Americans spend far too much on healthcare for what they (on average) get out of the system. The only good reason to repeal ObawneyCare would be to replace it with what it should have been from the outset - a true, fair, comprehensive single payer system.
The EPA has been severely weakened during the Bush administration - didn't make a hiring difference.
The President has tried, albeit weakly, to truly implement shared sacrifice, in a modest way and returning to the Clinton-era tax brackets won't bankrupt any rich folk but ending those 2 expensive wars is a must. America needs its manufacturing base back, even if only in part. And that includes expertise in refining. If you're digging up ore but sending it overseas to be processed and then buying it back, you're fighting an uphill battle. The only reason that ObawneyCare would be expensive would be that the White House made too many concessions and compromises. See single-payer system above.
Businesses in America are hoarding $2-3 trillion dollars. If they aren't going to invest it or create jobs, then they should give some of it back to the people they got it from - that would be the American people.
Henry Ford achieved economies of scale using an assembly line, because his product was labor-constrained. Most renewable energy is technology and materials-constrained. Scaling, even with an infinite amount of labor, won't make it economical. Just ask Solyndra.
Solyndra was looking for a way to get around the then-high cost of silicon. What hurt them is (probably) bad management and being undercut by China's recent investment of nearly $30 billion in solar alone. Had Reagan and subsequent administrations invested in solar at least to the extent that Carter envisioned, solar thermal and PV would have surpassed Hydro as the leading renewable form of electricity generation, possibly as long as 15 years ago.
If you can make high-efficiency, you can make it cheaper and less efficient.
Not really.
Er, what? You get that I'm saying that if you have a way to make panels at a given efficiency, you should be able to make a cheaper panel that's less efficient, right?
But cheap oil and no national vision killed what could have been a great head start.
I'm not sure how else to explain that the price of oil has nothing to do with electricity. This insane focus on replacing oil (in transport applications) did more to harm the development and uptake of solar photovoltaics than anything.
Check the historical percentage of petroleum-generated electricity - http://www.eia.gov/emeu/25opec/sld014.htm - 17% before the Arab Oil Embargo is nothing to sneeze at. Jimmy Carter is probably most responsible for the shift from oil to coal for electricity as for the interest in renewables, especially solar. Unfortunately, America did the 1st aggressively while only toying with the latter, until fairly recently.
True that PV and inverters were more expensive but you're forgetting the lessons of Henry Ford - economies of scale. It wouldn't have been doable in Carter's time, that was just the kickstarter, but let's say that Reagan had looked at the panels on the White House and said "this is the future, let's get to work", then with a PROPER plan and judicious investment, then by the middle of the Clinton years, all the pieces could have been in place for a mass rollout. It's not government spending that's the problem, it's the typical US political horse-trading that fucks things up. Governments can and do gets things right - and the US used to be pretty darn good at that. How long did it take to ramp up the manufacturing machine in WWII? How did the Interstates get built? The Hoover Dam? The cells for satellites weren't a bad thing, it just never got transferred to consumer product, which was dumb. If you can make high-efficiency, you can make it cheaper and less efficient. But cheap oil and no national vision killed what could have been a great head start.
The US hasn't really given a damn about gas, oil and diesel except to bitch about how much they cost. If they truly gave a crap, pickup trucks would never have been the most popular vehicles and they wouldn't have the developed world's lamest overall MPG. How long ago was it that Europe started shifting to diesel cars? In NorthAm, only Volkswagen stuck with passenger diesel. America missed a (pun intended) golden opportunity by not accepting President Carter's challenge - if they had, they would have become the global solar champs, some of the breakthroughs might have been made a decade earlier. While many of the hot states are sparsely populated, there have been a hell of a lot of Californians, Texans, Floridians, etc for many decades. Telecommuting and solar power ( I mentioned PV but solar thermal works just fine also but that would be for utility scale, not rooftop) are not mutally exclusive. Here's my point: if way back then, the US had decided to aggressively pursue solar PV / Thermal and had put in place the following plan, they'd be soaking up the sunshine instead of just baking in it. 1.) Incentives for electric utilities or similar companies to partner on solar installations on large rooftops ( warehouses, shopping centers, schools, etc) and parking lots , ie, solar carports , providing power to the business or community and shade for the vehicles and customers. 2.) Residential rooftop solar cashbacks - solar PV is low-efficiency but is quiet, unobtrusive, matches peak demand in the sunny states and lasts for decades 3.) Military installations - no shortage of these and adding solar to the US bases and other defense-related structures, like the Pentagon, would have been a better use of taxpayer dollars than the many multi-hundred-billion dollar boondoggles for which the DoD is justly famous.
Here's a video on the committee hearing on the Solyndra collapse - it seems that a major factor was the abrupt investment of nearly $30 billion dollars by China into their own solar facilities which was partly responsible for a 40% drop in silicon PV cost.
What can you tell me about these projects in terms of size, cost and power output? I've felt strongly for a long time that the US really missed an opportunity with solar. In my opinion, regardless of the cost 10-15 yrs ago, they should have put solar panels on every flat commercial roof in the southwest, made every large parking lot into solar carports and poured considerably more money into solar research. Unlike wind power, solar is much more consistent in the sunny states, its peak output is well-matched to demand, its quiet and mostly unobtrusive and rooftop solar eases strain on the grid since it delivers power close to the point of generation.
Ah, "trickle-down economics", the golden shower of wealth redistribution ( or not, as is typically the case). How about not pissing in my face and telling me it's raining jobs and money?
Good question - a quick check suggests that's just the purchase price. Of course installation has to be in appropriate regions, especially when cost is high. As cost drops and (if and ) when thin film becomes cheap enough and efficient enough ( for varying values of "enough") then we should plaster up every surface that gets insolation with solar film.
As I just posted in one of the other replies I got, the Solterra quantum dot tech, which looks to be a shipping product, claims use of the IF and UV bands as well so would be suitable for the low-light areas of the world (again, if it's good "enough").
I'm aware of the Desertec Project - it's great on paper but faces so many tech ( the least of their problems ), financial and political challenges, I have doubts that this will get off the ground while we have ample sources of cheap coal and while oil is still relatively affordable. The instability of the "Arab Spring" isn't helping.
As to your point about dull days, there's some promise in that respect from Solterra that uses ( or will use ) panels made with quantum dots. Their site claims that absorption of solar radiation in the IF and UV bands is possible - I leave it to you to determine what "possible: means. http://www.solterrasolarcells.com/company_advantage.php?ID=22 http://www.qdotss.com/
Solar PV pricing per watt has fallen dramatically in the last 2 years; at commercial scale it's at or near $1.20/watt. That's one reason why Solyndra folded as they were developing a non-silicon alternative but they can no longer compete on price. Germany installed a ton of solar back when the cost for PV was much higher.
Isn't there some risk to expansive use of geothermal in an earthquake-prone zone? I recall an earthquake in Switzerland that was blamed on geothermal drilling about 4-5 years ago which to concerns being raised in California and Germany.
I've always been a staunch support of renewables but they have to be appropriate to the demand and the location. As one of the world's largest consumers of energy as well as a very developed society, they really can't afford to react out of fear. While this was a great disaster, how many of the 50-odd nuke plants were affected? The biggest problem is that divided grid with only 3 frequency converter stations in the whole country.
Yes, he is. I left that out of my previous post but I fully support his plan to revamp the electrical infrastructure which is also long overdue for America.
With so few traditional energy resources, Japan will a very difficult time reaching that goal. A few judiciously placed Gen-IV nuclear reactors would be a good idea unless they think they can reach their goal solely through wave energy and geothermal. Not sure what their solar and wind potential might be but they need a solid baseload option to replace nuclear.
You can be reasonable and still be incredibly stupid. The smart leader goes to open war with an enemy when 1.) you know where their forces are 2.) you have a reasonable expectation of success 3.) you have something to gain.
The US has shown themselves to be "geniuses at gadgets, morons at maneuver" - despite having every possible military advantage including an internal militia,after 10 years they don't have full control. And since it was well known that PAKISTAN also supported the Taliban and sent 10,000 troops to fight against the US, why didn't Bush and Cheney declare war on them ( a country that DOES have real WMDs)? Is their geography so bad they confused it with Iraq?
Exactly. If there had been any brains in the US leadership, they should have turned the terrorist tactics back on them. The US has bases, secret installations and safe houses all over the world to provide support for surgical strikes and snipers. Even if they had to bribe thousands (which they probably did anyway), they MIGHT have spent a few billion to take out the Al Qaida leadership at the cost of only a few dozen additional American lives and perhaps hundreds in collateral damage instead of tens of thousands.
Pino Grigio is just another one of those rightwing assholes that inject a liberal / Democrats are ( take your pick ) pussies, hypocrites, hate America, etc. comment into every discussion on every damned site on the 'net. There seems to be no getting away from them. A. Hart Coulter would be very proud of the sycophants she's inspired.
What you have now is a center-right compromiser who's a terrible negotiator and doesn't listen to his base. Rick Perry is much, much worse - he's a dumber, more self-assured George Bush and if the Teapublicans get control of the Senate and keep their hold on the House, then the US will quickly become a high-tech Haiti - albeit with an armed citizenry.
Funny you should mentioned that - it showed up on my YouTube page yesterday - first time I'd seen it. Carter was and is a good man but he didn't understand what the US had become and still is - a nation that looks to a cheerleader in the top job rather than an honest father figure. But, not to worry, that wish just might come true, so brace yourselves.
That doesn't explain the massive shift from the Bloc Quebecois to the NDP in the last election which saw very young and inexperienced candidates beat out incumbents of long standing.
Slashdot Mirror
Americans spend far too much on healthcare for what they (on average) get out of the system. The only good reason to repeal ObawneyCare would be to replace it with what it should have been from the outset - a true, fair, comprehensive single payer system.
The EPA has been severely weakened during the Bush administration - didn't make a hiring difference.
The President has tried, albeit weakly, to truly implement shared sacrifice, in a modest way and returning to the Clinton-era tax brackets won't bankrupt any rich folk but ending those 2 expensive wars is a must.
America needs its manufacturing base back, even if only in part. And that includes expertise in refining. If you're digging up ore but sending it overseas to be processed and then buying it back, you're fighting an uphill battle.
The only reason that ObawneyCare would be expensive would be that the White House made too many concessions and compromises. See single-payer system above.
Businesses in America are hoarding $2-3 trillion dollars. If they aren't going to invest it or create jobs, then they should give some of it back to the people they got it from - that would be the American people.
Henry Ford achieved economies of scale using an assembly line, because his product was labor-constrained. Most renewable energy is technology and materials-constrained. Scaling, even with an infinite amount of labor, won't make it economical. Just ask Solyndra.
Solyndra was looking for a way to get around the then-high cost of silicon. What hurt them is (probably) bad management and being undercut by China's recent investment of nearly $30 billion in solar alone. Had Reagan and subsequent administrations invested in solar at least to the extent that Carter envisioned, solar thermal and PV would have surpassed Hydro as the leading renewable form of electricity generation, possibly as long as 15 years ago.
If you can make high-efficiency, you can make it cheaper and less efficient.
Not really.
Er, what? You get that I'm saying that if you have a way to make panels at a given efficiency, you should be able to make a cheaper panel that's less efficient, right?
But cheap oil and no national vision killed what could have been a great head start.
I'm not sure how else to explain that the price of oil has nothing to do with electricity. This insane focus on replacing oil (in transport applications) did more to harm the development and uptake of solar photovoltaics than anything.
Check the historical percentage of petroleum-generated electricity - http://www.eia.gov/emeu/25opec/sld014.htm - 17% before the Arab Oil Embargo is nothing to sneeze at. Jimmy Carter is probably most responsible for the shift from oil to coal for electricity as for the interest in renewables, especially solar. Unfortunately, America did the 1st aggressively while only toying with the latter, until fairly recently.
True that PV and inverters were more expensive but you're forgetting the lessons of Henry Ford - economies of scale. It wouldn't have been doable in Carter's time, that was just the kickstarter, but let's say that Reagan had looked at the panels on the White House and said "this is the future, let's get to work", then with a PROPER plan and judicious investment, then by the middle of the Clinton years, all the pieces could have been in place for a mass rollout.
It's not government spending that's the problem, it's the typical US political horse-trading that fucks things up. Governments can and do gets things right - and the US used to be pretty darn good at that.
How long did it take to ramp up the manufacturing machine in WWII? How did the Interstates get built? The Hoover Dam? The cells for satellites weren't a bad thing, it just never got transferred to consumer product, which was dumb. If you can make high-efficiency, you can make it cheaper and less efficient. But cheap oil and no national vision killed what could have been a great head start.
The US hasn't really given a damn about gas, oil and diesel except to bitch about how much they cost. If they truly gave a crap, pickup trucks would never have been the most popular vehicles and they wouldn't have the developed world's lamest overall MPG. How long ago was it that Europe started shifting to diesel cars? In NorthAm, only Volkswagen stuck with passenger diesel.
America missed a (pun intended) golden opportunity by not accepting President Carter's challenge - if they had, they would have become the global solar champs, some of the breakthroughs might have been made a decade earlier.
While many of the hot states are sparsely populated, there have been a hell of a lot of Californians, Texans, Floridians, etc for many decades.
Telecommuting and solar power ( I mentioned PV but solar thermal works just fine also but that would be for utility scale, not rooftop) are not mutally exclusive.
Here's my point: if way back then, the US had decided to aggressively pursue solar PV / Thermal and had put in place the following plan, they'd be soaking up the sunshine instead of just baking in it.
1.) Incentives for electric utilities or similar companies to partner on solar installations on large rooftops ( warehouses, shopping centers, schools, etc) and parking lots , ie, solar carports , providing power to the business or community and shade for the vehicles and customers.
2.) Residential rooftop solar cashbacks - solar PV is low-efficiency but is quiet, unobtrusive, matches peak demand in the sunny states and lasts for decades
3.) Military installations - no shortage of these and adding solar to the US bases and other defense-related structures, like the Pentagon, would have been a better use of taxpayer dollars than the many multi-hundred-billion dollar boondoggles for which the DoD is justly famous.
Here's a video on the committee hearing on the Solyndra collapse - it seems that a major factor was the abrupt investment of nearly $30 billion dollars by China into their own solar facilities which was partly responsible for a 40% drop in silicon PV cost.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsUR6vONawc
What can you tell me about these projects in terms of size, cost and power output?
I've felt strongly for a long time that the US really missed an opportunity with solar.
In my opinion, regardless of the cost 10-15 yrs ago, they should have put solar panels on every flat commercial roof in the southwest, made every large parking lot into solar carports and poured considerably more money into solar research. Unlike wind power, solar is much more consistent in the sunny states, its peak output is well-matched to demand, its quiet and mostly unobtrusive and rooftop solar eases strain on the grid since it delivers power close to the point of generation.
Ah, "trickle-down economics", the golden shower of wealth redistribution ( or not, as is typically the case). How about not pissing in my face and telling me it's raining jobs and money?
Good question - a quick check suggests that's just the purchase price. Of course installation has to be in appropriate regions, especially when cost is high. As cost drops and (if and ) when thin film becomes cheap enough and efficient enough ( for varying values of "enough") then we should plaster up every surface that gets insolation with solar film.
As I just posted in one of the other replies I got, the Solterra quantum dot tech, which looks to be a shipping product, claims use of the IF and UV bands as well so would be suitable for the low-light areas of the world (again, if it's good "enough").
I'm aware of the Desertec Project - it's great on paper but faces so many tech ( the least of their problems ), financial and political challenges, I have doubts that this will get off the ground while we have ample sources of cheap coal and while oil is still relatively affordable. The instability of the "Arab Spring" isn't helping.
As to your point about dull days, there's some promise in that respect from Solterra that uses ( or will use ) panels made with quantum dots. Their site claims that absorption of solar radiation in the IF and UV bands is possible - I leave it to you to determine what "possible: means.
http://www.solterrasolarcells.com/company_advantage.php?ID=22
http://www.qdotss.com/
Solar PV pricing per watt has fallen dramatically in the last 2 years; at commercial scale it's at or near $1.20/watt. That's one reason why Solyndra folded as they were developing a non-silicon alternative but they can no longer compete on price. Germany installed a ton of solar back when the cost for PV was much higher.
California has 8 GW on the roadmap ( http://votesolar.org/2011/09/who-says-solar-is-too-expensive/ ) slightly more than half of which will cost less than the natural gas equivalent.
Spend a little time on WattsUpWithThat and you might change your mind about their hive mind.
I see that the you've upset the denialist fairies. I'm sure they'll come to their senses one day, probably instants before the Rapture.
Isn't there some risk to expansive use of geothermal in an earthquake-prone zone? I recall an earthquake in Switzerland that was blamed on geothermal drilling about 4-5 years ago which to concerns being raised in California and Germany.
I've always been a staunch support of renewables but they have to be appropriate to the demand and the location. As one of the world's largest consumers of energy as well as a very developed society, they really can't afford to react out of fear. While this was a great disaster, how many of the 50-odd nuke plants were affected? The biggest problem is that divided grid with only 3 frequency converter stations in the whole country.
You're right, I got the Generation classification wrong; I meant Gen III+ designs such as the Advanced CANDU or the AP1000.
Yes, he is. I left that out of my previous post but I fully support his plan to revamp the electrical infrastructure which is also long overdue for America.
With so few traditional energy resources, Japan will a very difficult time reaching that goal. A few judiciously placed Gen-IV nuclear reactors would be a good idea unless they think they can reach their goal solely through wave energy and geothermal. Not sure what their solar and wind potential might be but they need a solid baseload option to replace nuclear.
You can be reasonable and still be incredibly stupid. The smart leader goes to open war with an enemy when 1.) you know where their forces are 2.) you have a reasonable expectation of success 3.) you have something to gain.
The US has shown themselves to be "geniuses at gadgets, morons at maneuver" - despite having every possible military advantage including an internal militia,after 10 years they don't have full control. And since it was well known that PAKISTAN also supported the Taliban and sent 10,000 troops to fight against the US, why didn't Bush and Cheney declare war on them ( a country that DOES have real WMDs)? Is their geography so bad they confused it with Iraq?
Exactly. If there had been any brains in the US leadership, they should have turned the terrorist tactics back on them. The US has bases, secret installations and safe houses all over the world to provide support for surgical strikes and snipers. Even if they had to bribe thousands (which they probably did anyway), they MIGHT have spent a few billion to take out the Al Qaida leadership at the cost of only a few dozen additional American lives and perhaps hundreds in collateral damage instead of tens of thousands.
Pino Grigio is just another one of those rightwing assholes that inject a liberal / Democrats are ( take your pick ) pussies, hypocrites, hate America, etc. comment into every discussion on every damned site on the 'net. There seems to be no getting away from them. A. Hart Coulter would be very proud of the sycophants she's inspired.
What you have now is a center-right compromiser who's a terrible negotiator and doesn't listen to his base. Rick Perry is much, much worse - he's a dumber, more self-assured George Bush and if the Teapublicans get control of the Senate and keep their hold on the House, then the US will quickly become a high-tech Haiti - albeit with an armed citizenry.
Funny you should mentioned that - it showed up on my YouTube page yesterday - first time I'd seen it. Carter was and is a good man but he didn't understand what the US had become and still is - a nation that looks to a cheerleader in the top job rather than an honest father figure.
But, not to worry, that wish just might come true, so brace yourselves.
http://www.rickperry.org/join-today/
That doesn't explain the massive shift from the Bloc Quebecois to the NDP in the last election which saw very young and inexperienced candidates beat out incumbents of long standing.
Good one! I'm sure one of the young geeks there suggested it but was shut down by the stuffed shirts.