turn out to have the lower subsidy at that point.
s -selling-solar.html
Panels are tilted to account for the dilution of sunlight owing to the latitude. What you are mostly seeing is that you get rain while deserts don't.
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Better power: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
There are two utilites in North Dakota where you could save money with solar. Don't know if yours is one. North Dakota does well for sunshine, an average of 5 peak equivilent hours per day. At least for Calvert Cliffs, the estimated cost for the new reactor is $2.50/Watt. Perhapshttp://www.tva.gov/news/releases/julysep07/ wbu2.htm you have been looking at delayed plant completion costs. On the other hand, solar and wind come in at about $1.30/Watt plus transmission for wind and inverters for solar. Nuclear also needs transmission plus fuel plus regulation costs (currently discounted). Wind is actually the cheapest right now even compared to hydro. Solar wins in terms of competing with delivered electricity despite installation costs. This is why the commercial sector is adopting it so rapidly. In terms of new construction in California: http://news.com.com/Solar+industry+targets+new+hom es/2100-11392_3-6187964.html.
s -selling-solar.html
Especially where air conditioning is used, utlilities get a big benefit from net metering. This is when thier whole sale costs are above their retail rates. So, their net metering customers are providing electricity at a discount and reducing costs for everyone. The cost of wind and solar is falling while the cost of everything else is rising, even hydro since its resource is coming in for more demand as water alone. The current situation on the Tennessee River is an example. It may still be a while before your utility catches on, but I expect you'll be seeing quite a lot of solar when it does.
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Improve you power: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
Commercial installations can likely meet $0.06/kWh. They can get $1.30/Watt for thin film panels. Retail is about $3/Watt for the lowest cost panels so you would need to figure on using them past the 25 year guaranty by about 15 years, assuming $1/Watt for the inverter and a yard mount installation. We'll see what your new fuel surcharge turns out to be. For residential installations we don't go below $0.07/kWh.
Availability and relability are different. It is the lack of reliability that is driving up costs. You may want to check out what solar and wind actually cost compared to new nuclear power. We are hurting for peak capacity so you are making things a little skewed when you insist on your multiplier I think. In terms of surface area needed, the roofs of homes can generate 46% of all power consumed: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/08/roof-pitch.htm l.s -selling-solar.html
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Better power: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
You'd save money with solar if you had proper net metering. You don't need batteries in that case. Check http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html to see how things work in Georgia and Luisiana.
You are not comprehending what is going on. The plant shutdown is requiring TVA to pay for electricity at the highest price. This eliminates any so called savings from nuclear power. On a reliability scale, nuclear power comes in low because it is not there when you need it most. This matches its detrimental economic and environmental impact. It is amazing how often people need anonyimity to put foward the arguement that coal is bad so nuclear is good. They must realize how sorry such an arguement is and be ashamed to make it.
I agree. I was reading the article saying that the intake was too warm. But, another article gives more detail http://www.decaturdaily.com/decaturdaily/news/0708 17/power.shtml saying that it is the down stream temperature that is considered important. So, if the intake temperature exceeds the maximum down stream temperature they are hosed.
Cooling towers are usually part of the design of a power plant, but they need to be run hot enough to to get a good energy flow rate and cool enough so that steam is properly condensed. Final cooling is usually handled by the river or tidal system. Apparently what is happening here is that the cooling towers can't do the last stage. More cooling towers might help but this increases costs so looking at other options for power generation becomes important.s -selling-solar.html
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A better way: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
Thanks. I do know the difference but often fail to catch the error.
The drought in the southeastern US has not yet been conclusively linked to global warming. The problems described in Europe have been linked. It takes time to get that stuff figured out and it was not until the most recent IPCC report (this year) that the heat wave deaths in Europe were strongly linked. The main problem is that TVA is overloading the capacity of the river system as it is by over reliance on nuclear power so that it is increasing costs for rate payers.
t ml. But, changing flow rates and temperatures for river systems will also have an impact. Climate models probably need to be improved before they can be used well to assist in siting decisions so the investment risk for new nulear power plants is probably higher than it will be in a decade or so when models are better able to look at watershed-by-watershed level effects of warming.s -selling-solar.html
Because nuclear power involves such long term decision making, and many of those decisions were made before warming was understood to be a problem, the consequences of warming for nuclear power are likely to be worse than for other means of generation. This is tied to siting decisions which place many nuclear power plants in tidal areas which will be affected by sea level rise http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/08/cliffhanger.h
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Reducing the cost of electricity: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
According to the article, this is different from environmental requirements on the down stream temperature. This is a lack of cooling capacity problem. The the energy transfer rate for the waste heat is just not high enough with the river temperature at 90 F.s -selling-solar.html
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Better electricity: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
The cooling problem is a result of TVA's interest in building more reactors. Browns Ferry is now operating with two reactors instead of three because they recently added a reactor. They are also planning on adding a reactor upstream at Watts Bar http://www.tva.gov/news/releases/julysep07/wbu2.ht m adding to the heat load on the Tennessee River. So, next time, they may have to take two Browns Ferry reactors off line at seasonal peak demand. This makes electricity more expensive because it requires buying rather than selling electricity when it is most expensive.
s -selling-solar.html
But, the fairly natural solution to the problem, reducing summer demand through net metering of customer generated solar power, a solution being implemented in 41 states and DC, is hampered in the TVA service territory by TVA's net metering policy: http://www.tva.gov/purpa/net_metering.htm which is a billing period-by-billing period policy rather than an annual carryover policy used in net metering states. Adopting a reasonable net metering policy would allow TVA to become a summer time peak demand power exporter and gain by arbitrage, reducing the risk of higher overall rates it is building for itself by not paying attention to the capacity of the river system to handle the 60% of wasted energy nuclear power generation creates.
--
Power when you want it most: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
The person who found the problem is doing just that. We'll see what he comes up with. So far as I know, there is no such thing as a data analysis collapse, just iterations past the point of diminishing returns as in this case.
In fact, the better check is what occured. Methods (algorithms) were described in sufficient detail to allow the work to be reproduced. The data were made available. There has been no secrecy. An independent coding effort meant that problems were revealed which, as it turned out, had to do with the data sets provided. There may be symultaneous errors in both coding efforts, but this is less likely than if code had been released. Science takes work and if you are not willing to put in the effort to take an average yourself, then you are just making noise. If you do put in the effort, and you find a problem, if it turns out to be an improvement on the original work you'll be politely acknowledged as happened here, even when the problem makes no difference to the conclusions. Independent confirmation of results is crucial. Code comparision is only useful when there are independent code sets to compare. Code is usually only provided in a first publication when it is thought that it will have further utility in broader applications. Methods of taking an average do not generally rise to that level. These attacks on the scientific method by the Inhofe crowd just demonstrate their cynical distortions of science.s -selling-solar.html
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Replace carbon with silicon: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
He also cites the Seventh Generation Principle: http://www.precaution.org/lib/prn_bemidji_original .060706.htm. It is interesting to me we should be looking both forward and back in time here. About seven generations ago we see a discussion of what our attitude should be towards our tenancy in this generation while the indigenous people also credit their ancestors for learning a harmonious way of living on Earth. Our obligations run in both directions. To the past, to glean wisdom and build on it, and to the future, to provide an ever better example of how to live in harmony with the ecosystem and each other.s -selling-solar.html
--
Switch to solar: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
What you are looking for is also in the letter.s -selling-solar.html
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Solar power with no installation cost: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
What makes the most difference to all this is cumulative pollution. We see the effects now of CO2 emitted in 1934 (an other prior years). There are forcings from particulate pollution that can be cooling, and there has been a change in the level of particulates put into the atmosphere, but these are shorter term effects since the stuff does not accumulate.s -selling-solar.html
--
Get off fossil fuels: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
I checked the link and you are correct. The spelling in the article is wrong. So, I guess the are saying they are the old fashion election systems now. Guess we know what progress will bring.s -selling-solar.html
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Solar power with no maintenance fee: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user