You're not going to get an argument from me that coal is bad. It is a shit industry, they don't want to change and you already know my opinions, based in knowledge of the appropriate bills, how and why the nuclear industry is still, like all of us, beholden to coal and oil.
I think you need to lay off the oil-nuclear conspiracy theories. And yes, that's what I'd relate them as. Nuclear has historically been a baseload electrical power source, with Oil only being used for emergency power(including at nuclear plants) in most areas. In the previous thread where you posted more on this, I was seriously off-put by your allegations.
'Coal' opposing nuclear is more understandable, but it's important to remember that coal isn't a single entity - and they're actually more in bed with each other than being opponents. A lot of coal power plant owners also own interests in nuclear.
You also know that I think Nuclear *could* be better if we could get past all of the people who think they are supporting it, but in reality are preventing it from evolving a safety culture. It needs to be divorced from private industry's profit motivation and moved into the domain of government where it can be managed with the same type of safety culture that exists in military installations.
You do realize that 1/3 of the major nuclear disasters was from a government controlled nuclear plant? If you go below 'catastrophic' and look at the behavior of government controlled plants, you'll find that their record is actually much worse than the commercial plants. That includes the USA and USSR.
Consider that for commercial plants that an accident means lost money, huge amounts of it. There's plenty of incentives to be safe.
Also, I've worked on military installations. 'Safety Culture'? We're not really any better than private industry. Also, consider that the USA hasn't had a major disaster since TMI, which is when we went through and drastically increased safety requirements, instituting drastically altered safety protocols. Defense in depth, automatic safety systems, etc...
Well, I think you need to read my comments about IAEA and WHO [slashdot.org] however I see that it has already been modded down, perhaps the facts are a little too confrontational. It doesn't matter - the real conversation about Nuclear power is always at -1 here at/.
Looked at that post. First, your citation as to the hazards of DU consists solely of a heart-string tugging google image search. In short, at best you have some coorelation there, but also a lot of images of birth defects that have nothing to do with Iraq, photoshopped images, fakes, and normal birth defects that happen in any population, especially when nutrition isn't that great and pre-natal care is relatively primitive. And you complained about me posting a yahoo news link?
Your second reference, which you claim supports a death toll of ~980k, doesn't say so at all. I see references of 4,000-93,000, the latter by greenpeace, which I've read as having problems since they pushed out most of their more scientific members.
What I could find of your higher figure, I see a number of issues that make me rate it as 'uncredible'. Consider global warming research - there are still papers written and published that deny it's existence, they're just not credible. To be blunt, it seems that they're counting 'all cancers' where another cause, such as smoking, isn't identified.
As for killing less than solar, I think it is clear that that is a contrived situation.
Contrived, how? Dead is dead, whether it's by radiation leak, lung cancer fr
I remember reading an article on this. It's something of a mixed bag - some are indeed effectively calling card companies, leaving all admin up to the prison itself, but normally providing kickbacks to the prison.
In other cases, by contract they provide a 'complete service'. IE they own and are responsible for the 'complete' system. The prison officials are probably only in charge of authorizing phone numbers. IE signing that XYZ numbers are allowed for prisoner 123. The company provides(and maintains) the phones, phone lines, phone booths(for what privacy prisoners get), etc... If a phone breaks they're the ones responsible for fixing it.
Nuclear and Coal are as bad as each other and Nuclear is worse in ways we still don't fully comprehend.
I'd argue that Coal is worse, and worse in ways that we still don't fully comprehend. We understand the problems with nuclear power pretty well, including that it kills fewer people per MWh than solar.
Remember, most of the dangerous byproducts from a coal plant don't break down, and aren't all that well contained. Nuclear power waste is at least contained.
Look, you're holding the two - Uber and Taxi companies, to different standards.
Uber's approach is quite simple. Drop below a 4.3 or so out of 5 stars rating, and Uber stops offering you fares. If you're a taxi driver and a customer calls central about you, odds are you'll never hear about it, nor be affected.
One of the common things about Uber reviews - from people using the service, is that Uber drivers are much nicer and cleaner than taxi drivers. Ergo, Uber's filter system works. If you get a surly uber driver, odds are they're either new or having a really bad day. Cab drivers, meanwhile, can be that way every day.
The point is, no one is going to want to do expensive repairs on Uber money.
Then they either buy a new vehicle if it's cheaper than fixing their current one, or they stop driving for Uber. Failing to complete rides because yours is defective quickly DQ's you from driving for Uber.
I'd also like a citation on dodge trannies being made from plastic. I already know that, used properly, plastics are stronger than metal, so some sort of citation that trannies aren't lasting as long as they used to would be nice.
My evidence is the climbing number of miles on the average car on the road. Vehicles are lasting longer than ever. Heck, warranties have climbed rather extensively since I was young.
Drivetrains are not generally safety items. They're a reliability item, and I've seen plenty of taxis stuck by the side of the road after failing. The problem with an unreliable drivetrain is that if it fails while you have a customer, not only do you have to get another taxi to get them to their destination, you're paying for it.
Having to replace the drive train is due to the number of miles driven, nothing more, and it's generally not required as much as you might think, assuming regular maintenance is done, because drive trains produced today are far more durable than in the past.
Also, how do you 'patch' a drive train in an unsafe manner?
If uber vehicles become unsafe, well, then somebody will probably rise to compete against them on that metric.
I recommend reading the link. It beats my example of hauling generators and gasoline all to heck.
$8/bag for ice might be high. But I'm willing to bet that the yahoos in the story ended up exonerated, might even have ended up forcing the police to pay for arresting them and ruining their 'product' by allowing it to melt.
Why? Simple enough - add their expenses up.
They paid $1.75/bag. They didn't get it for the cents normally charged, they paid retail. They also didn't produce the ice on site - they rented a refrigerated truck. Add that expense, as well as the gasoline. They had to chainsaw roads clear - add that expense as well. Consider themselves, well, as not just register monkeys*, but qualified chainsaw wielding drivers. The hours required to drive to the area.
$8/bag probably seems reasonable after adding all that up, probably with them earning darn near minimum wage.
*Nothing against those that run registers, but somebody with both a CDL and the ability to work a large chainsaw competently is a skillset that demands higher wages.
A uniform price no matter the supply or demand is not fair to anyone. For if there's low demand for the supply of taxis, then you're overpaying.
Take something like generators. Without price controls, I'm tempted to buy a bunch of generators, gas cans, and such. Load them into my truck and trailer, and drive to wherever the latest disaster is and sell them at a 100% markup.
"Unfair to the consumer!" cries the socialist, who doesn't realize that if I'm NOT allowed to mark up the generators 100%, it's not worth my time, gasoline to drive down there, and the risk that the electrical outages won't be as severe as predicted, or people not as dependent, such that I can't sell my generators. Or perhaps I get robbed. Sure, I'm a money-grubbing capitalist with that markup.
But consider this - if people value their having electricity such that they're willing to pay $400 on a $200 generator to get electricity back NOW, they consider that a good trade. The profit lures me into taking the risk.
The socialist alternative is that those people who weren't smart enough to buy a generator earlier don't get power at all. Or that it amounts to a lottery for who manages to get what few generators are available at the original prices in the local area.
Let a gas station charge 'surge' pricing during a disaster, and they're likely to install measures so they can keep selling even when the power is out. A big diesel generator, perhaps. Without that, they don't bother, and you can't get service at all. Hell, maybe they fly fuel in if they can't truck it. Etc...
To bring this back to Uber and their surge pricing. Boost the price during a surge and those that value the service less won't use it. Perhaps they walk home, or take the bus instead. Because the drivers get more money as well, it's like paying overtime - that retired gent who only works 10 hours/week for some company turns around and puts in a few more hours at the higher rates. The higher price increases supply and reduces demand, helping balance the two so there isn't a shortage.
The Uber cellphone could certainly act sort of like a standard taxi meter, calculating total distance traveled during a trip, but instead it does the equivalent of calling up a central office and having somebody determine from a map an estimated driving time and distance to plug into a formula to determine the appropriate charge. The passenger knows the total cost of the trip when they book it. It's a lot like some transport companies - 'trip from hotel X to the airport? $30'.
Remember, terminologies vary by country and even city. In NYC, Uber is mostly a 'black car' service, just more responsive. They do not qualify as taxis, and they deliberately take actions to avoid being called taxis, at least in NYC.
Nobody here has done it yet, but I have seen posters ripping Uber for not doing x or y, like having meters, saying not having them makes them not taxis, then saying that they should be following the taxi rules...
You have to read the GDC to understand why the regulations are in place. They exist for a reason and sometimes you have to go and research things yourself to gain the knowledge. For example, you might download EPA data and query it to find out something about the Nuclear Industries CFC emissions. The data is available, it just isn't packaged and you have to be prepared to do the work yourself.
You do realize that this is basically what asking for a citation means, right? You can't just say 'go find it yourself'. If you write a scientific paper, you'd cite the paper and page you got the information from. You make an assertions, you might be asked to back it up. I'm actually fine with backing my assertions up, at least when I have time.
Still, on emissions - there's a difference between what you wrote, along the lines of 'allowed to release radioactive gasses every two weeks', which implies that they were just opening reactor vents every two weeks, allowing the gasses to go directly to the atmosphere, and what the patent you linked to(thank you, very enlightening), which reveals that while systems vary, they're actually trapping said gasses in non-emergency situations for at least 30 days. Which is very much NOT just releasing to the atmosphere in normal operations, which is what you implied, and why I was getting antsy about sources.
As for providing links better than yahoo news, I do that when I can. Proving a negative is hard.
As for AP-1000 vs EPR, I already did the calculations, which I posted. Basically, the EPR is rated at more accidents per plant year, but only slightly. Because the EPR is a more powerful reactor though, by anticipated energy production it'd actually have slightly fewer accidents. Note the use of 'slight'. The EPR is not significantly safer than the AP1000, and vice versa.
Both are at around 1% as likely to have an accident involving radiation release as the current legacy reactors, which are generally e-5 on accidents, rather than e-7.
AP1000 vs EPR: Per wiki the AP1000 has a core damage frequency of 5.09e-7 per plant years, EPR is rated at 6.1e-7 per plant year. So by that metric they're both neck and neck (e-7), with the AP1000 having a slight lead over the EPR. The EPR is about 50% more powerful though, so on a per kWh basis it's a touch safer, as you'd need 3 APs to replace 2 EPR. You're still very close though.
As far as asking me to provide citations, let's see: Reactors not venting: Conceded. However, I'll maintain that under normal operation, said venting doesn't appear to be on a '2 week schedule', and is very much a processed release, where the gasses are contained and absorbed until the radioactivity has time to die down. If you had expressed it in this fashion, I wouldn't have been so confrontational about it. Also, you were the one saying they vent, which is why I placed the onus on you. Proving a positive is also easier than proving a negative.
Which brings us back to the point I originally made that the AP-1000 incorporates none of the design changes the industry *itself* recommends be applied to reactor facility design for NEW plants.
Dude, the wiki, westinghouse's site, etc... All mention extensive safety systems, including how they've changed some things up to improve safety - things like relying on gravity rather than pumps, because gravit
$30M to install? I'm seeing roughly $600k, at $25k per pop, per building.
The thing to remember about commercial building electric rates is that you not only pay a charge based on electrical usage, but also a 'peak power demand' surcharge. By reducing any peaks in power usage, it saves money on their bills.
If it saves anywhere near $1M/year, a roughly $1M investment is a foolish bargain to refuse.
Hydrogen adsorption materials increase range, but do so at the cost of consuming energy (at some stage or another) and increasing system mass.
Indeed. When I looked at the issue, I kept running into the fact that in order to store a useful amount of hydrogen in a useful volume you end up back with low energy density by mass - because the high pressure tank weighs so much, and using absorption materials, as you say, only increase the mass by even more.
Hydrogen was mostly dropped when Lithium-Ion battery technology didn't hit any road blocks. There's no critical show-stoppers for Lithium battery technology(and I'm being vague here because there's a range of chemistries and techniques here) except cost, and even that's been dropping.
Efficiency: Charge efficiency for Lithium tends to be excellent, in the 90% range. Energy by mass: While taking about the same volume as a lead-acid battery of the same capacity, it's something like 20% of the weight Current capacity: It's capable of discharging fast Discharge tolerance: It's fine with being discharged to near empty.
For legibility purposes, due to 'higher' being vague, I'd suggest using words like 'stricter' and 'looser'. A strict standard would require less of what's bad, and more of what's good. A 'Higher' standard for something like NOx could mean more is allowed to be emitted, ie the level allowed is higher, or that less is allowed, because the standard itself is 'higher'.
Which is higher: 60mg/km, or 20mg/mile of NOx?
US has, currently, stricter standards for NOx, especially given that the latest US revision dropped them by an order of magnitude. the 60 and 20 were pulled from memory.
1. AP1000 = Gen3, Gen3 != AP1000, though good catch, I did say gen3. Though I'll note that was in a different reply chain.
That's where the 'authorized' ventings are defined. All NPPs vent radio-isotopes into the atmosphere every 2 weeks during normal operations, because they need to. That is a fact of operating the technology.
No, they don't. Venting steam(from the primary loop) is an Emergency event. Citation that they actually vent that often, not that they are merely 'allowed' to. I've searched, and it's not mentioned that I found.
You keep asking me for citations, why? Do you think I am bullshitting you? What does it mean that I provide it? Will you correct your assumptions against this new knowledge or maintain your assuptions in face of the fact?
What I do depends on the qualities of the citations. For example, you haven't provided a source that says NPPs actually vent radioisotopes every two weeks, merely that they *can*. When I ask for citations, it's because from my knowledge it's different. I'm not saying you're lying, but I want to know the source of your knowledge.
No, they are not because you cannot retrofit improvements to a Nuclear reactor, the same way I can install a four valve head where there previously was a 2 valve head,
The scale is different, but you can sure can retrofit improvements into a nuclear reactor. Let's see, safety improvement available, but not installed for Fukushima: Hydrogen recombiners, otherwise known as PARS. From what I remember reading, US reactors have them, having been retrofitted decades ago. Quite a few reactors have been 'up rated', to the point that for quite a while we were actually producing more electricity and increasing nuclear capacity despite not actually building any new reactors, even shutting down a few. Many reactors have been upgraded with more efficient turbines.
Besides all that, you're missing the point I think - I'm not talking about retrofitting improvements, I'm talking about incorporating improvements into the design of NEW plants.
The "refinements' are made to reduce material input costs, specifically, concrete.
That's certainly part of it. Doesn't mean that the containment dome isn't still strong as all heck. They've also reduced the amount of pipping and valves needed, and otherwise simplified and made the systems more robust.
Unless you can provide your own citations you will find that AP1000 is the only one that is approved by law (also very interesting).
Emissions isn't their problem. It's the Mechanical Engineer's problem.
Actually, emissions are their problems as well. Consider that the emissions can be fixed by pure software changes. Much of the physical operation of the engine, specifically tuning for power, emissions, and fuel economy are done by the ECU, a computer running software.
In a gasoline engine, how much fuel do you feed to the air? When do you trigger the spark plugs, at what advance? In a diesel, when do you inject the fuel, and how much? Etc...
In modern cars, the software and mechanical engineers have to work closely together.
Fact of the matter is, providing comprehensive insurance as part of the package for buying a new car is actually a thing over in Europe. They're generally economy shitboxes that a person could probably stop with a hard shove, but a lot of new/bad drivers end up buying said new cars because it's the cheapest option - over even buying a used one because the insurance costs are so high otherwise.
Liability for a new driver overwhelms the expense of everything else. If the self-driving cars have half the *average* accident rate, it'll be an OOM better than the 'new driver' accident rate. So self-insuring will be quite affordable even without playing games.
After that, consider that once a person is used to using a self-driving car that it'll be like automatic transmissions in the USA. They'll tend to stick with self-driving. Successful upsale!
Only until it's noticed that said 'drivers' tend to not get in accidents they have to cover as often as even their best drivers. After that, the bidding war to steal the drivers with other companies starts.
There's too many insurance companies for it to not happen.
Lawyers will probably be lining up for contingency fees to go after the corp.
Assuming that Volvo does the 'smart' thing and retains an insurance company to act as a *processor* for claims, they might not be so ready to line up. Volvo would be able to show, in most cases at least, that a reasonable payment offer was extended. This tends to limit punitive damages, which is where they can really make their money.
At least until Volvo has enough self-driving cars to justify having their own claims office and people.
How long will your friend have a job if insurance companies only have to deal with a few car companies?
Given that he's a claims adjuster and not a salesman, his job should be fairly secure - he might have to scale back from 40 hours to 30 hours.
Remember, he's not just adjusting claims for on road accidents, but things like windshield repairs, vandalism, theft, etc...
For that matter, you might end up with an interesting split - liability is taken by Volvo for any damage caused by the car, including something like hitting a tree. It's still a good idea for the driver to pick up: Under/Uninsured Motorist, theft, non-moving accident, etc... IE the rest of the 'comprehensive' package.
Then again, you might end up with Volvo being a bit like GM once was - before it's bankruptcy GM had essentially turned into a loan company than happened to sell cars.
BTW, car makers/car dealers offering insurance coverage on the sale of new cars is not a new thing over in Europe. It's quite common for a young adult's first car to be a brand new econo-shitbox because the provided coverage makes it cheaper than anything else.
That still leaves a related question - why does US discussion of renewable energy focus on solar-electric 99% of the time, despite the fact that solar-electric is approximately the least efficient possible solution in most cases?
Personally, I'd go with "freedom" and "individuality". Solar panels are the green energy solution that can realistically be installed by the most people.
Take the power source in the op article. Wind. Wind turbines scale up well, down not so much. In order to be economical, you want to install a HUGE one. For solar panels you can pretty much start with 1 panel if you wanted, and it wouldn't even be that much more expensive per watt than 10 with modern micro-inverters. With wind you're looking at the cheapest cost per watt being a huge turbine reaching up over 100 feet and producing enough power for a dozen homes.
Fifteen gallons of hot water is plenty enough for a shower. Black pipe outside that's 8 feet long and 6" ID will provide that, no problem (at least in the southern half of the country, and northern summers). That costs $20.
You haven't priced out pipe lately, have you? 10' of 6" PVC runs $50, getting black CPVC(good for hot potable water) will be more expensive.
8' isn't really a standard length.
So why are we promoting having an electric water heater plugged into an inverter, which is connected to a big bank of batteries full of hazardous chemicals, which are connected to a charge controller, which is in turn connected to a bunch of solar-electric panels? Seriously WTF?
We aren't, that's your thing. A more common setup will be solar panels running a heat pump to cool the home, complete with a desuperheater, such that rather than exhaust all the heat outside, some ends up in a hot water tank. After that, you also have the option of a 'heat pump' type water heater that can pull heat in from the house.
Another thing to realize is that substantial numbers of people are also hooked up into natural gas and propane systems - so their hot water/heat is via that, not electricity. Heck, the only electricity I need for heat is to run the controls - my heat is oil(because I live so far north that propane might liquify...).
Reasonable, effective, efficient uses of solar, such as solar heating, don't get talked about because there's no billion-dollar grant program for that.
You can get a tax credit for installing a solar heating system just as easily as a solar electric. It's just that everything about heating is cheaper than electricity.
Speaking of renewables in the U.S. why is hydro never mentioned when discussing renewables?!
The problem with hydro is that it's tapped. Between domestic, industrial, and agricultural use, there's less water available than before. Due to environmentalism, dams are harder to place than ever. All the 'easy' spots have already been tapped.
The net result is that while hydro used to be just over 20% of our electric energy production, it's declined to about 17%, not because capacity has dropped, but because we've grown and it hasn't. Sort of like with nuclear plants, some extra power can be obtained by installing more efficient turbine systems and other efficiency improvements, but by and large, it's tapped.
In my standard non-carbon power mix, I put things at about 40% nuclear, 20% solar, 20% wind, and 20% 'other' including hydro. Which means that, realistically speaking, only 3-5% would be provided by things like geothermal, because hydro would make up the majority of the last 20%.
The TSA on the other should be laughed at when they request we spend $180 million to save a single life, when no one else thinks it is worth $10 million.
You make a good point here. Yes, this is where I was picturing the money to come from to help boost NHTSA's budget so that it starts valuing human life at more than half a million, which would save more lives than the TSA's expensive security theater. Every 200 million you pull out of the TSA should cost ~1 life, but put it into the NHTSA and you should save ~350.
Yes. This is primarily what is hurting the older technologies that have fixed costs, but also fuel costs. When the price of power drops the fossil fuel generators shut down as they are no longer economically viable, but their fixed costs still accumulate.
Actually, this tends to mean that power plants keep operating while overall financially nonviable because the price of power is above the marginal cost for the fossil plant to produce it, but below the fixed costs even at full output.
IE power might be selling for $0.10 per kWh, the marginal cost is $0.05 to produce, but they'd actually need $0.12 per kWh to break even on the fixed costs...
Interesting information. It can help explain why some actions are 'crazy' restrictive and others aren't. I do note that it's easier for the EPA to value human life high - they aren't the ones having to pay to fix the problems deemed necessary by their valuation. The NHTSA is much more likely to have to shell out.
For others - keep in mind that there are costs involved with valuing a human life higher, as well as valuing it 'too low'. For example, if the EPA valued human life at what the NHTSA uses, they wouldn't mandate as much in the way of pollution controls, and many things would be somewhat cheaper. For example, new cars might be $1k cheaper due to fewer pollution controls. On the other hand, because the NHTSA values life so low, dangerous road conditions tend to not be fixed as quickly, leading to more fatal car accidents.
Some other valuations: FAA: $6M DOT: $6M OHSA: $250k, at least for asbestos. Another figure commonly seen is $5M
I agree with you; it's probably better to make these valuations consistent than it is to worry about the exact dollar amount. The difference between 5 and 6 million dollars is probably minor even if it is a 20% difference.
Meanwhile, it might be a good idea to tell the EPA to back off a touch, while diverting funds into the NHTSA if it's determined that the reason why they value a life so low is because they don't have the funding available to address concerns that would be an issue if they valued it higher. IE they can address the problems that cost $550k per life saved, but they run out of budget before they hit $600k.
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You're not going to get an argument from me that coal is bad. It is a shit industry, they don't want to change and you already know my opinions, based in knowledge of the appropriate bills, how and why the nuclear industry is still, like all of us, beholden to coal and oil.
I think you need to lay off the oil-nuclear conspiracy theories. And yes, that's what I'd relate them as. Nuclear has historically been a baseload electrical power source, with Oil only being used for emergency power(including at nuclear plants) in most areas. In the previous thread where you posted more on this, I was seriously off-put by your allegations.
'Coal' opposing nuclear is more understandable, but it's important to remember that coal isn't a single entity - and they're actually more in bed with each other than being opponents. A lot of coal power plant owners also own interests in nuclear.
You also know that I think Nuclear *could* be better if we could get past all of the people who think they are supporting it, but in reality are preventing it from evolving a safety culture. It needs to be divorced from private industry's profit motivation and moved into the domain of government where it can be managed with the same type of safety culture that exists in military installations.
You do realize that 1/3 of the major nuclear disasters was from a government controlled nuclear plant? If you go below 'catastrophic' and look at the behavior of government controlled plants, you'll find that their record is actually much worse than the commercial plants. That includes the USA and USSR.
Consider that for commercial plants that an accident means lost money, huge amounts of it. There's plenty of incentives to be safe.
Also, I've worked on military installations. 'Safety Culture'? We're not really any better than private industry. Also, consider that the USA hasn't had a major disaster since TMI, which is when we went through and drastically increased safety requirements, instituting drastically altered safety protocols. Defense in depth, automatic safety systems, etc...
Well, I think you need to read my comments about IAEA and WHO [slashdot.org] however I see that it has already been modded down, perhaps the facts are a little too confrontational. It doesn't matter - the real conversation about Nuclear power is always at -1 here at /.
Looked at that post. First, your citation as to the hazards of DU consists solely of a heart-string tugging google image search. In short, at best you have some coorelation there, but also a lot of images of birth defects that have nothing to do with Iraq, photoshopped images, fakes, and normal birth defects that happen in any population, especially when nutrition isn't that great and pre-natal care is relatively primitive. And you complained about me posting a yahoo news link?
Your second reference, which you claim supports a death toll of ~980k, doesn't say so at all. I see references of 4,000-93,000, the latter by greenpeace, which I've read as having problems since they pushed out most of their more scientific members.
What I could find of your higher figure, I see a number of issues that make me rate it as 'uncredible'. Consider global warming research - there are still papers written and published that deny it's existence, they're just not credible. To be blunt, it seems that they're counting 'all cancers' where another cause, such as smoking, isn't identified.
As for killing less than solar, I think it is clear that that is a contrived situation.
Contrived, how? Dead is dead, whether it's by radiation leak, lung cancer fr
I remember reading an article on this. It's something of a mixed bag - some are indeed effectively calling card companies, leaving all admin up to the prison itself, but normally providing kickbacks to the prison.
In other cases, by contract they provide a 'complete service'. IE they own and are responsible for the 'complete' system. The prison officials are probably only in charge of authorizing phone numbers. IE signing that XYZ numbers are allowed for prisoner 123. The company provides(and maintains) the phones, phone lines, phone booths(for what privacy prisoners get), etc... If a phone breaks they're the ones responsible for fixing it.
Nuclear and Coal are as bad as each other and Nuclear is worse in ways we still don't fully comprehend.
I'd argue that Coal is worse, and worse in ways that we still don't fully comprehend. We understand the problems with nuclear power pretty well, including that it kills fewer people per MWh than solar.
Remember, most of the dangerous byproducts from a coal plant don't break down, and aren't all that well contained. Nuclear power waste is at least contained.
Look, you're holding the two - Uber and Taxi companies, to different standards.
Uber's approach is quite simple. Drop below a 4.3 or so out of 5 stars rating, and Uber stops offering you fares. If you're a taxi driver and a customer calls central about you, odds are you'll never hear about it, nor be affected.
One of the common things about Uber reviews - from people using the service, is that Uber drivers are much nicer and cleaner than taxi drivers. Ergo, Uber's filter system works. If you get a surly uber driver, odds are they're either new or having a really bad day. Cab drivers, meanwhile, can be that way every day.
The point is, no one is going to want to do expensive repairs on Uber money.
Then they either buy a new vehicle if it's cheaper than fixing their current one, or they stop driving for Uber. Failing to complete rides because yours is defective quickly DQ's you from driving for Uber.
I'd also like a citation on dodge trannies being made from plastic. I already know that, used properly, plastics are stronger than metal, so some sort of citation that trannies aren't lasting as long as they used to would be nice.
My evidence is the climbing number of miles on the average car on the road. Vehicles are lasting longer than ever. Heck, warranties have climbed rather extensively since I was young.
Downrate the unclean, non-trustworthy incompetent drivers and they'll soon be gone via Uber's system.
No such filter exists for most taxi companies.
Drivetrains are not generally safety items. They're a reliability item, and I've seen plenty of taxis stuck by the side of the road after failing. The problem with an unreliable drivetrain is that if it fails while you have a customer, not only do you have to get another taxi to get them to their destination, you're paying for it.
Having to replace the drive train is due to the number of miles driven, nothing more, and it's generally not required as much as you might think, assuming regular maintenance is done, because drive trains produced today are far more durable than in the past.
Also, how do you 'patch' a drive train in an unsafe manner?
If uber vehicles become unsafe, well, then somebody will probably rise to compete against them on that metric.
I recommend reading the link. It beats my example of hauling generators and gasoline all to heck.
$8/bag for ice might be high. But I'm willing to bet that the yahoos in the story ended up exonerated, might even have ended up forcing the police to pay for arresting them and ruining their 'product' by allowing it to melt.
Why? Simple enough - add their expenses up.
They paid $1.75/bag. They didn't get it for the cents normally charged, they paid retail.
They also didn't produce the ice on site - they rented a refrigerated truck. Add that expense, as well as the gasoline.
They had to chainsaw roads clear - add that expense as well.
Consider themselves, well, as not just register monkeys*, but qualified chainsaw wielding drivers. The hours required to drive to the area.
$8/bag probably seems reasonable after adding all that up, probably with them earning darn near minimum wage.
*Nothing against those that run registers, but somebody with both a CDL and the ability to work a large chainsaw competently is a skillset that demands higher wages.
A uniform price no matter the supply or demand is not fair to anyone. For if there's low demand for the supply of taxis, then you're overpaying.
Take something like generators. Without price controls, I'm tempted to buy a bunch of generators, gas cans, and such. Load them into my truck and trailer, and drive to wherever the latest disaster is and sell them at a 100% markup.
"Unfair to the consumer!" cries the socialist, who doesn't realize that if I'm NOT allowed to mark up the generators 100%, it's not worth my time, gasoline to drive down there, and the risk that the electrical outages won't be as severe as predicted, or people not as dependent, such that I can't sell my generators. Or perhaps I get robbed. Sure, I'm a money-grubbing capitalist with that markup.
But consider this - if people value their having electricity such that they're willing to pay $400 on a $200 generator to get electricity back NOW, they consider that a good trade. The profit lures me into taking the risk.
The socialist alternative is that those people who weren't smart enough to buy a generator earlier don't get power at all. Or that it amounts to a lottery for who manages to get what few generators are available at the original prices in the local area.
Let a gas station charge 'surge' pricing during a disaster, and they're likely to install measures so they can keep selling even when the power is out. A big diesel generator, perhaps. Without that, they don't bother, and you can't get service at all. Hell, maybe they fly fuel in if they can't truck it. Etc...
To bring this back to Uber and their surge pricing. Boost the price during a surge and those that value the service less won't use it. Perhaps they walk home, or take the bus instead. Because the drivers get more money as well, it's like paying overtime - that retired gent who only works 10 hours/week for some company turns around and puts in a few more hours at the higher rates. The higher price increases supply and reduces demand, helping balance the two so there isn't a shortage.
The Uber cellphone could certainly act sort of like a standard taxi meter, calculating total distance traveled during a trip, but instead it does the equivalent of calling up a central office and having somebody determine from a map an estimated driving time and distance to plug into a formula to determine the appropriate charge. The passenger knows the total cost of the trip when they book it. It's a lot like some transport companies - 'trip from hotel X to the airport? $30'.
Remember, terminologies vary by country and even city. In NYC, Uber is mostly a 'black car' service, just more responsive. They do not qualify as taxis, and they deliberately take actions to avoid being called taxis, at least in NYC.
Nobody here has done it yet, but I have seen posters ripping Uber for not doing x or y, like having meters, saying not having them makes them not taxis, then saying that they should be following the taxi rules...
You have to read the GDC to understand why the regulations are in place. They exist for a reason and sometimes you have to go and research things yourself to gain the knowledge. For example, you might download EPA data and query it to find out something about the Nuclear Industries CFC emissions. The data is available, it just isn't packaged and you have to be prepared to do the work yourself.
You do realize that this is basically what asking for a citation means, right? You can't just say 'go find it yourself'. If you write a scientific paper, you'd cite the paper and page you got the information from. You make an assertions, you might be asked to back it up. I'm actually fine with backing my assertions up, at least when I have time.
Still, on emissions - there's a difference between what you wrote, along the lines of 'allowed to release radioactive gasses every two weeks', which implies that they were just opening reactor vents every two weeks, allowing the gasses to go directly to the atmosphere, and what the patent you linked to(thank you, very enlightening), which reveals that while systems vary, they're actually trapping said gasses in non-emergency situations for at least 30 days. Which is very much NOT just releasing to the atmosphere in normal operations, which is what you implied, and why I was getting antsy about sources.
As for providing links better than yahoo news, I do that when I can. Proving a negative is hard.
As for AP-1000 vs EPR, I already did the calculations, which I posted. Basically, the EPR is rated at more accidents per plant year, but only slightly. Because the EPR is a more powerful reactor though, by anticipated energy production it'd actually have slightly fewer accidents. Note the use of 'slight'. The EPR is not significantly safer than the AP1000, and vice versa.
Both are at around 1% as likely to have an accident involving radiation release as the current legacy reactors, which are generally e-5 on accidents, rather than e-7.
Man, too a bit to find
AP1000 vs EPR: Per wiki the AP1000 has a core damage frequency of 5.09e-7 per plant years, EPR is rated at 6.1e-7 per plant year. So by that metric they're both neck and neck (e-7), with the AP1000 having a slight lead over the EPR. The EPR is about 50% more powerful though, so on a per kWh basis it's a touch safer, as you'd need 3 APs to replace 2 EPR. You're still very close though.
As far as asking me to provide citations, let's see:
Reactors not venting: Conceded. However, I'll maintain that under normal operation, said venting doesn't appear to be on a '2 week schedule', and is very much a processed release, where the gasses are contained and absorbed until the radioactivity has time to die down. If you had expressed it in this fashion, I wouldn't have been so confrontational about it. Also, you were the one saying they vent, which is why I placed the onus on you. Proving a positive is also easier than proving a negative.
Planes not being a threat to even AP1000 domes - Analysis of Nuclear Power Plants Shows Aircraft Crash Would Not Breach Structures Housing Reactor Fuel.
Which brings us back to the point I originally made that the AP-1000 incorporates none of the design changes the industry *itself* recommends be applied to reactor facility design for NEW plants.
Dude, the wiki, westinghouse's site, etc... All mention extensive safety systems, including how they've changed some things up to improve safety - things like relying on gravity rather than pumps, because gravit
$30M to install? I'm seeing roughly $600k, at $25k per pop, per building.
The thing to remember about commercial building electric rates is that you not only pay a charge based on electrical usage, but also a 'peak power demand' surcharge. By reducing any peaks in power usage, it saves money on their bills.
If it saves anywhere near $1M/year, a roughly $1M investment is a foolish bargain to refuse.
Hydrogen adsorption materials increase range, but do so at the cost of consuming energy (at some stage or another) and increasing system mass.
Indeed. When I looked at the issue, I kept running into the fact that in order to store a useful amount of hydrogen in a useful volume you end up back with low energy density by mass - because the high pressure tank weighs so much, and using absorption materials, as you say, only increase the mass by even more.
Hydrogen was mostly dropped when Lithium-Ion battery technology didn't hit any road blocks. There's no critical show-stoppers for Lithium battery technology(and I'm being vague here because there's a range of chemistries and techniques here) except cost, and even that's been dropping.
Efficiency: Charge efficiency for Lithium tends to be excellent, in the 90% range.
Energy by mass: While taking about the same volume as a lead-acid battery of the same capacity, it's something like 20% of the weight
Current capacity: It's capable of discharging fast
Discharge tolerance: It's fine with being discharged to near empty.
For legibility purposes, due to 'higher' being vague, I'd suggest using words like 'stricter' and 'looser'. A strict standard would require less of what's bad, and more of what's good. A 'Higher' standard for something like NOx could mean more is allowed to be emitted, ie the level allowed is higher, or that less is allowed, because the standard itself is 'higher'.
Which is higher: 60mg/km, or 20mg/mile of NOx?
US has, currently, stricter standards for NOx, especially given that the latest US revision dropped them by an order of magnitude. the 60 and 20 were pulled from memory.
1. AP1000 = Gen3, Gen3 != AP1000, though good catch, I did say gen3. Though I'll note that was in a different reply chain.
That's where the 'authorized' ventings are defined. All NPPs vent radio-isotopes into the atmosphere every 2 weeks during normal operations, because they need to. That is a fact of operating the technology.
No, they don't. Venting steam(from the primary loop) is an Emergency event. Citation that they actually vent that often, not that they are merely 'allowed' to. I've searched, and it's not mentioned that I found.
You keep asking me for citations, why? Do you think I am bullshitting you? What does it mean that I provide it? Will you correct your assumptions against this new knowledge or maintain your assuptions in face of the fact?
What I do depends on the qualities of the citations. For example, you haven't provided a source that says NPPs actually vent radioisotopes every two weeks, merely that they *can*. When I ask for citations, it's because from my knowledge it's different. I'm not saying you're lying, but I want to know the source of your knowledge.
No, they are not because you cannot retrofit improvements to a Nuclear reactor, the same way I can install a four valve head where there previously was a 2 valve head,
The scale is different, but you can sure can retrofit improvements into a nuclear reactor. Let's see, safety improvement available, but not installed for Fukushima: Hydrogen recombiners, otherwise known as PARS. From what I remember reading, US reactors have them, having been retrofitted decades ago. Quite a few reactors have been 'up rated', to the point that for quite a while we were actually producing more electricity and increasing nuclear capacity despite not actually building any new reactors, even shutting down a few. Many reactors have been upgraded with more efficient turbines.
Besides all that, you're missing the point I think - I'm not talking about retrofitting improvements, I'm talking about incorporating improvements into the design of NEW plants.
The "refinements' are made to reduce material input costs, specifically, concrete.
That's certainly part of it. Doesn't mean that the containment dome isn't still strong as all heck. They've also reduced the amount of pipping and valves needed, and otherwise simplified and made the systems more robust.
Unless you can provide your own citations you will find that AP1000 is the only one that is approved by law (also very interesting).
Not according to the NRC. There's quite a few certified.
ABWR, System80+, AP600, AP1000, ESBWR. Under review: US EPR, US-APWR, APR1400
These are the 'major' reactors. There are smaller power units around.
Emissions isn't their problem. It's the Mechanical Engineer's problem.
Actually, emissions are their problems as well. Consider that the emissions can be fixed by pure software changes. Much of the physical operation of the engine, specifically tuning for power, emissions, and fuel economy are done by the ECU, a computer running software.
In a gasoline engine, how much fuel do you feed to the air? When do you trigger the spark plugs, at what advance? In a diesel, when do you inject the fuel, and how much? Etc...
In modern cars, the software and mechanical engineers have to work closely together.
Fact of the matter is, providing comprehensive insurance as part of the package for buying a new car is actually a thing over in Europe. They're generally economy shitboxes that a person could probably stop with a hard shove, but a lot of new/bad drivers end up buying said new cars because it's the cheapest option - over even buying a used one because the insurance costs are so high otherwise.
Liability for a new driver overwhelms the expense of everything else. If the self-driving cars have half the *average* accident rate, it'll be an OOM better than the 'new driver' accident rate. So self-insuring will be quite affordable even without playing games.
After that, consider that once a person is used to using a self-driving car that it'll be like automatic transmissions in the USA. They'll tend to stick with self-driving. Successful upsale!
Only until it's noticed that said 'drivers' tend to not get in accidents they have to cover as often as even their best drivers. After that, the bidding war to steal the drivers with other companies starts.
There's too many insurance companies for it to not happen.
Lawyers will probably be lining up for contingency fees to go after the corp.
Assuming that Volvo does the 'smart' thing and retains an insurance company to act as a *processor* for claims, they might not be so ready to line up. Volvo would be able to show, in most cases at least, that a reasonable payment offer was extended. This tends to limit punitive damages, which is where they can really make their money.
At least until Volvo has enough self-driving cars to justify having their own claims office and people.
How long will your friend have a job if insurance companies only have to deal with a few car companies?
Given that he's a claims adjuster and not a salesman, his job should be fairly secure - he might have to scale back from 40 hours to 30 hours.
Remember, he's not just adjusting claims for on road accidents, but things like windshield repairs, vandalism, theft, etc...
For that matter, you might end up with an interesting split - liability is taken by Volvo for any damage caused by the car, including something like hitting a tree. It's still a good idea for the driver to pick up:
Under/Uninsured Motorist, theft, non-moving accident, etc... IE the rest of the 'comprehensive' package.
Then again, you might end up with Volvo being a bit like GM once was - before it's bankruptcy GM had essentially turned into a loan company than happened to sell cars.
BTW, car makers/car dealers offering insurance coverage on the sale of new cars is not a new thing over in Europe. It's quite common for a young adult's first car to be a brand new econo-shitbox because the provided coverage makes it cheaper than anything else.
That still leaves a related question - why does US discussion of renewable energy focus on solar-electric 99% of the time, despite the fact that solar-electric is approximately the least efficient possible solution in most cases?
Personally, I'd go with "freedom" and "individuality". Solar panels are the green energy solution that can realistically be installed by the most people.
Take the power source in the op article. Wind. Wind turbines scale up well, down not so much. In order to be economical, you want to install a HUGE one. For solar panels you can pretty much start with 1 panel if you wanted, and it wouldn't even be that much more expensive per watt than 10 with modern micro-inverters. With wind you're looking at the cheapest cost per watt being a huge turbine reaching up over 100 feet and producing enough power for a dozen homes.
Fifteen gallons of hot water is plenty enough for a shower. Black pipe outside that's 8 feet long and 6" ID will provide that, no problem (at least in the southern half of the country, and northern summers). That costs $20.
You haven't priced out pipe lately, have you? 10' of 6" PVC runs $50, getting black CPVC(good for hot potable water) will be more expensive.
8' isn't really a standard length.
So why are we promoting having an electric water heater plugged into an inverter, which is connected to a big bank of batteries full of hazardous chemicals, which are connected to a charge controller, which is in turn connected to a bunch of solar-electric panels? Seriously WTF?
We aren't, that's your thing. A more common setup will be solar panels running a heat pump to cool the home, complete with a desuperheater, such that rather than exhaust all the heat outside, some ends up in a hot water tank. After that, you also have the option of a 'heat pump' type water heater that can pull heat in from the house.
Another thing to realize is that substantial numbers of people are also hooked up into natural gas and propane systems - so their hot water/heat is via that, not electricity. Heck, the only electricity I need for heat is to run the controls - my heat is oil(because I live so far north that propane might liquify...).
Reasonable, effective, efficient uses of solar, such as solar heating, don't get talked about because there's no billion-dollar grant program for that.
You can get a tax credit for installing a solar heating system just as easily as a solar electric. It's just that everything about heating is cheaper than electricity.
Speaking of renewables in the U.S. why is hydro never mentioned when discussing renewables?!
The problem with hydro is that it's tapped. Between domestic, industrial, and agricultural use, there's less water available than before. Due to environmentalism, dams are harder to place than ever. All the 'easy' spots have already been tapped.
The net result is that while hydro used to be just over 20% of our electric energy production, it's declined to about 17%, not because capacity has dropped, but because we've grown and it hasn't. Sort of like with nuclear plants, some extra power can be obtained by installing more efficient turbine systems and other efficiency improvements, but by and large, it's tapped.
In my standard non-carbon power mix, I put things at about 40% nuclear, 20% solar, 20% wind, and 20% 'other' including hydro. Which means that, realistically speaking, only 3-5% would be provided by things like geothermal, because hydro would make up the majority of the last 20%.
The TSA on the other should be laughed at when they request we spend $180 million to save a single life, when no one else thinks it is worth $10 million.
You make a good point here. Yes, this is where I was picturing the money to come from to help boost NHTSA's budget so that it starts valuing human life at more than half a million, which would save more lives than the TSA's expensive security theater. Every 200 million you pull out of the TSA should cost ~1 life, but put it into the NHTSA and you should save ~350.
Yes. This is primarily what is hurting the older technologies that have fixed costs, but also fuel costs. When the price of power drops the fossil fuel generators shut down as they are no longer economically viable, but their fixed costs still accumulate.
Actually, this tends to mean that power plants keep operating while overall financially nonviable because the price of power is above the marginal cost for the fossil plant to produce it, but below the fixed costs even at full output.
IE power might be selling for $0.10 per kWh, the marginal cost is $0.05 to produce, but they'd actually need $0.12 per kWh to break even on the fixed costs...
Interesting information. It can help explain why some actions are 'crazy' restrictive and others aren't. I do note that it's easier for the EPA to value human life high - they aren't the ones having to pay to fix the problems deemed necessary by their valuation. The NHTSA is much more likely to have to shell out.
For others - keep in mind that there are costs involved with valuing a human life higher, as well as valuing it 'too low'. For example, if the EPA valued human life at what the NHTSA uses, they wouldn't mandate as much in the way of pollution controls, and many things would be somewhat cheaper. For example, new cars might be $1k cheaper due to fewer pollution controls. On the other hand, because the NHTSA values life so low, dangerous road conditions tend to not be fixed as quickly, leading to more fatal car accidents.
Some other valuations:
FAA: $6M
DOT: $6M
OHSA: $250k, at least for asbestos.
Another figure commonly seen is $5M
I agree with you; it's probably better to make these valuations consistent than it is to worry about the exact dollar amount. The difference between 5 and 6 million dollars is probably minor even if it is a 20% difference.
Meanwhile, it might be a good idea to tell the EPA to back off a touch, while diverting funds into the NHTSA if it's determined that the reason why they value a life so low is because they don't have the funding available to address concerns that would be an issue if they valued it higher. IE they can address the problems that cost $550k per life saved, but they run out of budget before they hit $600k.