I agree, it seems to be a 'liberal' thing - carbon credits, rather than a 'simple' carbon tax. Pollution trading, etc... Let's create MORE complex systems that don't really solve anything.
toilets and showers are less than 0.5% of the use, so low flow heads will do nothing.
yeah, low flow toilets and showers are, in most situations, more of a 'feel good' measure than a realistic one because farming and industry use even more water, proportionally, than they do electricity.
In electrical terms it's a bit like mandating LED lighting in refrigerators.
British Columbia recently instituted a tax on water drawn from wells. It's 'insignificant' for individual, but if you simply started charging for drawing industrial amounts of water from wells, as you increase the tax you'd quickly see conservation. More water efficient crops, more efficient watering methods, etc...
I mean, I'd imagine that putting greenhouses up over all the trees would be hugely expensive, but that would allow you to recycle the water at close to 100%efficiency.
You use the term "and/or" but you clearly do not know what it means
Oh, I do, you apparently don't. A game can have both violence and sex, without having violent sex. The trick is that a game(or a movie, for that matter), can have different stages, modes, and scenes. To use a food example ala the wiki, a game is a meal. It may be a single pot dish, or it may be a 7 course feast. The soup can be completely different and separate from the salad.
From your link: "For example, the sentence "He will eat cake, pie, and/or brownies" indicates that although the person may eat any of the three listed desserts, the choices are not exclusive; the person may eat one, two, or all three of the choices."
This does not mean he's shoving all three into his mouth at the same time.
And you didn't sound very calm in your statement(my mental voice when reading), so I took it as a rant.
Does it matter if the CO2 levels in 2100 are 550 PPM, 545 PPM, or 555 PPM? I would suggest that it doesn't, not really. If we spend our resources trying to get them from 550 PPM down to 545 PPM, or even 540 PPM, that completely misses the point...
It's not a binary option though. 600PPM is worse than 500 is worse than 400. It's a continuum. So about 4 paragraphs of examples and such are wasted because you're treating something that isn't binary as a binary.
"What would it take for CO2 levels to stop rising... today...?" As in, stay at 400 PPM and not rise any further? We are currently added 2 PPM per year, so something major would have to change.
Lost my other post earlier, not willing to completely rewrite it. Simplified version: 1. I believe that we're going to have to accept some increase in CO2 and such, so not even I think this is a realistic plan, so attacking it for being unrealistic isn't going to work. 2. In order to stop CO2 rising, it'd need to be, as you have said, a world-wide effort. 3. You start by examining all the CO2 production and determining both what are the largest amounts of CO2 release for the least amount of economic activity, and the relevant 'marginal costs' for reducing or eliminating the releases. 4. I happen to think that coal power would be high on the list. Short term, replace with NG. Long term, nuclear, solar, wind, biomass, etc... 5. We'll have to get off our high horse about nuclear. At this point I think that I encounter more opposition against nuclear from people TALKING about people being against nuclear, than actual anti-nuclear people. Transportation wise: A mix of EVs which can be charged via solar/nuclear and such, and biofuel vehicles, with the biofuel coming from things like algae farms.
Timeline required: About 40 years for the vehicles, about 80 for the power.
I am not at all convinced we'll have an EV in every house. EV batteries are not remotely clean, they are just made in China were we currently ignore the pollution of their production.
No they're not. At least Tesla's aren't. Also, they're recyclable.
It is a binary result, either the island is wiped out or it isn't.
It's not a binary result. Rest of argument ignored.
Realistically speaking, you crunch the math and find the best mix of prevention and acceptance, like we do for everything else. Though we tend to end up having to accept more that we could have prevented cheaper.
Erm, so you define efficiency by the percentage of gas that is burned? Or what is your breathing argument supposed to mean?
Consider that an Electric range is going to be wasting a huge amount of the heat anyways. So in that case, for stove, yeah, it's pretty much how efficiently it's burning the gas.
Or, to put it another way, how many kWh does a electric stove use compared to how many kWh equivalents does the NG stove use? Then figure that if the NG is being burned at a power plant to produce the electricity, the power plant is only 50% efficient. So as long as the NG appliance is more than 50% efficient at producing usable heat, it's more efficient than the electric one.
For heat retention, as for a furnace, my standard is indeed heat retained.
Far over 50% of the heat is just wasted through the exhaust, unless you have high efficient heating systems where you might approach 75%-80%, I really doubt americans have that.
For your information, I'm pretty sure it'd be illegal to sell a heating system that's wasting 50% of the heat up the pipe in the USA. You have this picture of Americans being energy wasters, but in my experience while we do have our crappy homes, we're a lot closer to Europeans than most think.
"Might approach 75-80%"? My boiler isn't the best, but when I bought it it was the best in my size range. It's 85%. And I'm about 10% less efficient than the 'best' products because, again, at the time, they simply didn't make a small enough condensing unit that can take the acidic condensation from oil.
And yes, that means that, at least during normal operations, it's pulling 85% of the heat from the burned oil into the water. Any higher and I'd have condensation, which adds some complexity, especially with oil and such due to the acid.
As for water heaters, even the crapiest one I could find has an energy factor of.59, and the energy factor includes standby losses! So if it's almost 60% efficient at delivering BTUs worth of hot water when you include standby and circulation losses, it has to be better at getting the heat into the water in the first place. Wrap it with a insulating blanket and the EF will go up.
So, personal example, 85%. BTW, my boiler also provides my hot water as well as heating my house, so that's my 'overall' efficiency. Crappiest water heater I could quickly find:.59. Best I found:.68 - A larger tank, more insulation, equates to more efficiency.
Consider that 80% of a really big number is more than 100% of a slightly less big number.
I wouldn't consider 10 as 'slightly less' than 15 in most contexts. I also don't know what you're trying to teach or demonstrate to me, seeing as how: 1. Power demand is leveling off in the USA, per household use is decreasing, and the rate of growth for number of households is also slowing. 2. If you're going to go from 10TWh to 15TWh, that means that you have to build a ton of new power plants, and the EPA has made building new coal plants even more uneconomical than new nuclear.
Until it flips around to 80% solar, 20% coal, and assuming that we don't triple our energy use in the next 50 years, it won't make a lick of difference. Keep in mind this doesn't take into account oil burned for transport.
You did read my post, right? You didn't just skim it? 40% nuclear, 20% solar, 20% wind, 20% other(hydro, geothermal, tidal, biomass, etc...) doesn't leave any coal being burned for electricity. I can live with it being burned to create steel and such.
Also, remember my mentioning using retired EV batteries? If you have enough of those to have one in 'every' house, it logically leads that there needs to be an EV in 'every' house.
We're going to end up adopting to the 'new world' no matter what, but we can at least try to limit the damage, and I hate coal for the pollution it emits that kills people more than I hate the CO2 it produces.
It is worth pointing out that at the current growth rate of CO2 emissions in the BRIC nations, the US and EU could cut our emissions to ZERO tomorrow, and within 20 years it wouldn't matter because BRIC all by themselves would replace what we were putting out.
If we build enough nuclear plants to shut down all our coal plants(we'll need to build about 200 of them), we'll have building them nailed down to pretty much routine. At which point we can get the BRIC nations adopting them as well.
Dude, just because something isn't a '100%' solution doesn't mean that we shouldn't still go for it if it provides worthy benefits.
I'm not thinking about "greenies" at all... I'm thinking about normal people, John and Jane Q. Public... i.e. the 80% of the middle of the pack of Americans to whom this is not priority one...
That's kind of the point. I'm having to approach this from the solutions that people have actually installed, which typically fall into three camps. 1. Those who are seeing to save money, yet are in an unusual enough situation where this DOES save money. See sunny areas with elevated electricity costs, like Hawaii. 2. Greens. They're doing it to save the planet. 3. Self-Reliance types. By installing solar panels they reduce their dependence upon foreign power, oil, etc... IE while they can still have the 'luxury' of a grid connection most of the time they enjoy the idea that they'll still have power if the grid goes down.
In the quest to optimize what capital they have, they are often willing to make some sacrifices.
So this is all hot air (no pun intended) until a solution is found that doesn't involve batteries, complex timing requirements, or having the TV go off due to a lack of solar or wind power during prime time.
Musk's 'Megafactory' is supposed to cut the cost of LiIon batteries in half. The modern grid requires 'complex timing'. If the TV is at risk of going off during prime time(and I haven't turned mine on in months, now that I think about it), that indicates a lack of sufficient engineering or people who don't care that much about prime time TV. (I point back to the examples above, current installers are not typically normal people).
even if solar DID become 20% of the total power generation, it would make no difference to the outcome of climate change.
Yes it would. It wouldn't be a complete solution, but at that point it's getting there. My 'ideal' non carbon power mix is 20% solar, 20% wind, 40% nuclear, and 20% 'other' including hydro.
Every coal plant we shut down is lives saved, that much less CO2 for global warming.
MOST games go for the 'T' rating unless it's easy for them to score 'better', or are deliberately aiming for a younger audience. Other games are quite proud of their 'M', such as grand theft auto, Duke Nukem Forever, Saint's Row, etc...
Then there's ones that try to go even further, like Postal.
Hmm... Maybe I shouldn't have said a 'steady stream', more 'steady trickle',where they attempt to use pissant outrage as free advertising.
Violent sex as a legitimate entertainment tool, seriously?!?
*spock eyebrow* - While violent sex is indeed an option, it was not an option I was going for. I said 'violence and/or sex'. IE Violence and Sex as separate topics, but the two topics that most get wannabe censors worked up.
Yes, you have people who lament the violence in XYZ. You get other people who get even more upset at the merest mention that humans are sexual beings. I call all of them pissants.
As for the rest of your rant, all I can really do is shrug. There is violence in humanity. If anything, my view is that video games is a relatively harmless way to express it.
Drivers are NOT trained or licensed, equipment is NOT inspected and you don't know if that driver that picks you up isn't some serial killer looking for the next victim, just drank a 5th, or just is out looking for a few bucks.
1. Hopefully they're licensed. They might not have a commercial license, but they have a driver's license that allows them to drive the route they're taking you without you being in the car, or if you're 'just a friend', etc... What extra training do you think they need to drive you there for money, and if it increases safety why don't we require it of the non-commercial drivers as well? 2. Serial killer - Cab background checks aren't going to catch a serial killer, and there have been serial killers who were employed as taxi drivers, and killed using their Taxi jobs. There are some criminal sorts that would be caught by a background check, but from what I've been hearing, there's issues with the background check system - IE some counties aren't reporting stuff. This would be a problem that Taxi companies suffer from as well, because the same companies are being used. Hell, it's a problem with the federal NICS system. 3. Just drank a fifth - if they're noticably drunk, refuse the ride, give them a bad review(mention 'drunk') and they'll quickly lose their employment with whoever. Hell, I'm sure the police would be interested, so call 911. 4. Just out for a few bucks - well, this is what I hope for as well. 5. Equipment inspected. I'm not sure what role this is supposed to solve, at least in the USA and with a 'clean looking' vehicle.
I'm sorry but you are wrong. The privates pilot license isn't "easy to get" it requires hundreds of hours and over 10 grand.
Well, it's a good thing I didn't say "easy to get" so while your strawman is indeed wrong, I'm still correct(for a given level of correct). The modifier 'fairly' is important here, in that my intent was to imply that the private license is far easier to get than other types of pilot license. Which it is.
The concern here is that the drones aren't going to be the relatively small ones flown non-commercially, they're designed to actually haul packages. So they're going to have to be relatively heavyweight. The FAA can relax it's standards some once it starts getting a better idea of the capabilities of the prototype.
Also, consider this - it's a lot easier this way to relax the 400' rule, the rural rule, and other things that would trigger a need for a pilot(remember prototype), as testing shows that the drone can do it's think.
Again, prototype - how do you know the autoland feature works right, every time? You have to test this, and during the testing you want higher skilled/more certified people at the controls.
Wouldn't want to have the operator die of a heart attack, and then have the drone go out of control and hit a rabbit. Wouldn't want the pilot sitting in a chair and looking at a monitor to have medical conditions that cause issues with balance and vertigo. Better make sure that the pilot staring at the monitor 12" from his face has good vision.
The FAA doesn't care about the rabbit, it cares about the people. Which it's equally likely to hit if it crashes.
I don't get why you need to be able to glide a plane onto the runway during an engine failure in the landing pattern when you're probably flying a drone that is incapable of gliding at all and which is multi-engine besides.
A private pilot's license isn't that high of a bar, and it's pretty much the lowest bar the FAA has. It just ensures that the operator knows the 'rules of the air'. Sure, some of the knowledge is useless, like some of the stuff in my driver's test I'm never going to use. Same with the medical certificate, because if the drone operator croaks, it might crash before they can get another operator there. Remember, prototype. It's easier to relax restrictions than it is to crank them up.
The FAA really needs to get away from making drone piloting an add-on to a private pilot license.
But that requires writing up a new set of requirements for a license, developing training programs, etc... That takes more time than 'adding' it to a private pilot's license.
If anything, there's a steady stream of games that deliberately try to push EVERY ESRB button so they can get a 'high score' and sell their(often crappy) game on the basis of being HARDCORE!!!
That way the pissants can go ape over that crappy game and leave the ones that have violence and/or sex as a legitimate story/entertainment tool alone.
Meh, I think the fact that they do net metering at all is nice... I honestly don't think it is fair to the power company.
It benefits the power company 'right now' because daytime marginal power is generally more expensive than average wholesale.
IE you're not displacing the cheap, fraction of a cent per kWh, coal or nuclear power. You're replacing the relatively expensive natural gas or even oil peak power plant.
That would cease being true at around 10-15%, depending on regional variances.
That cost structure makes no sense, it is entirely politically motivated.
No duh, though the argument is by avoiding excessive consumption they can avoid the cost of building new power plants. Which California so kindly made nearly impossible...
Some of the idea is also that if you use more power, they're more likely to need to beef up the power lines, but that actually scales pretty well.
To be frank, I don't think you're going to get very many people interested in a system where the TV cuts off because the battery can't power everything.
If they're that antsy over their TV, they buy a bigger battery pack and/or hook a generator into the system. You just don't get how 'greenies' think. I think they're dumb a lot of the time, but I at least understand their thought processes a bit. If nothing else, generator + small battery pack + solar tends to translate to very efficient use of the generator. If their TV cuts out, they simply get on their laptop or something. Keep in mind that they're already suffering a power outage from the Electric Company! You'd be down to flashlights from what I've gathered(no reason to buy or hook up a generator, and you wouldn't really know how to hook it into your home's electric system safely anyways).
We use coal and natural gas because they are currently the "best" solution. Offer a "better" solution and people will flock to it of their own accord.
Well, there's always the threat that congress will pass a carbon tax, that would cause your electric bill to shoot up.
Still, the biggest problem with solar is cost. Not so much the panels today, but the complete system. Install costs have to come down, and panels are getting relatively cheap. Much more and they'll be cheaper than shingles!
There are some benefits outside of 'cheaper power', such as how I mentioned that if you have solar panels and the 'right' inverter setup, you can still have 'some' power even during a grid outage, without having to mess with a generation system. People value that. Even if they do end up getting a generator, such a system can really maximize the generator's efficiency, turning it on and running it at peak efficiency to provide power to the house and charge the batteries. When the batteries are charged, the generator shuts off. During the day the solar panels provide for demand and keep the batteries charged, keeping the generator from having to run.
My priority list for power: heat, food refrigeration(don't need it if I don't have heat), lights, computer, other appliances, HVAC, etc... You make all these decisions when you size the system.
The certificate and rules sound mostly good. A private pilot's license isn't a commercial license, it's fairly easy to get, but ensures that you know the 'rules of the air' like a person with a driver's license presumably knows the rules of the road.
Medical certification is supposed to ensure that they don't keel over while flying.
While this would be paranoid rules for what's supposed to be an autonomous drone, keep in mind that this is the prototype phase - and when you're testing new aircraft, you don't go for an average pilot, while self-driving cars are allowed on the road for testing, unless they're on a closed track they still need a rated human driver available to take over if something goes wrong, etc...
Okay, I read their powerpoint where they were discussing the issue. One thing that Hawaii did differently(and my power company), was that they looked at daytime marginal power specifically, not straight 'average' as the spreadsheet images showed in CoServ's. This would on average result in a higher price than CoServ's average wholesale. And be, at least for now, more realistic because solar is preventing them from having to fire up that diesel generator, not compete with a base-load coal or nuclear plant.
1. It's a self driving car, it has 'all day' to make it to the cheap lot 2. If it's cheaper to drive home, have it do that. 3. If you're commuting, it's generally cheaper to pay by the month, not by the day, so the car would have an RFID or something for the lot of choice.
Oh, you're talking about the current car-sharing services with non-self driving cars.
The answer there is that they lease dedicated parking spaces for their vehicles. They get agreements with the parking garages and such to get 'group rates' for their vehicles.
If somebody leaves one in a non-approved location, they have employees who will pick it up and move it to the proper spot, at the expense of the renter who left it there.
Keep in mind that the occupant of said self driving car will have both hands free to operate whatever firearms he might possess.
You never know, it might be me in that self-driving car, and I might take exception to your engine block in that case. If I'm feeling nice. If I'm not feeling so nice, I might go after the steering actuator.
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I agree, it seems to be a 'liberal' thing - carbon credits, rather than a 'simple' carbon tax. Pollution trading, etc... Let's create MORE complex systems that don't really solve anything.
toilets and showers are less than 0.5% of the use, so low flow heads will do nothing.
yeah, low flow toilets and showers are, in most situations, more of a 'feel good' measure than a realistic one because farming and industry use even more water, proportionally, than they do electricity.
In electrical terms it's a bit like mandating LED lighting in refrigerators.
British Columbia recently instituted a tax on water drawn from wells. It's 'insignificant' for individual, but if you simply started charging for drawing industrial amounts of water from wells, as you increase the tax you'd quickly see conservation. More water efficient crops, more efficient watering methods, etc...
I mean, I'd imagine that putting greenhouses up over all the trees would be hugely expensive, but that would allow you to recycle the water at close to 100%efficiency.
You use the term "and/or" but you clearly do not know what it means
Oh, I do, you apparently don't. A game can have both violence and sex, without having violent sex. The trick is that a game(or a movie, for that matter), can have different stages, modes, and scenes. To use a food example ala the wiki, a game is a meal. It may be a single pot dish, or it may be a 7 course feast. The soup can be completely different and separate from the salad.
From your link: "For example, the sentence "He will eat cake, pie, and/or brownies" indicates that although the person may eat any of the three listed desserts, the choices are not exclusive; the person may eat one, two, or all three of the choices."
This does not mean he's shoving all three into his mouth at the same time.
And you didn't sound very calm in your statement(my mental voice when reading), so I took it as a rant.
Does it matter if the CO2 levels in 2100 are 550 PPM, 545 PPM, or 555 PPM? I would suggest that it doesn't, not really. If we spend our resources trying to get them from 550 PPM down to 545 PPM, or even 540 PPM, that completely misses the point...
It's not a binary option though. 600PPM is worse than 500 is worse than 400. It's a continuum. So about 4 paragraphs of examples and such are wasted because you're treating something that isn't binary as a binary.
"What would it take for CO2 levels to stop rising... today...?" As in, stay at 400 PPM and not rise any further? We are currently added 2 PPM per year, so something major would have to change.
Lost my other post earlier, not willing to completely rewrite it. Simplified version:
1. I believe that we're going to have to accept some increase in CO2 and such, so not even I think this is a realistic plan, so attacking it for being unrealistic isn't going to work.
2. In order to stop CO2 rising, it'd need to be, as you have said, a world-wide effort.
3. You start by examining all the CO2 production and determining both what are the largest amounts of CO2 release for the least amount of economic activity, and the relevant 'marginal costs' for reducing or eliminating the releases.
4. I happen to think that coal power would be high on the list. Short term, replace with NG. Long term, nuclear, solar, wind, biomass, etc...
5. We'll have to get off our high horse about nuclear. At this point I think that I encounter more opposition against nuclear from people TALKING about people being against nuclear, than actual anti-nuclear people.
Transportation wise: A mix of EVs which can be charged via solar/nuclear and such, and biofuel vehicles, with the biofuel coming from things like algae farms.
Timeline required: About 40 years for the vehicles, about 80 for the power.
I am not at all convinced we'll have an EV in every house. EV batteries are not remotely clean, they are just made in China were we currently ignore the pollution of their production.
No they're not. At least Tesla's aren't. Also, they're recyclable.
It is a binary result, either the island is wiped out or it isn't.
It's not a binary result. Rest of argument ignored.
Realistically speaking, you crunch the math and find the best mix of prevention and acceptance, like we do for everything else. Though we tend to end up having to accept more that we could have prevented cheaper.
If your total number goes up by 50%, then you aren't making progress, you're falling behind.
20% of 15TWh being solar is better than that 20% being coal, even if it still means you're generating more CO2 than before.
There are reasons why I want to be building lots of nuclear plants right now.
It is also worth noting that the USA is not the world. China is a problem, as are many other nations...
That China is doing it isn't an excuse for us to be doing so.
Erm, so you define efficiency by the percentage of gas that is burned? Or what is your breathing argument supposed to mean?
Consider that an Electric range is going to be wasting a huge amount of the heat anyways. So in that case, for stove, yeah, it's pretty much how efficiently it's burning the gas.
Or, to put it another way, how many kWh does a electric stove use compared to how many kWh equivalents does the NG stove use? Then figure that if the NG is being burned at a power plant to produce the electricity, the power plant is only 50% efficient. So as long as the NG appliance is more than 50% efficient at producing usable heat, it's more efficient than the electric one.
For heat retention, as for a furnace, my standard is indeed heat retained.
Far over 50% of the heat is just wasted through the exhaust, unless you have high efficient heating systems where you might approach 75%-80%, I really doubt americans have that.
For your information, I'm pretty sure it'd be illegal to sell a heating system that's wasting 50% of the heat up the pipe in the USA. You have this picture of Americans being energy wasters, but in my experience while we do have our crappy homes, we're a lot closer to Europeans than most think.
"Might approach 75-80%"? My boiler isn't the best, but when I bought it it was the best in my size range. It's 85%. And I'm about 10% less efficient than the 'best' products because, again, at the time, they simply didn't make a small enough condensing unit that can take the acidic condensation from oil.
And yes, that means that, at least during normal operations, it's pulling 85% of the heat from the burned oil into the water. Any higher and I'd have condensation, which adds some complexity, especially with oil and such due to the acid.
As for water heaters, even the crapiest one I could find has an energy factor of .59, and the energy factor includes standby losses! So if it's almost 60% efficient at delivering BTUs worth of hot water when you include standby and circulation losses, it has to be better at getting the heat into the water in the first place. Wrap it with a insulating blanket and the EF will go up.
So, personal example, 85%. BTW, my boiler also provides my hot water as well as heating my house, so that's my 'overall' efficiency. Crappiest water heater I could quickly find: .59. Best I found: .68 - A larger tank, more insulation, equates to more efficiency.
SO...you think a medical certificate should be required to fly a 20-30 pound drone,
Do you know what 'paranoid' means? They're very conservative, overkill rules. But I expect the rules to be stringent for prototype work.
As for the medical certificate for general pilots, try getting rid of it and see how people scream.
Consider that 80% of a really big number is more than 100% of a slightly less big number.
I wouldn't consider 10 as 'slightly less' than 15 in most contexts. I also don't know what you're trying to teach or demonstrate to me, seeing as how:
1. Power demand is leveling off in the USA, per household use is decreasing, and the rate of growth for number of households is also slowing.
2. If you're going to go from 10TWh to 15TWh, that means that you have to build a ton of new power plants, and the EPA has made building new coal plants even more uneconomical than new nuclear.
Until it flips around to 80% solar, 20% coal, and assuming that we don't triple our energy use in the next 50 years, it won't make a lick of difference. Keep in mind this doesn't take into account oil burned for transport.
You did read my post, right? You didn't just skim it? 40% nuclear, 20% solar, 20% wind, 20% other(hydro, geothermal, tidal, biomass, etc...) doesn't leave any coal being burned for electricity. I can live with it being burned to create steel and such.
Also, remember my mentioning using retired EV batteries? If you have enough of those to have one in 'every' house, it logically leads that there needs to be an EV in 'every' house.
We're going to end up adopting to the 'new world' no matter what, but we can at least try to limit the damage, and I hate coal for the pollution it emits that kills people more than I hate the CO2 it produces.
It is worth pointing out that at the current growth rate of CO2 emissions in the BRIC nations, the US and EU could cut our emissions to ZERO tomorrow, and within 20 years it wouldn't matter because BRIC all by themselves would replace what we were putting out.
If we build enough nuclear plants to shut down all our coal plants(we'll need to build about 200 of them), we'll have building them nailed down to pretty much routine. At which point we can get the BRIC nations adopting them as well.
Dude, just because something isn't a '100%' solution doesn't mean that we shouldn't still go for it if it provides worthy benefits.
Again 'Prototype'. They can relax the restrictions later once more is known about the craft Amazon is developing.
I'm not thinking about "greenies" at all... I'm thinking about normal people, John and Jane Q. Public... i.e. the 80% of the middle of the pack of Americans to whom this is not priority one...
That's kind of the point. I'm having to approach this from the solutions that people have actually installed, which typically fall into three camps.
1. Those who are seeing to save money, yet are in an unusual enough situation where this DOES save money. See sunny areas with elevated electricity costs, like Hawaii.
2. Greens. They're doing it to save the planet.
3. Self-Reliance types. By installing solar panels they reduce their dependence upon foreign power, oil, etc... IE while they can still have the 'luxury' of a grid connection most of the time they enjoy the idea that they'll still have power if the grid goes down.
In the quest to optimize what capital they have, they are often willing to make some sacrifices.
So this is all hot air (no pun intended) until a solution is found that doesn't involve batteries, complex timing requirements, or having the TV go off due to a lack of solar or wind power during prime time.
Musk's 'Megafactory' is supposed to cut the cost of LiIon batteries in half. The modern grid requires 'complex timing'. If the TV is at risk of going off during prime time(and I haven't turned mine on in months, now that I think about it), that indicates a lack of sufficient engineering or people who don't care that much about prime time TV. (I point back to the examples above, current installers are not typically normal people).
even if solar DID become 20% of the total power generation, it would make no difference to the outcome of climate change.
Yes it would. It wouldn't be a complete solution, but at that point it's getting there. My 'ideal' non carbon power mix is 20% solar, 20% wind, 40% nuclear, and 20% 'other' including hydro.
Every coal plant we shut down is lives saved, that much less CO2 for global warming.
MOST games go for the 'T' rating unless it's easy for them to score 'better', or are deliberately aiming for a younger audience. Other games are quite proud of their 'M', such as grand theft auto, Duke Nukem Forever, Saint's Row, etc...
Then there's ones that try to go even further, like Postal.
Hmm... Maybe I shouldn't have said a 'steady stream', more 'steady trickle',where they attempt to use pissant outrage as free advertising.
Violent sex as a legitimate entertainment tool, seriously?!?
*spock eyebrow* - While violent sex is indeed an option, it was not an option I was going for. I said 'violence and/or sex'. IE Violence and Sex as separate topics, but the two topics that most get wannabe censors worked up.
Yes, you have people who lament the violence in XYZ. You get other people who get even more upset at the merest mention that humans are sexual beings. I call all of them pissants.
As for the rest of your rant, all I can really do is shrug. There is violence in humanity. If anything, my view is that video games is a relatively harmless way to express it.
Drivers are NOT trained or licensed, equipment is NOT inspected and you don't know if that driver that picks you up isn't some serial killer looking for the next victim, just drank a 5th, or just is out looking for a few bucks.
1. Hopefully they're licensed. They might not have a commercial license, but they have a driver's license that allows them to drive the route they're taking you without you being in the car, or if you're 'just a friend', etc... What extra training do you think they need to drive you there for money, and if it increases safety why don't we require it of the non-commercial drivers as well?
2. Serial killer - Cab background checks aren't going to catch a serial killer, and there have been serial killers who were employed as taxi drivers, and killed using their Taxi jobs. There are some criminal sorts that would be caught by a background check, but from what I've been hearing, there's issues with the background check system - IE some counties aren't reporting stuff. This would be a problem that Taxi companies suffer from as well, because the same companies are being used. Hell, it's a problem with the federal NICS system.
3. Just drank a fifth - if they're noticably drunk, refuse the ride, give them a bad review(mention 'drunk') and they'll quickly lose their employment with whoever. Hell, I'm sure the police would be interested, so call 911.
4. Just out for a few bucks - well, this is what I hope for as well.
5. Equipment inspected. I'm not sure what role this is supposed to solve, at least in the USA and with a 'clean looking' vehicle.
I'm sorry but you are wrong. The privates pilot license isn't "easy to get" it requires hundreds of hours and over 10 grand.
Well, it's a good thing I didn't say "easy to get" so while your strawman is indeed wrong, I'm still correct(for a given level of correct). The modifier 'fairly' is important here, in that my intent was to imply that the private license is far easier to get than other types of pilot license. Which it is.
The concern here is that the drones aren't going to be the relatively small ones flown non-commercially, they're designed to actually haul packages. So they're going to have to be relatively heavyweight. The FAA can relax it's standards some once it starts getting a better idea of the capabilities of the prototype.
Also, consider this - it's a lot easier this way to relax the 400' rule, the rural rule, and other things that would trigger a need for a pilot(remember prototype), as testing shows that the drone can do it's think.
Again, prototype - how do you know the autoland feature works right, every time? You have to test this, and during the testing you want higher skilled/more certified people at the controls.
Wouldn't want to have the operator die of a heart attack, and then have the drone go out of control and hit a rabbit. Wouldn't want the pilot sitting in a chair and looking at a monitor to have medical conditions that cause issues with balance and vertigo. Better make sure that the pilot staring at the monitor 12" from his face has good vision.
The FAA doesn't care about the rabbit, it cares about the people. Which it's equally likely to hit if it crashes.
I don't get why you need to be able to glide a plane onto the runway during an engine failure in the landing pattern when you're probably flying a drone that is incapable of gliding at all and which is multi-engine besides.
A private pilot's license isn't that high of a bar, and it's pretty much the lowest bar the FAA has. It just ensures that the operator knows the 'rules of the air'. Sure, some of the knowledge is useless, like some of the stuff in my driver's test I'm never going to use. Same with the medical certificate, because if the drone operator croaks, it might crash before they can get another operator there. Remember, prototype. It's easier to relax restrictions than it is to crank them up.
The FAA really needs to get away from making drone piloting an add-on to a private pilot license.
But that requires writing up a new set of requirements for a license, developing training programs, etc... That takes more time than 'adding' it to a private pilot's license.
If anything, there's a steady stream of games that deliberately try to push EVERY ESRB button so they can get a 'high score' and sell their(often crappy) game on the basis of being HARDCORE!!!
That way the pissants can go ape over that crappy game and leave the ones that have violence and/or sex as a legitimate story/entertainment tool alone.
Meh, I think the fact that they do net metering at all is nice... I honestly don't think it is fair to the power company.
It benefits the power company 'right now' because daytime marginal power is generally more expensive than average wholesale.
IE you're not displacing the cheap, fraction of a cent per kWh, coal or nuclear power. You're replacing the relatively expensive natural gas or even oil peak power plant.
That would cease being true at around 10-15%, depending on regional variances.
That cost structure makes no sense, it is entirely politically motivated.
No duh, though the argument is by avoiding excessive consumption they can avoid the cost of building new power plants. Which California so kindly made nearly impossible...
Some of the idea is also that if you use more power, they're more likely to need to beef up the power lines, but that actually scales pretty well.
To be frank, I don't think you're going to get very many people interested in a system where the TV cuts off because the battery can't power everything.
If they're that antsy over their TV, they buy a bigger battery pack and/or hook a generator into the system. You just don't get how 'greenies' think. I think they're dumb a lot of the time, but I at least understand their thought processes a bit. If nothing else, generator + small battery pack + solar tends to translate to very efficient use of the generator. If their TV cuts out, they simply get on their laptop or something. Keep in mind that they're already suffering a power outage from the Electric Company! You'd be down to flashlights from what I've gathered(no reason to buy or hook up a generator, and you wouldn't really know how to hook it into your home's electric system safely anyways).
We use coal and natural gas because they are currently the "best" solution. Offer a "better" solution and people will flock to it of their own accord.
Well, there's always the threat that congress will pass a carbon tax, that would cause your electric bill to shoot up.
Still, the biggest problem with solar is cost. Not so much the panels today, but the complete system. Install costs have to come down, and panels are getting relatively cheap. Much more and they'll be cheaper than shingles!
There are some benefits outside of 'cheaper power', such as how I mentioned that if you have solar panels and the 'right' inverter setup, you can still have 'some' power even during a grid outage, without having to mess with a generation system. People value that. Even if they do end up getting a generator, such a system can really maximize the generator's efficiency, turning it on and running it at peak efficiency to provide power to the house and charge the batteries. When the batteries are charged, the generator shuts off. During the day the solar panels provide for demand and keep the batteries charged, keeping the generator from having to run.
My priority list for power: heat, food refrigeration(don't need it if I don't have heat), lights, computer, other appliances, HVAC, etc... You make all these decisions when you size the system.
The certificate and rules sound mostly good. A private pilot's license isn't a commercial license, it's fairly easy to get, but ensures that you know the 'rules of the air' like a person with a driver's license presumably knows the rules of the road.
Medical certification is supposed to ensure that they don't keel over while flying.
While this would be paranoid rules for what's supposed to be an autonomous drone, keep in mind that this is the prototype phase - and when you're testing new aircraft, you don't go for an average pilot, while self-driving cars are allowed on the road for testing, unless they're on a closed track they still need a rated human driver available to take over if something goes wrong, etc...
Okay, I read their powerpoint where they were discussing the issue. One thing that Hawaii did differently(and my power company), was that they looked at daytime marginal power specifically, not straight 'average' as the spreadsheet images showed in CoServ's. This would on average result in a higher price than CoServ's average wholesale. And be, at least for now, more realistic because solar is preventing them from having to fire up that diesel generator, not compete with a base-load coal or nuclear plant.
Drivers are expensive. Self-driving could be less than 1/4 the cost of a minimum wage employee for a year.
1. It's a self driving car, it has 'all day' to make it to the cheap lot
2. If it's cheaper to drive home, have it do that.
3. If you're commuting, it's generally cheaper to pay by the month, not by the day, so the car would have an RFID or something for the lot of choice.
Oh, you're talking about the current car-sharing services with non-self driving cars.
The answer there is that they lease dedicated parking spaces for their vehicles. They get agreements with the parking garages and such to get 'group rates' for their vehicles.
If somebody leaves one in a non-approved location, they have employees who will pick it up and move it to the proper spot, at the expense of the renter who left it there.
If a driverless car was in a similar price band to a normal car I would buy one (assuming safe ofcourse).
I once figured out that a self-driving feature would be worth about $5k/year for me.
Keep in mind that the occupant of said self driving car will have both hands free to operate whatever firearms he might possess.
You never know, it might be me in that self-driving car, and I might take exception to your engine block in that case. If I'm feeling nice. If I'm not feeling so nice, I might go after the steering actuator.