Actually, I feel that bioregionalism makes a great deal of sense but it must be paired with free emmigration to handle the
the issue of the ability of local ecosystems to support a certain population/infrastructure combination. Mostly people use
overpopulation in the context of global limits on agricultural productivity, you seem to wish to apply it locally which is
very strange. In the global sense it is obvious that there is a distribution problem, and a problem with agricultural monocultures,
but none with regard to population. Human Rights Law includes language about the rights of refugees, so your stance seems in
conflict with Human Rights on more than one level.
I object to the word overpopulation. It seems to me that it denies fundemental human rights just to say it with regard to people. With regard to population dynamics models such as predator-prey interactions one is looking at a lag balance in any case so applying the term
overpopulation seems a little laddened there as well. How about aplying this test: any time you want to use the term, imagine yourself first as Scrooge using the term "surplus population" to see if it has the same effect. If it does, then you are probably misusing the
term.
I can see the point that the plants adapted to the Cretaceous might have been slightly more efficient at photosysnthesis though I doubt
that one can easily implicate greater availability of CO2 since the increased growing season would have a greater effect. Plants adapted to the Holocene may do much worse in the face of a rapid increase in CO2 for while productivity may go up, the range of pests
can also increase with the increase in temperature subjecting large tracks of forests to die off. http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1046 /j.1461-9563.2002.00124.x/full/?cookieSet=1
The key here is the rapidity of the change which allows the fast moving species (the pests) to overcome the slow moving species (the trees).
With regard to agriculture, beyond growing season, the timing of the availability of water is crucial, and the loss of glaciers and snowpack reduce the availability of water during the gowing season, counteracting the increase in the season. The cost of attempting to retain water that in the past has been held by snowpack may be unrealistically high, leading to the shutting down of vast amounts of currently productive agricutural land. -- Switch to Solar: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html
Sorry, I was not clear. By plant, I meant a fabrication plant. If it porduced half a Gig a year of capacity then in the next year
it would do the same and so on. You're right that we need to define terms and peak watts is what is usually used. On the other hand,
since the solar cells are close to where the cars are, there may not be such a need for a lot more long haul transmission. With electric
cars being more efficient than gas powered cars we might not need so much, but I think you may have included that in your fisrt response.
The main thing is that it is cheaper than oil for transportation so long as there are adequate batteries. That's the big holdup.
Hum, you want to drive up the cost of nuclear energy, which is already expensive, while solar, which can now compete with retail
electric power, can only come down in price as it takes its scale advantage. Seems to me that nuclear power makes space unavailable
since it needs room to store waste, while solar fits in nicely with the way we use space already. I agree though that energy storage,
such as the batteries under discussion, needs to be a part of a renewable powered grid. -- Real Energy http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html
OK, so let's say that everyone is a cheap as me and keeps a car for 13 years. The same thing happens if people sell their cars
as used. Assuming you can build out the auto manufacturing immediately, that means you have to get about 19 GW/year while replacing
$30 billion gas costs per year. If a 500 MW/year solar production facility costs about $700 million, you can pretty much pay for
the 40 you would need with the replaced gas costs over the 13 year transition period. Since the solar cells last more than 20 years,
you get the other decade to cover the cost of raw materials and the whole thing looks like a better deal than what we're paying now,
plus the 40 solar plants can keep producing to replace coal and nuclear power before needing to recycle the worn out solar cells they first made.
There just seems to be something wrong with this argument. We already deliver that kind of power to fuel stations by tanker, yet when
we generate electricity, we like to centralize it in 500 MW chunks. Could it be that it is cheaper to deliver power by aluminum conduit than by tanker but we just don't do that because we don't have batteries for the cars? In any case, there is room below gas stations
for power storage already excavated so building in some fast charge capacity should not be too hard.
I'm not sure I see the problem. The issue was how do you do a quick charge, and for that a fast out supply like a capacitor
or a flywheel makes sense. Both of these can trickle in so that basically solves the problem. Are you worried that there
would be loss during storage? The design specs on the flywheel say it is to deliver 100 kW and hold 25 kWh, so that's a full discharge
in 15 min.
Even reprocessing is not leagal in the US, so getting to a breeder program is going to be tough. Without that, shifting transportation to nuclear is pretty pointless since the available fuel will be exhauted before the new reactors are used for long. It is also doubtful that a useful breeder program can be done at even the rather horrendous safty record of the non-breeder program http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_civilian_nucl ear_accidents. So, what you are suggesting is both hugely expensive and very likely to lead to mass casualties.
Wind and solar plants, on the other hand add to energy genertation capacity every year they operate, not just fuel supply as with a breeder. And, there are no fuel supply constraints with wind and solar, just timing issues which can be handled with energy storage.
The batteries in electric vehicles would be a small portion of the storage solution. These solutions are much cheaper and safer and because of this they'll very likely lead to early decommisioning of present day nuclear plants http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/why-renewables -displace-nukes-first.html.
-- Go solar! http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html
I voted against this one in the firehose because I thought it got the technology wrong. The company web site mentions phosphates
first, but later says they are doing lithium ion. I'm still not completely clear on what the technology is, just that they are
announcing some supply contracts. In any case lithium is not that hard to come by, so your resource war might have to wait. --
Solar: distributed energy: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html
Many bandwidth problems can be solved by sneakernet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sneakernet. This is what netflicks does.
For very high throughput, use snailmail. This also goes for meaningful (other than just "Hello, we're here.") intersteller
communications absent much more powerful signals than we use today.
In the case of a flu epidemic, sneakernet is not so attractive, but much communication will be one way, and will come over
broadcast media. A can of lysol kept handy by the mailbox might still handle the odd DVD or two worth of data that you just
can't do without. -- Solar, broadband power. http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html
As this discussion shows, Amazon would do much better to suck it up. They are the ones to lose when (even marginally legitimate)
customer complaints are not addressed. This one is quite legitimate. A deal's a deal. If you want to do well in business,
you have to maintain the customer relationship. Getting all squirrelly about one purchase means a loss of future business from that
customer. --
Solar without the up front cost. http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html
Well, the theory I was thinking of is more involved that single interactions. At that level a single interection is going to look
a lot like a thermal interaction and so like the sense of smell theory, the quantum nature is a happenstance rather than crucial.
Slashdot Mirror
Ok, I'll dignify this. RTFA. The same issue was raised there.s -selling-solar.html
--
Even anomymous cowards can save money with solar: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
Actually, I feel that bioregionalism makes a great deal of sense but it must be paired with free emmigration to handle the the issue of the ability of local ecosystems to support a certain population/infrastructure combination. Mostly people use overpopulation in the context of global limits on agricultural productivity, you seem to wish to apply it locally which is very strange. In the global sense it is obvious that there is a distribution problem, and a problem with agricultural monocultures, but none with regard to population. Human Rights Law includes language about the rights of refugees, so your stance seems in conflict with Human Rights on more than one level.
I object to the word overpopulation. It seems to me that it denies fundemental human rights just to say it with regard to people. With regard to population dynamics models such as predator-prey interactions one is looking at a lag balance in any case so applying the term overpopulation seems a little laddened there as well. How about aplying this test: any time you want to use the term, imagine yourself first as Scrooge using the term "surplus population" to see if it has the same effect. If it does, then you are probably misusing the term.
You might want to take a look at what is happening with regard to to the carryover supply of food (going down) and the impact of the large number of distilleries being built in time to eat into this year's harvest http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/2007/Update63. htm. The capacity that is kept in reserve may not be quite so large as you think.s -selling-solar.html
--
Solar power, the original renewable: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
I can see the point that the plants adapted to the Cretaceous might have been slightly more efficient at photosysnthesis though I doubt that one can easily implicate greater availability of CO2 since the increased growing season would have a greater effect. Plants adapted to the Holocene may do much worse in the face of a rapid increase in CO2 for while productivity may go up, the range of pests can also increase with the increase in temperature subjecting large tracks of forests to die off. http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1046 /j.1461-9563.2002.00124.x/full/?cookieSet=1
s -selling-solar.html
The key here is the rapidity of the change which allows the fast moving species (the pests) to overcome the slow moving species (the trees).
With regard to agriculture, beyond growing season, the timing of the availability of water is crucial, and the loss of glaciers and snowpack reduce the availability of water during the gowing season, counteracting the increase in the season. The cost of attempting to retain water that in the past has been held by snowpack may be unrealistically high, leading to the shutting down of vast amounts of currently productive agricutural land.
--
Switch to Solar: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
Sorry, I was not clear. By plant, I meant a fabrication plant. If it porduced half a Gig a year of capacity then in the next year it would do the same and so on. You're right that we need to define terms and peak watts is what is usually used. On the other hand, since the solar cells are close to where the cars are, there may not be such a need for a lot more long haul transmission. With electric cars being more efficient than gas powered cars we might not need so much, but I think you may have included that in your fisrt response. The main thing is that it is cheaper than oil for transportation so long as there are adequate batteries. That's the big holdup.
Hum, you want to drive up the cost of nuclear energy, which is already expensive, while solar, which can now compete with retail electric power, can only come down in price as it takes its scale advantage. Seems to me that nuclear power makes space unavailable since it needs room to store waste, while solar fits in nicely with the way we use space already. I agree though that energy storage, such as the batteries under discussion, needs to be a part of a renewable powered grid.s -selling-solar.html
--
Real Energy http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
OK, so let's say that everyone is a cheap as me and keeps a car for 13 years. The same thing happens if people sell their cars as used. Assuming you can build out the auto manufacturing immediately, that means you have to get about 19 GW/year while replacing $30 billion gas costs per year. If a 500 MW/year solar production facility costs about $700 million, you can pretty much pay for the 40 you would need with the replaced gas costs over the 13 year transition period. Since the solar cells last more than 20 years, you get the other decade to cover the cost of raw materials and the whole thing looks like a better deal than what we're paying now, plus the 40 solar plants can keep producing to replace coal and nuclear power before needing to recycle the worn out solar cells they first made.
s -selling-solar.html
Seem's to me the bottle neck would be at the auto factories, not with the power supply.
--
Switch to solar: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
Putting fuel prices up by a factor of twenty is a sure way to swap the roles of alternative and conventional energy supplies. Let's do it!
There just seems to be something wrong with this argument. We already deliver that kind of power to fuel stations by tanker, yet when we generate electricity, we like to centralize it in 500 MW chunks. Could it be that it is cheaper to deliver power by aluminum conduit than by tanker but we just don't do that because we don't have batteries for the cars? In any case, there is room below gas stations for power storage already excavated so building in some fast charge capacity should not be too hard.
I'm not sure I see the problem. The issue was how do you do a quick charge, and for that a fast out supply like a capacitor or a flywheel makes sense. Both of these can trickle in so that basically solves the problem. Are you worried that there would be loss during storage? The design specs on the flywheel say it is to deliver 100 kW and hold 25 kWh, so that's a full discharge in 15 min.
Even reprocessing is not leagal in the US, so getting to a breeder program is going to be tough. Without that, shifting transportation to nuclear is pretty pointless since the available fuel will be exhauted before the new reactors are used for long. It is also doubtful that a useful breeder program can be done at even the rather horrendous safty record of the non-breeder program http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_civilian_nucl ear_accidents. So, what you are suggesting is both hugely expensive and very likely to lead to mass casualties.
s -displace-nukes-first.html.
s -selling-solar.html
Wind and solar plants, on the other hand add to energy genertation capacity every year they operate, not just fuel supply as with a breeder. And, there are no fuel supply constraints with wind and solar, just timing issues which can be handled with energy storage. The batteries in electric vehicles would be a small portion of the storage solution. These solutions are much cheaper and safer and because of this they'll very likely lead to early decommisioning of present day nuclear plants http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/why-renewable
--
Go solar! http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
I voted against this one in the firehose because I thought it got the technology wrong. The company web site mentions phosphates first, but later says they are doing lithium ion. I'm still not completely clear on what the technology is, just that they are announcing some supply contracts. In any case lithium is not that hard to come by, so your resource war might have to wait.s -selling-solar.html
--
Solar: distributed energy: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
If the issue is quick charging during the day with electriciy generated at night, why not use a flywheel at the charging station? This system http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/11/beacon_pow er_re.html#more (thanks Ron Backman) is well along in development. A bank of these
should provide both the amperage and the capacity to run a commercial charging station with load shifting. s -selling-solar.html
--
Make you car run on the Sun. http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
Here's another three wheeler one of my customers told me about http://www.zapworld.com/ZAPWorld.aspx?id=188. They are doing this with lead acid.s -selling-solar.html
--
Run you car from your roof. http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
You might be right. I know that old suns can last a very very long time, but boy they cost when they were new.
MOST of my many spelling errors are accidental but not this one. The proper response to Ohmmm is Groannn...
Maybe, if they are sending out data. The standby power use of TVs and such is greater.
a s_sun.pdf.
This site has more (mainly corporate) musings on energy efficiency: http://www.ase.org/content/article/detail/3531.
s -selling-solar.html
Sun's David Douglas, VP Eco Responsibility, estimates that the cost of running computers (power use) will exceed the cost of buying computers in about 5 years: http://www.ase.org/uploaded_files/geed_2007/dougl
--
Get abundant, get solar. http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
That should have been 2^15 and 2^16.
B Flat is about 466 Hz so that is 4.66e4 higher, 2e15=3.3e4 and 2e16=6.6e4 so it is probably a bit off pitch for B Flat.
But the hum is a frequency doubling, the original waves would pass a fixed point at 18 per hour.
--
Wave mechanics surf.
The sound of the Earth meditating upon its naval should be a comfort to all of us.
--
Spelling, its only fun it you can mess with it.
Many bandwidth problems can be solved by sneakernet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sneakernet. This is what netflicks does. For very high throughput, use snailmail. This also goes for meaningful (other than just "Hello, we're here.") intersteller communications absent much more powerful signals than we use today.
s -selling-solar.html
In the case of a flu epidemic, sneakernet is not so attractive, but much communication will be one way, and will come over broadcast media. A can of lysol kept handy by the mailbox might still handle the odd DVD or two worth of data that you just can't do without.
--
Solar, broadband power. http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
As this discussion shows, Amazon would do much better to suck it up. They are the ones to lose when (even marginally legitimate) customer complaints are not addressed. This one is quite legitimate. A deal's a deal. If you want to do well in business, you have to maintain the customer relationship. Getting all squirrelly about one purchase means a loss of future business from that customer.s -selling-solar.html
--
Solar without the up front cost. http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
Well, the theory I was thinking of is more involved that single interactions. At that level a single interection is going to look a lot like a thermal interaction and so like the sense of smell theory, the quantum nature is a happenstance rather than crucial.
s -selling-solar.html
Penrose suggests coherence states that manage to handle much more processing than would be otherwise possible. You can look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orch-OR to see what you think.
--
Solar, take a quantum leap http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user