You mentioned that solar only works half the time, but you seemed to dismiss it as irrelevant.
Total capacity is a very misleading metric to measure power stations by, and is meaningless without information about it's utilization.
Obviously solar panels only generate when the sun is shining, just like wind plants only generate when the wind is blowing. A very good wind farm will get 40% utilization. A very good solar farm will get maybe 25% utilization.
And that's not the whole story either. It's also interesting to look at the demand weighted generation. This is a way of accounting for generation being more useful when demand is higher. In general, solar panels have a higher DWG in hot climates (air-con when sun is shining), and a lower DWG in cold climates (heating when sun isn't).
Current installed prices are about $5/Wp, and I'd be suprised to see %1/Wp before 2015.
I would expect that London grinding to a halt for a few days would be a massive hit to the economy. Even for a one-in-20-year event, the cost of preparing for such an event must be insignificant.
Governements generally err on the side of caution with these sorts of things anyway. Presumably this is because they look like idiots when elections roll around and they weren't prepared for/power cut/weather event/earthquake/.
If it was profitable to do this, someone would already doing it. Hell, if it's such a simple idea you could start up a business yourself and melt salt when the electricity price is negative. Unfortunately, having a salt melting plant sitting idle for 99% of the time doesn't make up for the 1% of the time you can store energy.
On the other hand, with increasing amounts of uncontrollable energy sources and falling energy storage costs, it will be profitable at some stage. We're just not there yet.
Performance enhancing and "bad for you" aren't antonyms. But I guess I should have clarified the last point a bit more. By "bad for you" I mean "has a proven long term negative effect on health".
That's why caffeine is permitted. It's performance enchaning, but it's not illegal nor "bad for you".
It's also why steroids aren't permitted even though they're not illegal. They're performance enchancing and have long term negative side effects.
And here we get to the real heart of the matter. The best way to make sure that you never run out of bullies is to reward that behavior by giving them what they want. For that reason, I never speed up for a tailgaiter. Ever. I tap my brakes a couple of times, give them a minute or two, and if they continue, I keep slowing down until I feel like my speed matches their following distance since they refuse to match their following distance to my speed.
Pretty much. I hit 50k in a 100k zone yesterday while towing with some retard tailgating me.
It's nice when they do get it and back off to a reasonable distance though.
I can remember my mother giving me some good advice (I don't start many sentences like that). She said if I ever got into trouble, I should look for the nearest woman with children and go ask her for help.
Did you just realise you could swear on the internet or something?
You're talking about people deciding not to come to the US based upon the beuracracy that must be endured to do so. I'm telling you that I've decided to not go through the US due to its immigration requirements. It seems very relevant to me.
Slashdot Mirror
You mentioned that solar only works half the time, but you seemed to dismiss it as irrelevant.
Total capacity is a very misleading metric to measure power stations by, and is meaningless without information about it's utilization.
Obviously solar panels only generate when the sun is shining, just like wind plants only generate when the wind is blowing. A very good wind farm will get 40% utilization. A very good solar farm will get maybe 25% utilization.
And that's not the whole story either. It's also interesting to look at the demand weighted generation. This is a way of accounting for generation being more useful when demand is higher. In general, solar panels have a higher DWG in hot climates (air-con when sun is shining), and a lower DWG in cold climates (heating when sun isn't).
Current installed prices are about $5/Wp, and I'd be suprised to see %1/Wp before 2015.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HVDC#Advantages_of_HVDC_over_AC_transmission
Advantages and disadvantages of DC vs AC current.
That's because DC doesn't travel very well along long wires.
For transporting large amounts of electricity point to point over large distances ("along long wires") DC is the better option.
No, they congregate in flocks.
"Sheep going unherd" makes total sense.
You must be so annoyed that Paul Allen doesn't have an 's' in his name.
So, if I remember my stats correctly, that means there's a 95% chance the real result is between 94% and 104%?
That's a really unfortunate signature under the current circumstances.
Therefore it must be intelligently designed?
Assuming we lose 2 days or economic output every 20 years, is it justifiable to spend millions for equipment you will use once every 20 years?
I don't know. So I did some googling.
http://www.dispatch.co.za/article.aspx?id=291445 - Cost to economy may exceed 1 billion pounds. I'm sure you can do the math from here.
At the very least it makes sense to think about it.
It's not good netiquitte to post in caps.
Are you sure about that?
I would expect that London grinding to a halt for a few days would be a massive hit to the economy. Even for a one-in-20-year event, the cost of preparing for such an event must be insignificant.
Governements generally err on the side of caution with these sorts of things anyway. Presumably this is because they look like idiots when elections roll around and they weren't prepared for /power cut/weather event/earthquake/.
there no certainly no consensus among scientists that carbon emissions from human industry is the cause of global warming
This is what the summary says and is what the OP was referencing.
However, I'm sure you will find that no scientist believes we shouldn't reduce our carbon emissions.
This isn't.
Shouldn't you be modding +1 agree?
Isn't this similar to the wheel issue though?
Nature never developed a working wheel (on a macro scale at least), but that doesn't mean our cars have 4 legs and move with a rolling gait.
Likewise, wind + tide are best harnessed with rotors whereas solar panels aren't.
If it was profitable to do this, someone would already doing it. Hell, if it's such a simple idea you could start up a business yourself and melt salt when the electricity price is negative. Unfortunately, having a salt melting plant sitting idle for 99% of the time doesn't make up for the 1% of the time you can store energy.
On the other hand, with increasing amounts of uncontrollable energy sources and falling energy storage costs, it will be profitable at some stage. We're just not there yet.
Modded +1 insane evil genius
Performance enhancing and "bad for you" aren't antonyms. But I guess I should have clarified the last point a bit more. By "bad for you" I mean "has a proven long term negative effect on health".
That's why caffeine is permitted. It's performance enchaning, but it's not illegal nor "bad for you".
It's also why steroids aren't permitted even though they're not illegal. They're performance enchancing and have long term negative side effects.
To be a banned substance, something must satisfy two out of: Performance Enhancing; Illegal; Bad for you.
Doesn't work for everything but apparently that's one of the guidelines used.
And here we get to the real heart of the matter. The best way to make sure that you never run out of bullies is to reward that behavior by giving them what they want. For that reason, I never speed up for a tailgaiter. Ever. I tap my brakes a couple of times, give them a minute or two, and if they continue, I keep slowing down until I feel like my speed matches their following distance since they refuse to match their following distance to my speed.
Pretty much. I hit 50k in a 100k zone yesterday while towing with some retard tailgating me.
It's nice when they do get it and back off to a reasonable distance though.
Go to jail to do what? The suspense is killing me
Unfortunately he was coding in VB though.
Besides, it's a lot harder to really dislike people you regularly have face to face contact with,
I was with you til this. The people I dislike most I have regular face to face contact with.
for all I know the Dutch produce 99% of the world's music, though I doubt it.
Actually, this is true. Unfortunately it's all by DJ Tieto and a variation on "doof doof doof"
IWF reported. Let's see if we can use the slashdot effect for something useful.
WoW? Or more broadly, any social computer game that requires a keyboard to interface with.
I can remember my mother giving me some good advice (I don't start many sentences like that). She said if I ever got into trouble, I should look for the nearest woman with children and go ask her for help.
Did you just realise you could swear on the internet or something?
You're talking about people deciding not to come to the US based upon the beuracracy that must be endured to do so. I'm telling you that I've decided to not go through the US due to its immigration requirements. It seems very relevant to me.