Agreed. Maybe if we had a system where a charity or government office funded FDA testing for a few promising but non-patentable drug treatments each year. Even if it's only 1, it'd still help situation like this.
The story would be a bit different if there were NO patents for ANY drugs.
Then nobody would be developing new drugs, or if they were they'd be working on how to obfusticate the real drug and hiding how to produce it(trade secrets).
Then you'd have publicly develop and manufacture new drugs because nobody would be interested in taking the effort.
Vitamin C as an example is a bit of a misnomer - It's a naturally occuring product that's been out for quite a while and is a known part of basic nutrition. Also, take a look at how much marketing goes on to somehow differentiate their product from somebody else's.
As a member of the military, you can bet that my life, as well as every person in uniform, has had his or her value quantified. It may not be a complete quantification, but it's there.
You can't commit to war otherwise.
Other than that, it becomes a question of 'how many lives can I save with these dollars if I invest it into X versus Y'. Sure, you might love to invest in both, but you don't always have the luxury of having that much money or resources.
Good point about the replacement; Medical costs are folded in with the 'hospital stay' daily rate.
8 weeks of basic training would be $3k for the salary of the trainee alone, then you figure another $400 to feed him, $800 for his 'share' of the drill instructor.
Then you have the advanced combat training. Another 8 or so weeks(varies by specialty and enviroment), at $4k for the trainee's salary(been promoted), Another $1k because you have more personal training being conducted. Food, housing etc...
Call it $10k and 4-6 months to get yourself a basic squaddie.
As for the fitting, well, I'd do it the way I want to do weapons. You're issued your equipment, to include weapon, gas mask, and armor along with the more convential uniform items & duffel bag.
Well, come to think of it, the armor could be issued when the recruit reports for advanced combat training or is assigned to a combat position. That way the suit might fit a bit better, as most trainees gain weight once out of basic/boot.
This may sound odd, but periods of true oppression usually come when a section of the population is able to effectivly protect itself from the attacks of another.
There's a reason why guns have been known as the 'great equalizer'. With it, it doesn't matter as much whether you're a fit 19 year old man or a 90 year old grandmother. Both have much more even chances against each other if they're armed with guns than bare handed.
With no real effective defense, tyrants tend to die too fast to go far. You still need a large force of bodyguards, who may always stage a ku.
Effective personal armor increases the effeciveness of professional forces(such as nobles) more than non-professional militia forces. Thus tyrants can push more without having to worry as much about the consequences.
There's still Mark Maughan's point that it's cheaper than a hospital bill.
I'll use US soldiers for an example because that's what I'm familiar with. Injured soldier: Hospital: approx $6k/day Artificial limb: ~$3k Flying home on medivac: $10k
Dead Soldier: $250k insurance policy(he pays for it, but it's heavily subsidized) $100k death gratuity for dying in a war zone/hostile action
In either case you have the loss of a trained soldier to worry about.
It quickly adds up. It pays off exceptionally well if you give it to the soldiers who are 1% or more likely to die in the line of duty of something this would prevent, and about 10% likely to suffer an injury requiring medivac to an out of theater hospital and extensive rehab or seperation from service.
As for mass production, he's obviously tested the suit, possibly multiple suits, though it's probable that he's simply repaired the one after shooting it. Heck, that'd be a benefit right there. Replacing a $500 breastplate after being shot is still cheaper than replacing an entire $1.5k intercepter vest. Well, at least $1250 of it, it's $250 each for the front and back plates, and one may still be usable. Once shot the vest itself is to be discarded.
Buy a few thousand of them and the fact you completely destroy ten suits in testing would still add less than $10 to the cost.
While still expensive, GenIII reactors have been built and tested, and GenIV are merely the continuation. As far as being 'untested' goes, it's more along the lines of untested in the USA.
As for the cost of power, Nuclear is one of the lowest going, if you consider the costs of the pollution, only hydro and coal is cheaper. Making coal as clean as nuclear makes it more expensive, and we've already built all the dams for hydro we can without seriously messing up the ecology. Oil and Gas are definitly more expensive.
Can't we build at least a few of them, rather than building more coal plants?
It's even better if the generator is diesel, you could make your own fuel, biodiesel.
Since I already have a huge propane tank, I'm leaning towards a propane generator. They last basically forever since propane's so clean. I'd like to get a diesel style*, but those tend to be the huge ones, and I don't need to power the whole town.
*Ignition method. Propane can be used in a gasoline style sytem with spark plugs or a diesel style without.
You don't take it to extremes - you take it to the point where you have something as good as the current alternatives.
Well, the only competitors for cheap power from an established nuclear plant are coal, hydro, and geothermal. Both Hydro and geothermal are more limited in than wind/solar in effective locations. Coal has the aforementioned pollution.
Thus what I was saying. You take the best proven power plant design to date and mass produce them(10 plants/year is 'mass production' when it comes to GW power plants). You can also build a few prototype plants of unproven design that show promise, IE all the principles in the plant design are known and tested, it's just that particular combination and size that's not, but the math works. If the prototype pans out superior to the 'best proven', well, it's the new 'best proven' and moves into mass production.
The current generation of production nuclear reactor designs is not yet at that point - not surprising due to the almost total lack of effort in the past three decades.
Actually there has been quite a bit of effort into improving designs. Like I said, Gen-III and IV light water designs push pebble bed hard. Sure, pebble bed may be great, but it's a tough sell to say that it's safer than a Gen IV reactor, which can also do hot refuels(refueling while the reactor is still in operation and producing power).
The only advantage existing plants have over the new ones is that the billions have already been spent in their construction, and they didn't have the level of red-tape to push through. It's like my car, sure I can get a better one, but it still works and a new one that gets even better mpg would still cost $$$, comparable to many, many gallons of gasoline (7k gallons of gasoline is alot of miles).
Building a few pilot plants of the new generation of reactor is a different story and should be done - those fanatastic designs people are talking about are unfinished and need some sort of effort like that before we can have a production plant.
As EO I shall place you in charge of prototyping new reactors. Happy now?
That is a major reason why you should never switch purely to nuclear as base load and exclude other options and have to insist they stand on their own merits.
I believe I mentioned shutting down coal, oil, and natural gas. I know I mentioned continued expansion of wind and solar. I mentioned nothing about shutting down hyrdo and geothermal.
If we develop an energy source cheaper that's nonpolluting and as consistant as nuclear, sure I'll switch to it. It's just that solar and wind is nowhere close from what I've seen.
The other major thing is that it is really the peak loads that are driving the construction of new plants now so power sources that do not supply base load are looking more attractive
With upcoming technologies that look to be going commercial, such as PHEVs, we're looking at a lot more battery storage in the hands of individuals. If, for example, everybody has a 10kw/h PHEV, we'd be able to level power demand substantially.
and the excess power is handled nicely at this point by things like pump storage reservoirs and charging industries with large motors less money to run them at night (these things also help correct the phase at night) and your ideas also work (is desalination reverse osmosis through membranes with the power input being a lot of pump motors? If so, perfect to run at night).
There's a number of ways to run a desalination plant, heck you can even run a distilling plant on something of a demand basis. The specific technology doesn't really matter to me, the reason I give desalination as an example is that there are looming water crisises in various areas of the country. Desalination, by whatever means, requires power. Well, with an increased baseload capacity we have the power at various times of the day, might as well use it for something useful. As I'm a humble EO, I don't re
Simple answer: Like hung electric lines, they're built to take the stress. Slack is left in the cable, and only enough is pulled up to make the repair. You don't have to pull the whole thing up, just a couple thousand feet, depending on depth. Oh, and water bouyancy would help too.
Yeah, well give them a few minutes. Now, I don't know the situation, but if it was windy, they were probably warmer in the snow banks because they were out of the wind than those who continued to stand out on the runway.
If you're thinking of doing this yourself, instead of a battery backup you might want to check into a backup generator. Do research on both, then you can decide which one makes more sense for you to use.
I'm thinking about both, but the instant nature of the battery is compelling, especially since I heat with propane, thus the electrical need for my furnace is mostly just for the fan. Then again, the continous nature of the generator is nice, and a tank of fuel can provide a whole lot more energy than a row of batteries.
If I do set up a windmill, the battery packs would make more sense, since I'd only need the batteries/generator for slow days. It's either that or get a expensive autostart generator system.
Dianne Feinstein has a long history of being in the pockets of media industry, Time Warner and Disney in particular.
I view this as just one reason that Feinstein tops my list of 'most hated senator'.
For reasons 1-3, just take a look at my sig, then consider that despite being one of the most anti-gun senators, Feinstein was a holder of one of the few CCW permits issued in her district.
Yeah, it's a good idea to talk to neighbers who have erected and uses a tower and wind gennie, windmill. At least get an idea of how their system is doing.
That's the thing. Haven't seen any neighbors with them. Still, while we have some still days, most days and nights we have wind at a pretty good clip.
Somebody has to be first, and ND has a 15% rebate(spread over 5 years) for them. Since I already have electric service, I'd probably go with the connected, though a battery system for critical stuff(like the furnace) is in planning.
One problem you run into up here is that many things don't like working at -30.
That's what's good about net metering such as in California. While the owner is at work during the day, thier solar system is producing electricity which is sold to the utility, then when they get home and use electricity, they get it from the utility. To tell the truth though, instead of net metering I prefer to see the meter dial spinning backwards. Net metering doesn't offset use kilowatt used with a kilowatt produced, you actually get less back from selling energy than you pay for energy. When the meter spins backward though it is one for one.
I just looked it up, they have net metering here in ND. And it's effectivly the meter spinning backwards thing. The only costs you'll encounter is a service fee for the hookup(like $2/month). After that it's Energy used - energy provided, resulting in a bill for excess used at the standard rates. If you have a negative number, they purchase it from you, though at a lower rate(basically what they pay their suppliers), which is reasonable because they still have to maintain the lines.
Quick question: Without looking it up, Which happened first: Chernobyl or TMI?
Second - the capital cost is immense so you really have no choice other than living with your design for half a century unless it is ridulously dangerous - so a bit of extra time to develop a decent design is worth it. We have had a lot of time - however while lobby money is set a couple of orders of magnitude above R&D money there is no reason to design something that works any better and a lot of reasons for very bad decisions to occur.
Sure, it's immense. However, with your reasoning we end up with a problem that there's always something better on the horizon, so nothing ever gets built. It's like my computer. I could go out and buy a better one for ~$500 today(Orig:$1.5k), but if I wait another six months... A computer or a car costs about as much for me as a power plant costs a country/big business. And yes, I'm waiting for both, hoping for car companies to start bringing good diesel cars to the USA, for next-gen hybrid, etc... Then again, my car and computer are not even five years old. The USA is doing the equivalent of tooling around in a car from the 1970's. There would be substantial benefits to upgrading NOW, with existing gen-IV designs.
As EO, each year I'd have a committe sit down and find the 'worst 10' plants and earmark them for replacement. Then have a committee conduct a re-assement of available technologies and plant designs every 5 years or so. That way we have at least 60 more or less matching plants to help keep maintenance costs down*. When a decision to change designs is made(I expect major changes to only come along every 15-20 years), we first build 1 plant and 9 old style designs, then 3/7, 6/4, then all new. If we encounter a 'white-elephant' design we stay in the prototyping stage and select a new design, if none offer themselves we go back to the old design. Kinda like how 747's are still made today. The white elephant plant probably ends up on the replacement list sooner, or development is ceased and we start 11 plants the next year.
Not only do we have a lot of matching plants, they're of varying ages, so when the prototype plant has a problem, we can fix the problem before it becomes an issue in the younger plants. The prototype plants(first ten) would be expected to have more problems as a result, and would thus undergo a more rigourous inspection schedule. They'd also likely be the first to be replaced when production ceases on them, so we could almost coast with known issues for the rest of the plants.
Now, once we've closed down all the coal and oil plants, and probably even some of the NG plants, we can probably slow down new construction a bit. I'd use a 20 year yardstick. 'Will this pay off, on average, in 20 years if I build a new plant?' Why 20? Well, that's when we can guess substantial gains in tech will be made and we might be looking at replacing the replacement plant.
As for handling the excess power(I'd be increasing baseload capacity substantially), well, cut rate power for PHEVs, desalination plants that can work on demand, etc...
*sharing the development costs for refits and maintenance can save quite a bit of money.
Guess what? Most "normal people" don't care about the size of their computer chips, and if you're designing them, you can afford to learn the metric system.
Agreed.
It might be better if we were using the metric system today, but there's simply no particularly compelling reason to expend the effort and money. Unless it becomes worthwhile for the average person to use metric, that's not going to change.
To elaborate, I purchase gasoline by the gallon. I 'know' I have a 10 gallon tank with some change, but I don't ever worry about 'Do I have 1 or.5 gallons left?'. I note that I'm getting low and I fill it up.
I buy milk by the gallon, which happens to be a nice size that I can easily pick up and use up before it spoils, but lasts around a week. Sure, I could buy a '4 liter' package of milk, but why change? The only reason I'd need to worry about quarts and pints is if I'm doing some extreme cooking, and most of the time I'd simply buy an extra gallon. When I have a cup of milk to drink, I don't exactly measure it much.
We're taught the metric system in school, especially if you take any scientific classes.
The scientific equipment is all marked in liters, we use grams and mL. Measurements are done in centigrade and meters and such...
It's just that we 'remember' that a comfortable room temperature is 65-70F, the speedlimit is 25mph in a school zone, and it's 67 miles to grandma's house.
And really, how often do we go around converting between units in everyday life?
Isn't that about what the shuttle mover gets? I mean the big thing that takes the completed assembly(shuttle, tank and boosters) out to the launch pad.
They may be an additional expense but unless they not properly maintained they only need to be replaced every 10 to 20 years.
It's still a great big honkin expense compared to a $20/month utility bill.
I figured it out from a couple of websites about six months ago, the systems only made sense in a few spots of Texas/Nevada with extremely high average sun levels. Grid connected made more sense, because with most systems you can sell power back to the utility during the day and buy it at night. With a little finagling you could even get your power cheaper because daytime prices tend to be higher than night prices.
Also, though I didn't mention it earlier as I just now recalled, the expenses of putting in a solar or wind system can be used to offset income taxes. DSIRE has a db of the incentives each state offers. There is also a federal incentive tax credit, though I don't recall if that one has elapsed yet or when it does elapse.
I usually don't count these, because they're a distortion of the marketplace. You see, if it made true economic sense, people would be rushing out to do it themselves, without needing any subsidies. Basically I'll count them in personal make/break decisions, but when I'm doing generic figuring to determine whether the system as a whole is economically viable I don't.
Still, I have some land now, it's time to look into putting up a windmill. Better ask the neighbors what they think, though.
In Africa one or more NGOs are going into small villages where they setup solar panels and battery backups to power lights, radios, refrigs, small tvs, and such. The lights allow children to read and do homework for school while it's dark.
These are cases where solar/wind power makes sense, because A: it's not hooked up to a grid and B: it's hard to get supplies and C: power deman isn't great. The only alternatives would be gasoline or diesel generators, and those get expensive to operate quick. Heck, I worked in an area where the fire alarms were solar powered. I see solar powered road signs all the time. They make sense. Powering a city with 1st world usage patterns doesn't.
The website I link to above has a battery that's 6V, 400AH, 7 yr. warranty, estimated 15 yr. life for $199. While it's amp/hours is a little less it costs about $100 less, so it's $83 per kw/hour and has a better warranty. I'm sure if a person looks they can find better deals.
What is the 4-KS-21P? It's a battery rated for extreme deep cycle operations. I used it because it didn't state '7 year lifespan'(at an unknown usage pattern), it's rated at 3,200 50% power cycles.
Oh, I'll admit that batteries have improved, it's just that they're still an additional expense over just generating the power. I've looked at the systems myself.
many armchair nuclear advocates are unaware of this and think the reactors run on magic beans and not a very energy intensive enrichment process
The cost of obtaining the uranium and setting it up to be a fuel process, while incredibly expensive per ton, has the advantage that a 1GW light water reactor will only go through about 160 tons of it a year. While extremely expensive, compared to the amount of power generated it's considered an insignificant expense. Consider that a coal plant can go through 10,000 tons of coal a day in comparison.
but it is certainly not carbon neutral as many liars have been saying - in the long run it is lower on carbon than even natural gas turbines but the zero emissions claim is false.
Again, where did I claim that it was carbon neutral?
There is work on using more plentiful fuels which don't require as intensive a process (accelerated thorium reactors) which can even be supplimented by unprocessed high grade waste and weapons material - but it is still not at a commercial state.
Just like fusion isn't possible today. My point is that we have all these extremely dirty and nasty coal power plants in operation today, that release all sorts of nasty chemicals into the enviroment every day. At least the nuclear industry keeps ahold of them*. Besides, enriching fuel to the point that a nuclear reactor can use it is a far simpler business than creating weapons grade stuff.
All these plants are designed with a limited lifespan in mind, and are set up to be decommisioned at some point. We keep extending their lifespan because nobody's been able to get through the red tape to build new plants. What I'm proposing is building enough nuclear stations to shut down all the dirty coal ones, then replace the old nuclear stations.
Sure, by the time we get to shutting down the gen1 and 2 reactors in operation now we may be building pebble beds, thorium plants, proton beam, whatever. But power plants work on a decades long cycle. Even if we magically cracked practical power generation using fusion tomorrow, I'd be willing to bet that there would still be fission and coal plants in operation 40 years from now, lacking a concerted replacement effort.
Say I, as EO, instituted a massive building effort resulting in the construction of 10 1GW replacement stations per year. It'd still take 26 years before the last coal plant was shut down. Figure increases and growth and it'd be closer to 30, even with continued expansion of wind and solar.
here I'm really talking about nuclear power plants for civilian use anyway, which is still not in a highly developed state. Building a lot of dinosaur plants would be an economic disaster for all apart from a few profiteers leeching off the state - let these nuclear companies with no changes in decades design something decent first.
What do you mean 'not in a highly developed state'? While it's true that no new plants have been built in the USA for decades, many have been built around the world. New plants have been built in China, Korea, Japan, France, etc... Besides the pebble bed reactors, we have 4th gen light water reactors that compete favorably with the design.
Building a lot of dinosaur plants would be an economic disaster for all apart from a few profiteers leeching off the state - let these nuclear companies with no changes in decades design something decent first.
Like I've said, I wouldn't be building dinosaur plants(coal). We need more power. Heck, Texas is pushing for building 10 new GW coal plants. I'd rather they built nuclear, much cleaner. And the whole no changes in decades is false. While progress has been stalled in the USA, it has progressed elsewhere in the world. New technologies have been developed, but to impliment them would require construction of new plants, and that hasn't been politically possible in the USA for decades.
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Surely the cure for cancer is worth more than the fiscal stability of a university, right?
I'm not sure that the students and employees of the university would agree with you...
Agreed. Maybe if we had a system where a charity or government office funded FDA testing for a few promising but non-patentable drug treatments each year. Even if it's only 1, it'd still help situation like this.
FDA approval is dependant upon application as well. It has to treat a specific problem.
So even if it's used for something else (somebody mentioned topical astringent), it'd have to be approved for use on cancer in a seperate trial.
Even then, they may have to redo some of the basic trials if it's been out long enough; standards are higher now.
The story would be a bit different if there were NO patents for ANY drugs.
Then nobody would be developing new drugs, or if they were they'd be working on how to obfusticate the real drug and hiding how to produce it(trade secrets).
Then you'd have publicly develop and manufacture new drugs because nobody would be interested in taking the effort.
Vitamin C as an example is a bit of a misnomer - It's a naturally occuring product that's been out for quite a while and is a known part of basic nutrition. Also, take a look at how much marketing goes on to somehow differentiate their product from somebody else's.
As a member of the military, you can bet that my life, as well as every person in uniform, has had his or her value quantified. It may not be a complete quantification, but it's there.
You can't commit to war otherwise.
Other than that, it becomes a question of 'how many lives can I save with these dollars if I invest it into X versus Y'. Sure, you might love to invest in both, but you don't always have the luxury of having that much money or resources.
Answer: $90.
The closest yard to 10'3" is 4. You don't mess around minimizing $5/sq yard carpet. You also don't want anything but whole runs.
13 feet is 4 yards, 1 foot. You need the extra couple inches to accomidate minor imperfections in construction and the molding.
$20*4.3=86, round to $90. Might be $100 if the carpet company doesn't sell fractions.
Good point about the replacement; Medical costs are folded in with the 'hospital stay' daily rate.
8 weeks of basic training would be $3k for the salary of the trainee alone, then you figure another $400 to feed him, $800 for his 'share' of the drill instructor.
Then you have the advanced combat training. Another 8 or so weeks(varies by specialty and enviroment), at $4k for the trainee's salary(been promoted), Another $1k because you have more personal training being conducted. Food, housing etc...
Call it $10k and 4-6 months to get yourself a basic squaddie.
As for the fitting, well, I'd do it the way I want to do weapons. You're issued your equipment, to include weapon, gas mask, and armor along with the more convential uniform items & duffel bag.
Well, come to think of it, the armor could be issued when the recruit reports for advanced combat training or is assigned to a combat position. That way the suit might fit a bit better, as most trainees gain weight once out of basic/boot.
This may sound odd, but periods of true oppression usually come when a section of the population is able to effectivly protect itself from the attacks of another.
There's a reason why guns have been known as the 'great equalizer'. With it, it doesn't matter as much whether you're a fit 19 year old man or a 90 year old grandmother. Both have much more even chances against each other if they're armed with guns than bare handed.
With no real effective defense, tyrants tend to die too fast to go far. You still need a large force of bodyguards, who may always stage a ku.
Effective personal armor increases the effeciveness of professional forces(such as nobles) more than non-professional militia forces. Thus tyrants can push more without having to worry as much about the consequences.
There's still Mark Maughan's point that it's cheaper than a hospital bill.
I'll use US soldiers for an example because that's what I'm familiar with.
Injured soldier:
Hospital: approx $6k/day
Artificial limb: ~$3k
Flying home on medivac: $10k
Dead Soldier:
$250k insurance policy(he pays for it, but it's heavily subsidized)
$100k death gratuity for dying in a war zone/hostile action
In either case you have the loss of a trained soldier to worry about.
It quickly adds up. It pays off exceptionally well if you give it to the soldiers who are 1% or more likely to die in the line of duty of something this would prevent, and about 10% likely to suffer an injury requiring medivac to an out of theater hospital and extensive rehab or seperation from service.
As for mass production, he's obviously tested the suit, possibly multiple suits, though it's probable that he's simply repaired the one after shooting it. Heck, that'd be a benefit right there. Replacing a $500 breastplate after being shot is still cheaper than replacing an entire $1.5k intercepter vest. Well, at least $1250 of it, it's $250 each for the front and back plates, and one may still be usable. Once shot the vest itself is to be discarded.
Buy a few thousand of them and the fact you completely destroy ten suits in testing would still add less than $10 to the cost.
While still expensive, GenIII reactors have been built and tested, and GenIV are merely the continuation. As far as being 'untested' goes, it's more along the lines of untested in the USA.
As for the cost of power, Nuclear is one of the lowest going, if you consider the costs of the pollution, only hydro and coal is cheaper. Making coal as clean as nuclear makes it more expensive, and we've already built all the dams for hydro we can without seriously messing up the ecology. Oil and Gas are definitly more expensive.
Can't we build at least a few of them, rather than building more coal plants?
Um... My recipes call for stuff like 1 1/2 cups flour, 2 tablespoons sugar, 1 tsp baking powder.
While it's three different measuring systems for volume, I'm not trying to convert the teaspoons into fractional cups.
That's my point. How often does the average person do any real math with this stuff?
It's even better if the generator is diesel, you could make your own fuel, biodiesel.
Since I already have a huge propane tank, I'm leaning towards a propane generator. They last basically forever since propane's so clean. I'd like to get a diesel style*, but those tend to be the huge ones, and I don't need to power the whole town.
*Ignition method. Propane can be used in a gasoline style sytem with spark plugs or a diesel style without.
You don't take it to extremes - you take it to the point where you have something as good as the current alternatives.
Well, the only competitors for cheap power from an established nuclear plant are coal, hydro, and geothermal. Both Hydro and geothermal are more limited in than wind/solar in effective locations. Coal has the aforementioned pollution.
Thus what I was saying. You take the best proven power plant design to date and mass produce them(10 plants/year is 'mass production' when it comes to GW power plants). You can also build a few prototype plants of unproven design that show promise, IE all the principles in the plant design are known and tested, it's just that particular combination and size that's not, but the math works. If the prototype pans out superior to the 'best proven', well, it's the new 'best proven' and moves into mass production.
The current generation of production nuclear reactor designs is not yet at that point - not surprising due to the almost total lack of effort in the past three decades.
Actually there has been quite a bit of effort into improving designs. Like I said, Gen-III and IV light water designs push pebble bed hard. Sure, pebble bed may be great, but it's a tough sell to say that it's safer than a Gen IV reactor, which can also do hot refuels(refueling while the reactor is still in operation and producing power).
The only advantage existing plants have over the new ones is that the billions have already been spent in their construction, and they didn't have the level of red-tape to push through. It's like my car, sure I can get a better one, but it still works and a new one that gets even better mpg would still cost $$$, comparable to many, many gallons of gasoline (7k gallons of gasoline is alot of miles).
Building a few pilot plants of the new generation of reactor is a different story and should be done - those fanatastic designs people are talking about are unfinished and need some sort of effort like that before we can have a production plant.
As EO I shall place you in charge of prototyping new reactors. Happy now?
That is a major reason why you should never switch purely to nuclear as base load and exclude other options and have to insist they stand on their own merits.
I believe I mentioned shutting down coal, oil, and natural gas. I know I mentioned continued expansion of wind and solar. I mentioned nothing about shutting down hyrdo and geothermal.
If we develop an energy source cheaper that's nonpolluting and as consistant as nuclear, sure I'll switch to it. It's just that solar and wind is nowhere close from what I've seen.
The other major thing is that it is really the peak loads that are driving the construction of new plants now so power sources that do not supply base load are looking more attractive
With upcoming technologies that look to be going commercial, such as PHEVs, we're looking at a lot more battery storage in the hands of individuals. If, for example, everybody has a 10kw/h PHEV, we'd be able to level power demand substantially.
and the excess power is handled nicely at this point by things like pump storage reservoirs and charging industries with large motors less money to run them at night (these things also help correct the phase at night) and your ideas also work (is desalination reverse osmosis through membranes with the power input being a lot of pump motors? If so, perfect to run at night).
There's a number of ways to run a desalination plant, heck you can even run a distilling plant on something of a demand basis. The specific technology doesn't really matter to me, the reason I give desalination as an example is that there are looming water crisises in various areas of the country. Desalination, by whatever means, requires power. Well, with an increased baseload capacity we have the power at various times of the day, might as well use it for something useful. As I'm a humble EO, I don't re
Simple answer: Like hung electric lines, they're built to take the stress. Slack is left in the cable, and only enough is pulled up to make the repair. You don't have to pull the whole thing up, just a couple thousand feet, depending on depth. Oh, and water bouyancy would help too.
and they enjoyed it there.
Yeah, well give them a few minutes. Now, I don't know the situation, but if it was windy, they were probably warmer in the snow banks because they were out of the wind than those who continued to stand out on the runway.
If you're thinking of doing this yourself, instead of a battery backup you might want to check into a backup generator. Do research on both, then you can decide which one makes more sense for you to use.
I'm thinking about both, but the instant nature of the battery is compelling, especially since I heat with propane, thus the electrical need for my furnace is mostly just for the fan. Then again, the continous nature of the generator is nice, and a tank of fuel can provide a whole lot more energy than a row of batteries.
If I do set up a windmill, the battery packs would make more sense, since I'd only need the batteries/generator for slow days. It's either that or get a expensive autostart generator system.
Dianne Feinstein has a long history of being in the pockets of media industry, Time Warner and Disney in particular.
I view this as just one reason that Feinstein tops my list of 'most hated senator'.
For reasons 1-3, just take a look at my sig, then consider that despite being one of the most anti-gun senators, Feinstein was a holder of one of the few CCW permits issued in her district.
Yeah, it's a good idea to talk to neighbers who have erected and uses a tower and wind gennie, windmill. At least get an idea of how their system is doing.
That's the thing. Haven't seen any neighbors with them. Still, while we have some still days, most days and nights we have wind at a pretty good clip.
Somebody has to be first, and ND has a 15% rebate(spread over 5 years) for them. Since I already have electric service, I'd probably go with the connected, though a battery system for critical stuff(like the furnace) is in planning.
One problem you run into up here is that many things don't like working at -30.
That's what's good about net metering such as in California. While the owner is at work during the day, thier solar system is producing electricity which is sold to the utility, then when they get home and use electricity, they get it from the utility. To tell the truth though, instead of net metering I prefer to see the meter dial spinning backwards. Net metering doesn't offset use kilowatt used with a kilowatt produced, you actually get less back from selling energy than you pay for energy. When the meter spins backward though it is one for one.
I just looked it up, they have net metering here in ND. And it's effectivly the meter spinning backwards thing. The only costs you'll encounter is a service fee for the hookup(like $2/month). After that it's Energy used - energy provided, resulting in a bill for excess used at the standard rates. If you have a negative number, they purchase it from you, though at a lower rate(basically what they pay their suppliers), which is reasonable because they still have to maintain the lines.
Quick question: Without looking it up, Which happened first: Chernobyl or TMI?
Second - the capital cost is immense so you really have no choice other than living with your design for half a century unless it is ridulously dangerous - so a bit of extra time to develop a decent design is worth it. We have had a lot of time - however while lobby money is set a couple of orders of magnitude above R&D money there is no reason to design something that works any better and a lot of reasons for very bad decisions to occur.
Sure, it's immense. However, with your reasoning we end up with a problem that there's always something better on the horizon, so nothing ever gets built. It's like my computer. I could go out and buy a better one for ~$500 today(Orig:$1.5k), but if I wait another six months... A computer or a car costs about as much for me as a power plant costs a country/big business. And yes, I'm waiting for both, hoping for car companies to start bringing good diesel cars to the USA, for next-gen hybrid, etc... Then again, my car and computer are not even five years old. The USA is doing the equivalent of tooling around in a car from the 1970's. There would be substantial benefits to upgrading NOW, with existing gen-IV designs.
As EO, each year I'd have a committe sit down and find the 'worst 10' plants and earmark them for replacement. Then have a committee conduct a re-assement of available technologies and plant designs every 5 years or so. That way we have at least 60 more or less matching plants to help keep maintenance costs down*. When a decision to change designs is made(I expect major changes to only come along every 15-20 years), we first build 1 plant and 9 old style designs, then 3/7, 6/4, then all new. If we encounter a 'white-elephant' design we stay in the prototyping stage and select a new design, if none offer themselves we go back to the old design. Kinda like how 747's are still made today. The white elephant plant probably ends up on the replacement list sooner, or development is ceased and we start 11 plants the next year.
Not only do we have a lot of matching plants, they're of varying ages, so when the prototype plant has a problem, we can fix the problem before it becomes an issue in the younger plants. The prototype plants(first ten) would be expected to have more problems as a result, and would thus undergo a more rigourous inspection schedule. They'd also likely be the first to be replaced when production ceases on them, so we could almost coast with known issues for the rest of the plants.
Now, once we've closed down all the coal and oil plants, and probably even some of the NG plants, we can probably slow down new construction a bit. I'd use a 20 year yardstick. 'Will this pay off, on average, in 20 years if I build a new plant?' Why 20? Well, that's when we can guess substantial gains in tech will be made and we might be looking at replacing the replacement plant.
As for handling the excess power(I'd be increasing baseload capacity substantially), well, cut rate power for PHEVs, desalination plants that can work on demand, etc...
*sharing the development costs for refits and maintenance can save quite a bit of money.
Guess what? Most "normal people" don't care about the size of their computer chips, and if you're designing them, you can afford to learn the metric system.
.5 gallons left?'. I note that I'm getting low and I fill it up.
Agreed.
It might be better if we were using the metric system today, but there's simply no particularly compelling reason to expend the effort and money. Unless it becomes worthwhile for the average person to use metric, that's not going to change.
To elaborate, I purchase gasoline by the gallon. I 'know' I have a 10 gallon tank with some change, but I don't ever worry about 'Do I have 1 or
I buy milk by the gallon, which happens to be a nice size that I can easily pick up and use up before it spoils, but lasts around a week. Sure, I could buy a '4 liter' package of milk, but why change? The only reason I'd need to worry about quarts and pints is if I'm doing some extreme cooking, and most of the time I'd simply buy an extra gallon. When I have a cup of milk to drink, I don't exactly measure it much.
We're taught the metric system in school, especially if you take any scientific classes.
The scientific equipment is all marked in liters, we use grams and mL. Measurements are done in centigrade and meters and such...
It's just that we 'remember' that a comfortable room temperature is 65-70F, the speedlimit is 25mph in a school zone, and it's 67 miles to grandma's house.
And really, how often do we go around converting between units in everyday life?
Isn't that about what the shuttle mover gets? I mean the big thing that takes the completed assembly(shuttle, tank and boosters) out to the launch pad.
They may be an additional expense but unless they not properly maintained they only need to be replaced every 10 to 20 years.
It's still a great big honkin expense compared to a $20/month utility bill.
I figured it out from a couple of websites about six months ago, the systems only made sense in a few spots of Texas/Nevada with extremely high average sun levels. Grid connected made more sense, because with most systems you can sell power back to the utility during the day and buy it at night. With a little finagling you could even get your power cheaper because daytime prices tend to be higher than night prices.
Also, though I didn't mention it earlier as I just now recalled, the expenses of putting in a solar or wind system can be used to offset income taxes. DSIRE has a db of the incentives each state offers. There is also a federal incentive tax credit, though I don't recall if that one has elapsed yet or when it does elapse.
I usually don't count these, because they're a distortion of the marketplace. You see, if it made true economic sense, people would be rushing out to do it themselves, without needing any subsidies. Basically I'll count them in personal make/break decisions, but when I'm doing generic figuring to determine whether the system as a whole is economically viable I don't.
Still, I have some land now, it's time to look into putting up a windmill. Better ask the neighbors what they think, though.
In Africa one or more NGOs are going into small villages where they setup solar panels and battery backups to power lights, radios, refrigs, small tvs, and such. The lights allow children to read and do homework for school while it's dark.
These are cases where solar/wind power makes sense, because A: it's not hooked up to a grid and B: it's hard to get supplies and C: power deman isn't great. The only alternatives would be gasoline or diesel generators, and those get expensive to operate quick. Heck, I worked in an area where the fire alarms were solar powered. I see solar powered road signs all the time. They make sense. Powering a city with 1st world usage patterns doesn't.
The website I link to above has a battery that's 6V, 400AH, 7 yr. warranty, estimated 15 yr. life for $199. While it's amp/hours is a little less it costs about $100 less, so it's $83 per kw/hour and has a better warranty. I'm sure if a person looks they can find better deals.
What is the 4-KS-21P? It's a battery rated for extreme deep cycle operations. I used it because it didn't state '7 year lifespan'(at an unknown usage pattern), it's rated at 3,200 50% power cycles.
Oh, I'll admit that batteries have improved, it's just that they're still an additional expense over just generating the power. I've looked at the systems myself.
many armchair nuclear advocates are unaware of this and think the reactors run on magic beans and not a very energy intensive enrichment process
The cost of obtaining the uranium and setting it up to be a fuel process, while incredibly expensive per ton, has the advantage that a 1GW light water reactor will only go through about 160 tons of it a year. While extremely expensive, compared to the amount of power generated it's considered an insignificant expense. Consider that a coal plant can go through 10,000 tons of coal a day in comparison.
but it is certainly not carbon neutral as many liars have been saying - in the long run it is lower on carbon than even natural gas turbines but the zero emissions claim is false.
Again, where did I claim that it was carbon neutral?
There is work on using more plentiful fuels which don't require as intensive a process (accelerated thorium reactors) which can even be supplimented by unprocessed high grade waste and weapons material - but it is still not at a commercial state.
Just like fusion isn't possible today. My point is that we have all these extremely dirty and nasty coal power plants in operation today, that release all sorts of nasty chemicals into the enviroment every day. At least the nuclear industry keeps ahold of them*. Besides, enriching fuel to the point that a nuclear reactor can use it is a far simpler business than creating weapons grade stuff.
All these plants are designed with a limited lifespan in mind, and are set up to be decommisioned at some point. We keep extending their lifespan because nobody's been able to get through the red tape to build new plants. What I'm proposing is building enough nuclear stations to shut down all the dirty coal ones, then replace the old nuclear stations.
Sure, by the time we get to shutting down the gen1 and 2 reactors in operation now we may be building pebble beds, thorium plants, proton beam, whatever. But power plants work on a decades long cycle. Even if we magically cracked practical power generation using fusion tomorrow, I'd be willing to bet that there would still be fission and coal plants in operation 40 years from now, lacking a concerted replacement effort.
Say I, as EO, instituted a massive building effort resulting in the construction of 10 1GW replacement stations per year. It'd still take 26 years before the last coal plant was shut down. Figure increases and growth and it'd be closer to 30, even with continued expansion of wind and solar.
here I'm really talking about nuclear power plants for civilian use anyway, which is still not in a highly developed state. Building a lot of dinosaur plants would be an economic disaster for all apart from a few profiteers leeching off the state - let these nuclear companies with no changes in decades design something decent first.
What do you mean 'not in a highly developed state'? While it's true that no new plants have been built in the USA for decades, many have been built around the world. New plants have been built in China, Korea, Japan, France, etc... Besides the pebble bed reactors, we have 4th gen light water reactors that compete favorably with the design.
Building a lot of dinosaur plants would be an economic disaster for all apart from a few profiteers leeching off the state - let these nuclear companies with no changes in decades design something decent first.
Like I've said, I wouldn't be building dinosaur plants(coal). We need more power. Heck, Texas is pushing for building 10 new GW coal plants. I'd rather they built nuclear, much cleaner. And the whole no changes in decades is false. While progress has been stalled in the USA, it has progressed elsewhere in the world. New technologies have been developed, but to impliment them would require construction of new plants, and that hasn't been politically possible in the USA for decades.
*Not