Obviously some part of the nation can easily be covered by cloud cover for a few days. But this is only a serious problem if you put all of your generating capacity into a few small areas that are likely to be affected by this type of weather. We already have a national power grid, it'd be dumb as hell not to use it. So install many generating stations and storage facilities throughout the country, then when a region can't generate their own power for some period of time they pull from the national grid. So long as we've got a grid and take the average cloud cover for the country into consideration when building out capacity there is no reason for it to be a show stopper.
I've only been speaking in terms of current electricity usage. But so what if we decided to go all electric and replace all energy usage with electric. You say we'd need eight times more, why not just go with ten and say that we need 2,100 miles of storage tanker farms. That's still not a big deal considering with deeper/taller tanks you could shrink the foot print, that'd be enough energy for the entire USA for one week with not generating at all and replacing all over energy usage.
Even when the panels are less efficient you can leave them up and producing. Just add the newer panels and increase the size of the installation. The only reason I can think of off hand to replace a panel is if it is actually not functioning, or you don't have room to expand the installation.
Energy storage isn't an intractable problem, even with today's technology. The following is largely quoted from a reply I made some months back to similar concerns.
A week sounds like a crazy long time to try and store energy reserves for. The only situation I can think of where that would be a likely occurrence with solar would be the far north where you might get snow coverage and for whatever reason don't clear off the panels/mirrors. That said though you'd just need to plan for a larger insulated storage container for the molten salt. The larger the storage container the more economical because the ratio of volume to surface area where you can lose heat favors you.
The wiki page above mentions tanks 30 feet tall and 80 feet in diameter being able to provide 100megawatts for 4 hours. If you use the average electricity consumption of the US as a baseline a city of 7m people would need 11.8 gigawatts of continuous power. So you'd need 118 of those tanks, or fewer tanks with a combined volume in the same ballpark, for every 4 hours of total darkness. My rough as hell calculations say something like 17.5 acres of storage tanks for every 4 hour block, if you go with 24 hours of storage it'll take up 420 acres, or about 2/3 of a square mile. All of that is presuming 30x80 foot tanks, you could save a lot of space by going with larger tanks and at least partially burying them. If you scaled these numbers up you could store 24 hours worth of electricity in molten salt tanks occupying just 30 square miles, for the entire USA.
I would also add that I've never seen a weather event that blanketed the entire lower 48 for even a couple hours, let alone a week solid. Solar also produces energy even during cloud coverage, just not at 100%. So your proposed week of no power production would require an unprecedented weather event of ridiculous proportions and duration, or one of shorter duration but with a populace that does nothing to mitigate it's affect on power generation. But even if we decided to plan for such an improbable event it is a readily attainable project to accomplish, we'd roughly need 210 square miles of tanker farms spread around the country.
I was asked yesterday if I wanted to telework today. My answer was a resounding "No!" I'd rather take the time to come in to the office than contaminate my home with work BS. And I sure as hell am not going to even so much as think about work while I am not on the clock. I'm not checking email, voice mail, messaging apps, or even answering the phone if the number recognizably comes from my office.
When I wake up in the morning to an alarm I start getting ready for work and my main thought pattern revolves around how great it'll be to retire eventually and burn that alarm clock in a fire.
It is possible that these powers were already within the presidents authority and he is authorizing exercise of those powers to the various agencies under his control. Which I have to say is still odd in that I would expect any such powers to already be delegated to one agency or another and not necessitate passing out like this.
My father installed solar panels on the roof of his barn and even in winters with lots of snow he's put more energy into the grid than he's taken back. And that is with no effort at all to clear the snow off the panels. Melting the snow off the panels is probably one of the least efficient ways to clear them. I would instead opt for using a leaf blower and mounting the panels such that they can be reached with the leaf blower from a walkway or something.
I used to live on a hill in the woods and the number of idiots driving around in 4 wheel drive all the time that got stuck was comical. They seemed to believe that 4 wheel drive was some kind of magical insurance against getting stuck.
Battery powered vehicles are going to lose some range in cold weather but with a sufficiently large battery, like Teslas have, it shouldn't matter for day to day driving for most people.
"Now as for failed predictions I am willing to wager a small amount of money that you don't know what the actual predictions made my mainstream climate scientists are. The media doesn't do a really good job of explaining these (either on the pro or anti side), partly because as you know this stuff is more complicated than one can fit into a 5 minute news segment or a soundbite."
On top of that the media isn't going to be interested in spending those valuable five minutes talking about moderate predictions. They go straight for the extremist predictions because that will hook more viewers. Just like so called reality TV programs don't cast normal people, they go for all the crazies they can get because it's more entertaining. I have a relative that has worked as a nuclear plant inspector for decades, and feels that nuclear energy can be done safely. Yet he doesn't believe in AGW simply because he heard doom and gloom predictions 30 years ago that never came true.
I'm pretty sure it's more about mental focus and self discipline. Our minds don't actually let us multitask, at best we switch tasks very rapidly. But I suppose that's being pedantic.
My wife usually has dozens of tabs open when I look at her computer. She opens articles and such that she wants to read later in a new tab and moves on. I do the same thing when perusing my news feed. The difference is that I usually go and read those articles within a couple hours and close them out. She will stay occupied with other things and end up with tabs that she opened weeks ago still hanging there. When I have an article that I just don't have time for I'll bookmark it and close the tab. Youtube actually has a feature that I love and use the hell out of, and that is the 'watch later' button.
Neither of us focuses particularly well. I just exercise some self discipline for up to 30 seconds per evening and don't end up with a computer bogged down by dozens of extra browser processes.
Given the limited screen real estate I just don't see how it's effective to have dozens of tabs open. I usually don't have a dozen between two browser windows. There is plenty of stuff I want to keep handy for reference purposes and such, which I create bookmarks/favorites for. I would think it's far faster to navigate a quick drop down menu tree than figure out which tab out of dozens is the one you want when there are dozens open and you can't even read the text on the tab.
I'll have to see if I can find the box for ours tonight and find a web link for it. It has multiple illumination options including a light from above, although that possibly isn't what you mean by reflected. We've been able to look at lots of stuff that wasn't transparent. The only difficulty that I've noticed is finding a good focus point when the viewed object isn't flattened under a slide. My Father bought a number of them for various grand children after seeing them at a kids science museum and being impressed.
I spent two years in the San Jose area and the weather there is just flat out better year round than any place in Florida that I have ever visited at any time of the year. In San Jose there was some rain and hail during the winter, I only remember one thunderstorm, while most of the rest of the year had little to no precipitation. Florida has high humidity year round and sweltering temperatures as the norm for half the year with Hurricanes tossed in just for fun.
Yeah, a wood frame wall with a little drywall and plywood isn't much of a barrier to a determined thief. And a simple cinder block wall isn't much more effective. You could however build your walls out of cinder blocks vertically tied to the foundation and roof with rebar, and fill the hollow spaces with concrete every few courses. Or you could just do ICF. The weak points will likely end up being any windows and the roof.
I hadn't seen those USB scopes before, and they do look pretty awesome for the price. That said my Father bought my kids a microscope that I'm pretty sure cost under $150. While that microscope isn't professional grade or anything I can't see any reason to fault it, and I'm not sure why you might think it wouldn't look good to casual observers. What kind of qualities are you measuring to make that assertion?
The apparent lack of familial issues was merely an illusion. As soon as divorce became a realistic option the numbers of broken homes exploded as victimized women fled abusive relationships.
Much of the troubles among minority communities, especially African Americans, came with the war on drugs. That single policy has systematically destroyed entire generations, and not by accident.
The internet and modern 24 hour cycle media can be thanked for the impression that we're more stressed and divided than ever. Crime has actually been in a steady decline practically since our country started tracking those statistics. When something horrific does occur you can be sure that it'll be published and covered to some extent by dozens of news sources. Major political divisions have been with us since the founding of the country, the only real difference today is the speed and omnipresence of the media coverage today.
Wealth inequality has definitely been getting worse, which is why the middle class is disappearing. Obesity has risen as access to food has increased and sedentary lifestyles made more of the norm. Despite both of those things though the average person today likely has access to better healthcare, at least on the medication side of things, and a longer life expectancy.
It should also be noted that the cost of childcare vs potential earnings of the second parent isn't a new issue. I remember my friends families discussing and debating it at times in the 90's when we were in the midst of the economic boom.
On its own this isn't bypassing rational thought and decision making. However when you look a little deeper you'll see that those good feelings are attributed to a mystical source, instead of conditioned chemical reactions in the brain prompted by specific stimuli. Spiritual leaders then play on that miss attribution to manipulate the congregation. Now those spiritual leaders very likely believe what their saying because it affects them as well, but that doesn't really change reality. And of course other people throughout history have manipulated this quirk of our physiology, not just religious leaders.
I have to disagree about the consequences of middle of the road opinions. Maybe middle of the road opinions don't lead to massive sea changes over night, but I've seen large changes over the course of even my short life. Gay rights for instance have come a helluva long way in the last few decades as demographics have shifted effectively moving the middle of the road.
PS. Do you know anyone other than PETA members, that take PETA seriously? How long will the BLM movement be relevant if they stay on the PETA path?
In the past running a VPN from within the NIPR to the open internet was definitely possible. I know because I saw people get busted for it when I was in the military. In every case I knew of it was done to get around the web filters to peruse gaming forums, play games, or get to some other entertainment site. SCIF's commonly have NIPR terminals for every desk as well as terminals for air gaped networks spread around. So I can easily see how someone of a sufficiently high rank in an organization might get away with having an extra terminal setup with a VPN connection to the open internet. Sure regular peons and mid level management might get fired or prosecuted over such things, but top level management is frequently able to get away with anything but murder.
It's still fair to say that the military, particularly the enlisted side of things, is recruited. Yes, ultimately the members of the service are volunteers but all branches of the military have recruiters who spend much of their time actively trying to find people to talk into volunteering. The military also offers benefits aimed squarely at financially insecure groups of society.
I only served in one branch of the armed services and so can't speak to the depths of indoctrination among them. However I can say from my experience that the branch I was in was pretty demonstrative of the US as a whole demographically although skewed a bit towards the conservative side of things, but that's not really surprising. You don't see or hear military members protesting and striking because the UCMJ would be used to toss them in prison immediately if they did it in uniform or cited their status as military. That doesn't mean they aren't participating though, they just can't advertise their status as that could constitute representing the military.
While the military at any one time might represent a very small percentage of the population, 13% or so of adult US citizens are veterans. If there ever arose a popular civil war in the US again we would likely end up with two armies largely made up of, and led by people with actual experience. So while hypothesizing about future civil wars or insurgencies citing past one side military vs unarmed civilian massacres isn't very useful.
I'm honestly a little puzzled by your post. You talk about fascists in the EU, which I'm not well informed enough to debate. Then you say that Trump isn't fascist. Immediately followed by stating that it's impossible for a fascist to get into power here in the USA, by citing examples where racist behavior shut down careers. It would seem that you are equating or confusing racism and fascism, while those are actually very different things. Although as Hitler showed they can of course be combined.
If I recall properly the aliens in District 9 were from a slave caste. The ruling caste of aliens which were presumably smarter, had all died through some catastrophe. The surviving aliens were locked out through genetics and couldn't make use of the technology to escape or exert power over the humans. The plot revolved around a human character that stumbled upon and was accidentally exposed to a fix. The fix starts changing him into an alien of the ruling caste which elicits fear and greed among various parties leading to the action scenes.
I believe District 9 was meant as a commentary on Apartheid. The aliens are treated as sub humans that have to be contained, controlled, and exploited. The main character starts out as a member of the empowered group, and transitions into being part of the oppressed group. In the end even though the main character is an alien to all outward appearances he retains his humanity as demonstrated by leaving gifts for his estranged human wife.
Sometime in the 2000's an email made the rounds with a large power point slide show of pictures depicting a foam fire suppressant system test that went better than expected. I want to say that the attachment was 35 megs but that seems a bit over the top. Anyways the unit from whence the photos originated was the subject of a lot of mockery among airmen everywhere though there wasn't any re-alls going on with it that I saw. Within a day or two though an engineer from that group sent out an email seemingly across the entire Air Force insisting the test went perfectly as planned and that everyone should stop laughing about it and wasting Air Force resources forwarding the email.
They might not grow moss much at all though given that the surface texture probably provides less surface area for stuff to grow on. If stuff does grow on them it might not get as much purchase and be easier to wash off, and so not require a pressure washer.
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Obviously some part of the nation can easily be covered by cloud cover for a few days. But this is only a serious problem if you put all of your generating capacity into a few small areas that are likely to be affected by this type of weather. We already have a national power grid, it'd be dumb as hell not to use it. So install many generating stations and storage facilities throughout the country, then when a region can't generate their own power for some period of time they pull from the national grid. So long as we've got a grid and take the average cloud cover for the country into consideration when building out capacity there is no reason for it to be a show stopper.
I've only been speaking in terms of current electricity usage. But so what if we decided to go all electric and replace all energy usage with electric. You say we'd need eight times more, why not just go with ten and say that we need 2,100 miles of storage tanker farms. That's still not a big deal considering with deeper/taller tanks you could shrink the foot print, that'd be enough energy for the entire USA for one week with not generating at all and replacing all over energy usage.
Even when the panels are less efficient you can leave them up and producing. Just add the newer panels and increase the size of the installation. The only reason I can think of off hand to replace a panel is if it is actually not functioning, or you don't have room to expand the installation.
Energy storage isn't an intractable problem, even with today's technology. The following is largely quoted from a reply I made some months back to similar concerns.
A week sounds like a crazy long time to try and store energy reserves for. The only situation I can think of where that would be a likely occurrence with solar would be the far north where you might get snow coverage and for whatever reason don't clear off the panels/mirrors. That said though you'd just need to plan for a larger insulated storage container for the molten salt. The larger the storage container the more economical because the ratio of volume to surface area where you can lose heat favors you.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The wiki page above mentions tanks 30 feet tall and 80 feet in diameter being able to provide 100megawatts for 4 hours. If you use the average electricity consumption of the US as a baseline a city of 7m people would need 11.8 gigawatts of continuous power. So you'd need 118 of those tanks, or fewer tanks with a combined volume in the same ballpark, for every 4 hours of total darkness. My rough as hell calculations say something like 17.5 acres of storage tanks for every 4 hour block, if you go with 24 hours of storage it'll take up 420 acres, or about 2/3 of a square mile. All of that is presuming 30x80 foot tanks, you could save a lot of space by going with larger tanks and at least partially burying them. If you scaled these numbers up you could store 24 hours worth of electricity in molten salt tanks occupying just 30 square miles, for the entire USA.
I would also add that I've never seen a weather event that blanketed the entire lower 48 for even a couple hours, let alone a week solid. Solar also produces energy even during cloud coverage, just not at 100%. So your proposed week of no power production would require an unprecedented weather event of ridiculous proportions and duration, or one of shorter duration but with a populace that does nothing to mitigate it's affect on power generation. But even if we decided to plan for such an improbable event it is a readily attainable project to accomplish, we'd roughly need 210 square miles of tanker farms spread around the country.
F'ing A!!!!!
I was asked yesterday if I wanted to telework today. My answer was a resounding "No!" I'd rather take the time to come in to the office than contaminate my home with work BS. And I sure as hell am not going to even so much as think about work while I am not on the clock. I'm not checking email, voice mail, messaging apps, or even answering the phone if the number recognizably comes from my office.
When I wake up in the morning to an alarm I start getting ready for work and my main thought pattern revolves around how great it'll be to retire eventually and burn that alarm clock in a fire.
It is possible that these powers were already within the presidents authority and he is authorizing exercise of those powers to the various agencies under his control. Which I have to say is still odd in that I would expect any such powers to already be delegated to one agency or another and not necessitate passing out like this.
My father installed solar panels on the roof of his barn and even in winters with lots of snow he's put more energy into the grid than he's taken back. And that is with no effort at all to clear the snow off the panels. Melting the snow off the panels is probably one of the least efficient ways to clear them. I would instead opt for using a leaf blower and mounting the panels such that they can be reached with the leaf blower from a walkway or something.
I used to live on a hill in the woods and the number of idiots driving around in 4 wheel drive all the time that got stuck was comical. They seemed to believe that 4 wheel drive was some kind of magical insurance against getting stuck.
Battery powered vehicles are going to lose some range in cold weather but with a sufficiently large battery, like Teslas have, it shouldn't matter for day to day driving for most people.
"Now as for failed predictions I am willing to wager a small amount of money that you don't know what the actual predictions made my mainstream climate scientists are. The media doesn't do a really good job of explaining these (either on the pro or anti side), partly because as you know this stuff is more complicated than one can fit into a 5 minute news segment or a soundbite."
On top of that the media isn't going to be interested in spending those valuable five minutes talking about moderate predictions. They go straight for the extremist predictions because that will hook more viewers. Just like so called reality TV programs don't cast normal people, they go for all the crazies they can get because it's more entertaining. I have a relative that has worked as a nuclear plant inspector for decades, and feels that nuclear energy can be done safely. Yet he doesn't believe in AGW simply because he heard doom and gloom predictions 30 years ago that never came true.
I'm pretty sure it's more about mental focus and self discipline. Our minds don't actually let us multitask, at best we switch tasks very rapidly. But I suppose that's being pedantic.
My wife usually has dozens of tabs open when I look at her computer. She opens articles and such that she wants to read later in a new tab and moves on. I do the same thing when perusing my news feed. The difference is that I usually go and read those articles within a couple hours and close them out. She will stay occupied with other things and end up with tabs that she opened weeks ago still hanging there. When I have an article that I just don't have time for I'll bookmark it and close the tab. Youtube actually has a feature that I love and use the hell out of, and that is the 'watch later' button.
Neither of us focuses particularly well. I just exercise some self discipline for up to 30 seconds per evening and don't end up with a computer bogged down by dozens of extra browser processes.
Given the limited screen real estate I just don't see how it's effective to have dozens of tabs open. I usually don't have a dozen between two browser windows. There is plenty of stuff I want to keep handy for reference purposes and such, which I create bookmarks/favorites for. I would think it's far faster to navigate a quick drop down menu tree than figure out which tab out of dozens is the one you want when there are dozens open and you can't even read the text on the tab.
I'll have to see if I can find the box for ours tonight and find a web link for it. It has multiple illumination options including a light from above, although that possibly isn't what you mean by reflected. We've been able to look at lots of stuff that wasn't transparent. The only difficulty that I've noticed is finding a good focus point when the viewed object isn't flattened under a slide. My Father bought a number of them for various grand children after seeing them at a kids science museum and being impressed.
I spent two years in the San Jose area and the weather there is just flat out better year round than any place in Florida that I have ever visited at any time of the year. In San Jose there was some rain and hail during the winter, I only remember one thunderstorm, while most of the rest of the year had little to no precipitation. Florida has high humidity year round and sweltering temperatures as the norm for half the year with Hurricanes tossed in just for fun.
Are you sure about the 60 fps bit? I would have thought it would be more like 40 or whatever old televisions ran at.
Yeah, a wood frame wall with a little drywall and plywood isn't much of a barrier to a determined thief. And a simple cinder block wall isn't much more effective. You could however build your walls out of cinder blocks vertically tied to the foundation and roof with rebar, and fill the hollow spaces with concrete every few courses. Or you could just do ICF. The weak points will likely end up being any windows and the roof.
I hadn't seen those USB scopes before, and they do look pretty awesome for the price. That said my Father bought my kids a microscope that I'm pretty sure cost under $150. While that microscope isn't professional grade or anything I can't see any reason to fault it, and I'm not sure why you might think it wouldn't look good to casual observers. What kind of qualities are you measuring to make that assertion?
The apparent lack of familial issues was merely an illusion. As soon as divorce became a realistic option the numbers of broken homes exploded as victimized women fled abusive relationships.
Much of the troubles among minority communities, especially African Americans, came with the war on drugs. That single policy has systematically destroyed entire generations, and not by accident.
The internet and modern 24 hour cycle media can be thanked for the impression that we're more stressed and divided than ever. Crime has actually been in a steady decline practically since our country started tracking those statistics. When something horrific does occur you can be sure that it'll be published and covered to some extent by dozens of news sources. Major political divisions have been with us since the founding of the country, the only real difference today is the speed and omnipresence of the media coverage today.
Wealth inequality has definitely been getting worse, which is why the middle class is disappearing. Obesity has risen as access to food has increased and sedentary lifestyles made more of the norm. Despite both of those things though the average person today likely has access to better healthcare, at least on the medication side of things, and a longer life expectancy.
It should also be noted that the cost of childcare vs potential earnings of the second parent isn't a new issue. I remember my friends families discussing and debating it at times in the 90's when we were in the midst of the economic boom.
I just can't understand why people insist on ruining perfectly good sugar by putting coffee in it.
On its own this isn't bypassing rational thought and decision making. However when you look a little deeper you'll see that those good feelings are attributed to a mystical source, instead of conditioned chemical reactions in the brain prompted by specific stimuli. Spiritual leaders then play on that miss attribution to manipulate the congregation. Now those spiritual leaders very likely believe what their saying because it affects them as well, but that doesn't really change reality. And of course other people throughout history have manipulated this quirk of our physiology, not just religious leaders.
I have to disagree about the consequences of middle of the road opinions. Maybe middle of the road opinions don't lead to massive sea changes over night, but I've seen large changes over the course of even my short life. Gay rights for instance have come a helluva long way in the last few decades as demographics have shifted effectively moving the middle of the road.
PS. Do you know anyone other than PETA members, that take PETA seriously? How long will the BLM movement be relevant if they stay on the PETA path?
In the past running a VPN from within the NIPR to the open internet was definitely possible. I know because I saw people get busted for it when I was in the military. In every case I knew of it was done to get around the web filters to peruse gaming forums, play games, or get to some other entertainment site. SCIF's commonly have NIPR terminals for every desk as well as terminals for air gaped networks spread around. So I can easily see how someone of a sufficiently high rank in an organization might get away with having an extra terminal setup with a VPN connection to the open internet. Sure regular peons and mid level management might get fired or prosecuted over such things, but top level management is frequently able to get away with anything but murder.
It's still fair to say that the military, particularly the enlisted side of things, is recruited. Yes, ultimately the members of the service are volunteers but all branches of the military have recruiters who spend much of their time actively trying to find people to talk into volunteering. The military also offers benefits aimed squarely at financially insecure groups of society.
I only served in one branch of the armed services and so can't speak to the depths of indoctrination among them. However I can say from my experience that the branch I was in was pretty demonstrative of the US as a whole demographically although skewed a bit towards the conservative side of things, but that's not really surprising. You don't see or hear military members protesting and striking because the UCMJ would be used to toss them in prison immediately if they did it in uniform or cited their status as military. That doesn't mean they aren't participating though, they just can't advertise their status as that could constitute representing the military.
While the military at any one time might represent a very small percentage of the population, 13% or so of adult US citizens are veterans. If there ever arose a popular civil war in the US again we would likely end up with two armies largely made up of, and led by people with actual experience. So while hypothesizing about future civil wars or insurgencies citing past one side military vs unarmed civilian massacres isn't very useful.
I'm honestly a little puzzled by your post. You talk about fascists in the EU, which I'm not well informed enough to debate. Then you say that Trump isn't fascist. Immediately followed by stating that it's impossible for a fascist to get into power here in the USA, by citing examples where racist behavior shut down careers. It would seem that you are equating or confusing racism and fascism, while those are actually very different things. Although as Hitler showed they can of course be combined.
If I recall properly the aliens in District 9 were from a slave caste. The ruling caste of aliens which were presumably smarter, had all died through some catastrophe. The surviving aliens were locked out through genetics and couldn't make use of the technology to escape or exert power over the humans. The plot revolved around a human character that stumbled upon and was accidentally exposed to a fix. The fix starts changing him into an alien of the ruling caste which elicits fear and greed among various parties leading to the action scenes.
I believe District 9 was meant as a commentary on Apartheid. The aliens are treated as sub humans that have to be contained, controlled, and exploited. The main character starts out as a member of the empowered group, and transitions into being part of the oppressed group. In the end even though the main character is an alien to all outward appearances he retains his humanity as demonstrated by leaving gifts for his estranged human wife.
Sometime in the 2000's an email made the rounds with a large power point slide show of pictures depicting a foam fire suppressant system test that went better than expected. I want to say that the attachment was 35 megs but that seems a bit over the top. Anyways the unit from whence the photos originated was the subject of a lot of mockery among airmen everywhere though there wasn't any re-alls going on with it that I saw. Within a day or two though an engineer from that group sent out an email seemingly across the entire Air Force insisting the test went perfectly as planned and that everyone should stop laughing about it and wasting Air Force resources forwarding the email.
They might not grow moss much at all though given that the surface texture probably provides less surface area for stuff to grow on. If stuff does grow on them it might not get as much purchase and be easier to wash off, and so not require a pressure washer.