If you could cut your total energy bill in half by punching a few parameters into a web portal, I bet you'd find it wasn't that hard to talk people into it.
people adapt to their reality. All I'm saying is make the dirty energy pay its true cost. people will then switch much more readily due to market pressure, and we can move on with fixing the remaining issues with clean grid management, which aren't being fixed now because we're using artificially mostly cheap, dirty energy that aren't asking for those issues to be addressed.
well, one of the major problems is addressed by working on the grid and adding storage... that's the part I just noted is a very solvable issue. at the very least, very large inroads can be made without any real major infrastructure changes, just changing meters and establishing the communication protocol needed to manage loads along with demand.
that is much easier than making nuclear waste safe.
as for the problems with wind, I dunno that much about building turbines. but again, the cost for solar PV just hit grid parity over 25 years and it's dropping mightily. and, it happens to load match peak demands in most areas (summer cooling) quite nicely. but even if it doesn't match your peak in your area... again, storing thermal energy isn't hard. load shifting is easy. taking time to crank up a backup generator, no problem. You can't time shift the lights, but you sure can chill water at night instead of waiting until noon.
adding wind and other renewables to the mix just adds potential. but solar PV will be a much bigger player, I think. and nuclear will be a dinosaur.
short term energy storage is a way easier challenge to solve than hundreds of years of guarding dangerous nuclear material. Shit, I can store all the energy needed to heat or cool a house for a day in a tank of water that would easily fit in most homes. have excess energy, charge up your store.
electric cars will have these things called "batteries" that happen to store energy.
smart meters exist now. the internet exists now. energy management software exists... wait for it... now.
and, solar just reached parity with grid power in the northeast. woot! before incentives, even.
repeat after me: by the time you finished building a fancy reactor, you'd be able to utilize renewables more cheaply. good luck finding non-guaranteed private capital getting that reactor built too.
yes, it's good that record setting droughts don't impede plant growth, or contribute to desertification in any way, so your theory of a carbon rich plant shagri-la won't be threatened.
I think the fact that homeless people have found OWS encampments does not mean that the entire OWS movement should be defined by the actions of largely mentally ill people. as for shitting on cop cars, well... they've earned it.
However, our taxes pay the organized, professional forces that are, in some locations, regularly lapsing into unnecessary violence rather than dealing with groups of misdemeanor violations in any kind of rational way. They are supposed to be held to a higher regard, because we pay them to wield violent weaponry in our name... to say nothing of the power players behind them, ordering them into these situations in a paramilitary fashion.
Pretending that media coverage of OWS has been largely sympathetic to the movement is ridiculous. very little in the mainstream media outlets has shown any real understanding of the issues or any willingness to really balance the reporting, they just go for the sensationalistic headlines. just a few weeks ago, almost 1,000 simultaneous protests worldwide occurred. that was given one sentence in most stories, and then two paragraphs of the violence that occurred in Rome. Never mind the 900+ other, by any measure incredibly peaceful protests.. nope, it's all about the violence. that's the only part worth reporting, apparently.
the media is not helping OWS. it is only grabbing headlines. If the cops commit the violence, they latch on it. if any violence not exquisitely captured on filmed can then be blamed on the OWS instead, they latch on to that too. fuck your apologetics.
which means fuck-all to the end user. so this is a free market in building and selling small companies, but not so much a free market in telecommunications.
smart grid, internet-tied demand management. Use the power when it's there.
simple tanks of water in people's homes allow electricity to be converted for use as heating energy later at great efficiency (a very large amount of total energy usage for most people here in america)
your false dicotomy between nuclear and coal no longer need apply. the third option is to stop accepting externalized costs and pretending that coal and nuclear are cheap, and make them pay for their own problems, and then flip over to renewables because THEIR problems can be solved by engineering, unlike coal and nucelar's problems.
I design high performance heating/mechanical systems for a living... I'm not just some yahoo in this case, I actually know what I'm talking about;)
Putting thermostats in a low load hallway is the absolute worst possible thing you can do. the only reason it's done is because most buildings are not zoned appropriately, so they see the hallways as a "compromise", and since the installer USUALLY is not doing any math or even any serious evaluation of the building the system is being installed in, it's not like they would guess any better otherwise. But the right way is to pick the room with the most intense load profile, hit that, and balance the other rooms in the zone if you must. Or, even better, zone in a way that is actually appropriate to the load.. but that's hard to do with traditional forced air and even harder in a retrofit/replacement situation.
It's true you don't want them near the supply vents. but you do want them IN AN IMPORTANT ROOM. Or... as is usually the case... you will never ensure comfort. The wiki makes some sense in some cases but it's the "rule of thumb' answer and it's why something like 80% of people are not satisfied with their heating system's performance. I would say in most cases your vents will be on outside wall areas, floor level, pointing up. put the tstat on the other side of the room, facing the outside wall. Test a location by putting a thermometer there, running the heating system, and ensuring it does not rise in temperature too quickly. or lick your finger and see if you can feel the breeze (less accurate, but another useful data point).
another horrible practice is putting ducts in attics. 90% of the time that's where they go because it's easy. but it's easily a 30% efficiency loss doing that, even with insulated ducts. That is where "conventional wisdom" and 'standard advice' gets you in the HVAC world.
the nest guys are noticing that room for improvement in this industry is huge. mostly because no one with any education has been pointed at these industries for 50 years. Not that HVAC guys are dumb... far from it... but the "best and brightest" all got pointed at 4 year colleges and never again at residential HVAC. If only the guideance counselors had any idea what a good HVAC guy can make....
What we have here is a false dichotomy. Many folks with religious beliefs merely believe that some things that aren't explained by science might be the hand of God, which is subtly but significantly different from the position you describe. Such an attitude does not mean that we should not use science to learn what we can, but rather shows a humble acceptance that some truths may be fundamentally impossible to grasp from within the confines of our universe. They would argue that we may never be able to explain why certain laws of the universe are true, but that does not mean that we should stop trying, as the more we learn about the universe, the more we inevitably learn about its creator.
The lazy use God as an excuse to stop trying. The true believers use God as a reason to do so. That's why throughout history, a fair amount of scientific discovery has been done by the Church and the faithful, from Copernicus to Mendel. Heck, even Sir Francis Bacon—to many, the founder of modern science—was religious.
While we're at it, let's add a few more to that list. Kepler, Galilei, Descartes, Newton, Boyle, Faraday, Kelvin, Planck, Einstein—you know, all those people who were so important to science that we named measurements, laws, or cages after most of them—all held some belief in a higher power, creator, or similar. Yet no sane person could claim that their impact on modern science was anything less than amazing and groundbreaking.
The fundamentalist-atheist claim that religion and science are fundamentally at odds is no less a religious belief than traditional theistic religions, and more to the point, is an utterly arrogant belief that effectively spits on the countless contributions of the religious to the very foundations of science as we know it today. And although it is held with the same arrogant religious fervor as the beliefs of the most devout faithful, it is a comically naïve belief built on nothing more solid than smugness and the believer's own desire to feel superior to someone else, usually to make themselves feel less inferior. Frankly, whenever I see such rubbish, it almost makes me ashamed of the human race as a whole.
As Einstein put it, "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." Claims to the contrary demand extraordinary proof.
another poster notes it is related to age though, which is related to affluence and education in terms of when fatherhood commences. so it could be a consequence of natural aging exclusively, perhaps. or it could be an accumulation of environmental toxins that gets worse as you get older. Or both. Or something else entirely;) Certainly the materials and prevalence of "new stuff" in close proximity for extended periods of time are not monolithic, but are certainly more similar amongst people of similar socioeconomic stature. In other words an engineer, architect and doctor are more likely to choose similar brands/materials/items, and to buy them new and live around them most of the time in a similar fashion than, say, an engineer and a factory worker compared to each other. I do high end mechanical design for residential homes, and I can tell you I have a lot more engineer/doctor clients than factory workers....
who knows what happens to the factory workers.. they are 12 and in china, mostly...
don't get me wrong... I could absolutely be wrong and I'm not seriously advocating this as a scholarly position. You make points that very well may be more valid. Luckily the health benefits of not sucking down VOCs is well understood so it's not like I'm advocating for, say, "forgoing vaccinations to fight autism" or other such tripe... going outside more and avoiding offgassing will benefit you whether or not it fights autism in particular. but I don't think it's *crazy* to suspect a lifestyle/environmental element is involved, if you presume that there is more than just a rise in diagnosis of autism then its rise has mirrored that of industrial society. And certainly you are not immune from autism by not being a professional.
So religion is defensible as long as it's a God of the Gaps.
Too bad that's a pretty silly premise: it's just a placeholder for ignorance. What value does that have? Wouldn't it be far more useful to admit ignorance rather than pretending a lack thereof?
The false dichotomy is you deciding who are "true believers" and who are not.
The entire premise religion is based on is, at its core, faith based. While i have lots of problem with the new atheist movement and its shrill attack methodology, I do agree that they are right, that indulging blind faith and in fact respecting it is wrong and damaging to society as a whole. The problem I have is not the message, it's that they do not hold their own arguments to an extremely high level of rigor as they should when arguing in this vein.
However, there are degrees of opposition. Certainly we (as rationalist/atheists) should be opposing those who denigrate scientific evaluation as valueless the most forcefully, as they are the biggest threat to rational decisionmaking and progress. The religious who use their faith to drive their inquiry are not the same level of threat. But they are still an impediment to the discovery of actual truth, as is anything that obscures reality behind a veil of faith.
to whoever modded me as a troll, Go buy a new plastic rolling chair mat sometime. Throw it under your desk. If you don't get a sore throat on the first day, working a regular day on it, send me your address and I'll send you $20 toward the cost of the mat. I am AMAZED at the level of toxins we tolerate normally.
or it's environmental, and things that more affluent professionals are exposed to in their work or choose for their lifestyle is to blame. Lack of Vitamin D from working indoors. toxic components in electronics. whatever... the indoor built environment most engineers/medical personnel or the like is used to is simply FULL of new, offgassing, toxic components on a fairly regular basis.... especially if they like buying new stuff at home too. New Car smell? New couch, desk chair, pressboard desk, carpeting? There are neurotoxins in those chemicals...
too bad that one of those accidents is making a large area dangerous to live in. that's always been the argument against nuclear. it's not that it's "more dangerous" day to day. it's that the CONSEQUENCES OF FAILURE are so bad. That, and how to sequester the waste effectively for timescales that exceed the lifespan of most countries.
who the heck told you the best place for a thermostat is in a hallway? that's the WORST place for a thermostat. unless your hallway happens to be on an outside wall with a significant heating/cooling load profile. Jeez... hallway thermostats are one of the reasons most people are not happy with their heat/cooling systems and are constantly fiddling with their thermostats.
I too dislike the autoaway feature, but as long as it's configurable I don't see a problem.
the autolearning programming is a GREAT idea for less technical users. all it has to do is note when you hit the dial (that's when you want it warm) and it's learning how long it takes to affect the temperature (love the countdown), so it can figure when it needs to start heating up to hit your target time. that part's easy.
I wish I could tell what capabilities the stat has though... it's very light on detail. and I mean the technical capabilities (two stage heat? cooling? heat pump integration? etc) not what it does for the end user.
If you think oil prices drops are anything but natural fluctuations on an ever-rising overall price curve, you are not paying attention to the overall trend.
If it takes massive depression to dampen oil pricing, that is a pretty damning indicator right there. Or are you suggesting that crashing the world economy is a viable solution to energy prices?
You can always pretend the free market "would have" done something. Electric infrastructure. Roads. Internet. Pure research. But that doesn't mean it will. If you want viagra, the free market will deliver that. If you want to avoid a catastrophic shock to the system when energy prices spike with no ready to deploy alternatives already going, however, it can't. That takes years and years of development and deployment and a serious focus to get going, in conditions that are not yet "economical". But then, the day it IS economical, you just blunted a serious depression or even complete societal collapse that could have occurred when oil spikes to $200/barrel for an extended period of time, because you have a solution that can be deployed and in fact is ALREADY BEING deployed.
PV is there, today, in many areas of the US. It will be cheaper than grid electricity more and more often over the next several years. That would never have happened without government subsidies and incentives. and it very well may save mankind in the next few decades, with no hyperbole at all. Maybe it won't, and we'll only have renewable energy to help make the earth cleaner and healthier... shucks. what a waste.
Yes. Of course the "scandal that comes to mind" ignores the what, 99%+ of those funds that were NOT involved in a scandal there were put to work as intended. Heck, let's be generous to your point and say only 90% weren't scandal-laden. Also, solar power is now beating grid parity in parts of the US, largely thanks to solar incentives and investment over the last several years getting the market going. Not just in the US, but here, in europe, and in china as well. This is a huge moment, where those with enough capital in parts of the us (including the northeast) could choose to "prebuy" their electricity for the next 25 years with PV... WITHOUT incentive... and not lose money compared to grid electricity. In a few more years it's going to be a slam dunk.
Public policy works. Funding research works. Give up the tired, weak whining that it's not perfect. Waiting for teh "free market" to fix it all isn't perfect either, and it cares a lot less for the collateral damage of a sudden catastrophic shift than we do.
You had me until "do so fairly". it will most assuredly NOT do so "fairly". it will do so in a way which maximizes benefit to the capital source in charge of the project. "Fair" doesn't even enter into the discussion, and that is why we are not all small government libertarians.
If you can store it somewhere that would kill everyone around it, but those people don't purchase your product and don't have the legal ability/capital available to prove the case and prosecute you, then the problem is solved from a perspective that is absolutely fine from the point of view of the "free market". but it definitely is not "fair". "Fair" is determined by people, not economic forces.
really? what kind of shape is the colosseum in? Would a massive cache of weapons grade material stored in the colosseum have survived the multiple sackings of Rome that occurred, or would the material have been carted off by the victor and turned into WMDs? How could we maintain SECURITY on said pile for HUNDREDS of years?
Until we have a REAL solution for nuclear waste, promoting its use is the height of irresponsibility.
are we glossing over that the "fraction of the time of current nuclear waste's lifespan" STILL exceeds the current lifespan of nearly every... modern nation?
It would be like if the "West Francia" had to bury nuclear waste. What, never heard of them? well gosh. I'm sure that pile of deadly, weapons-grade nuclear waste they left behind is around here *somewhere*.
Slashdot Mirror
If you could cut your total energy bill in half by punching a few parameters into a web portal, I bet you'd find it wasn't that hard to talk people into it.
people adapt to their reality. All I'm saying is make the dirty energy pay its true cost. people will then switch much more readily due to market pressure, and we can move on with fixing the remaining issues with clean grid management, which aren't being fixed now because we're using artificially mostly cheap, dirty energy that aren't asking for those issues to be addressed.
well, one of the major problems is addressed by working on the grid and adding storage... that's the part I just noted is a very solvable issue. at the very least, very large inroads can be made without any real major infrastructure changes, just changing meters and establishing the communication protocol needed to manage loads along with demand.
that is much easier than making nuclear waste safe.
as for the problems with wind, I dunno that much about building turbines. but again, the cost for solar PV just hit grid parity over 25 years and it's dropping mightily. and, it happens to load match peak demands in most areas (summer cooling) quite nicely. but even if it doesn't match your peak in your area... again, storing thermal energy isn't hard. load shifting is easy. taking time to crank up a backup generator, no problem. You can't time shift the lights, but you sure can chill water at night instead of waiting until noon.
adding wind and other renewables to the mix just adds potential. but solar PV will be a much bigger player, I think. and nuclear will be a dinosaur.
short term energy storage is a way easier challenge to solve than hundreds of years of guarding dangerous nuclear material. Shit, I can store all the energy needed to heat or cool a house for a day in a tank of water that would easily fit in most homes. have excess energy, charge up your store.
electric cars will have these things called "batteries" that happen to store energy.
smart meters exist now. the internet exists now. energy management software exists... wait for it... now.
and, solar just reached parity with grid power in the northeast. woot! before incentives, even.
repeat after me: by the time you finished building a fancy reactor, you'd be able to utilize renewables more cheaply. good luck finding non-guaranteed private capital getting that reactor built too.
yes, it's good that record setting droughts don't impede plant growth, or contribute to desertification in any way, so your theory of a carbon rich plant shagri-la won't be threatened.
I think the fact that homeless people have found OWS encampments does not mean that the entire OWS movement should be defined by the actions of largely mentally ill people. as for shitting on cop cars, well... they've earned it.
However, our taxes pay the organized, professional forces that are, in some locations, regularly lapsing into unnecessary violence rather than dealing with groups of misdemeanor violations in any kind of rational way. They are supposed to be held to a higher regard, because we pay them to wield violent weaponry in our name... to say nothing of the power players behind them, ordering them into these situations in a paramilitary fashion.
Pretending that media coverage of OWS has been largely sympathetic to the movement is ridiculous. very little in the mainstream media outlets has shown any real understanding of the issues or any willingness to really balance the reporting, they just go for the sensationalistic headlines. just a few weeks ago, almost 1,000 simultaneous protests worldwide occurred. that was given one sentence in most stories, and then two paragraphs of the violence that occurred in Rome. Never mind the 900+ other, by any measure incredibly peaceful protests.. nope, it's all about the violence. that's the only part worth reporting, apparently.
the media is not helping OWS. it is only grabbing headlines. If the cops commit the violence, they latch on it. if any violence not exquisitely captured on filmed can then be blamed on the OWS instead, they latch on to that too. fuck your apologetics.
which means fuck-all to the end user. so this is a free market in building and selling small companies, but not so much a free market in telecommunications.
smart grid, internet-tied demand management. Use the power when it's there.
simple tanks of water in people's homes allow electricity to be converted for use as heating energy later at great efficiency (a very large amount of total energy usage for most people here in america)
your false dicotomy between nuclear and coal no longer need apply. the third option is to stop accepting externalized costs and pretending that coal and nuclear are cheap, and make them pay for their own problems, and then flip over to renewables because THEIR problems can be solved by engineering, unlike coal and nucelar's problems.
better, learning.
What do you feel has been your most effective prank to date, and why?
I design high performance heating/mechanical systems for a living... I'm not just some yahoo in this case, I actually know what I'm talking about ;)
Putting thermostats in a low load hallway is the absolute worst possible thing you can do. the only reason it's done is because most buildings are not zoned appropriately, so they see the hallways as a "compromise", and since the installer USUALLY is not doing any math or even any serious evaluation of the building the system is being installed in, it's not like they would guess any better otherwise. But the right way is to pick the room with the most intense load profile, hit that, and balance the other rooms in the zone if you must. Or, even better, zone in a way that is actually appropriate to the load.. but that's hard to do with traditional forced air and even harder in a retrofit/replacement situation.
It's true you don't want them near the supply vents. but you do want them IN AN IMPORTANT ROOM. Or... as is usually the case... you will never ensure comfort. The wiki makes some sense in some cases but it's the "rule of thumb' answer and it's why something like 80% of people are not satisfied with their heating system's performance. I would say in most cases your vents will be on outside wall areas, floor level, pointing up. put the tstat on the other side of the room, facing the outside wall. Test a location by putting a thermometer there, running the heating system, and ensuring it does not rise in temperature too quickly. or lick your finger and see if you can feel the breeze (less accurate, but another useful data point).
another horrible practice is putting ducts in attics. 90% of the time that's where they go because it's easy. but it's easily a 30% efficiency loss doing that, even with insulated ducts. That is where "conventional wisdom" and 'standard advice' gets you in the HVAC world.
the nest guys are noticing that room for improvement in this industry is huge. mostly because no one with any education has been pointed at these industries for 50 years. Not that HVAC guys are dumb... far from it... but the "best and brightest" all got pointed at 4 year colleges and never again at residential HVAC. If only the guideance counselors had any idea what a good HVAC guy can make....
Sorry, wrong parent. was responding to:
What we have here is a false dichotomy. Many folks with religious beliefs merely believe that some things that aren't explained by science might be the hand of God, which is subtly but significantly different from the position you describe. Such an attitude does not mean that we should not use science to learn what we can, but rather shows a humble acceptance that some truths may be fundamentally impossible to grasp from within the confines of our universe. They would argue that we may never be able to explain why certain laws of the universe are true, but that does not mean that we should stop trying, as the more we learn about the universe, the more we inevitably learn about its creator.
The lazy use God as an excuse to stop trying. The true believers use God as a reason to do so. That's why throughout history, a fair amount of scientific discovery has been done by the Church and the faithful, from Copernicus to Mendel. Heck, even Sir Francis Bacon—to many, the founder of modern science—was religious.
While we're at it, let's add a few more to that list. Kepler, Galilei, Descartes, Newton, Boyle, Faraday, Kelvin, Planck, Einstein—you know, all those people who were so important to science that we named measurements, laws, or cages after most of them—all held some belief in a higher power, creator, or similar. Yet no sane person could claim that their impact on modern science was anything less than amazing and groundbreaking.
The fundamentalist-atheist claim that religion and science are fundamentally at odds is no less a religious belief than traditional theistic religions, and more to the point, is an utterly arrogant belief that effectively spits on the countless contributions of the religious to the very foundations of science as we know it today. And although it is held with the same arrogant religious fervor as the beliefs of the most devout faithful, it is a comically naïve belief built on nothing more solid than smugness and the believer's own desire to feel superior to someone else, usually to make themselves feel less inferior. Frankly, whenever I see such rubbish, it almost makes me ashamed of the human race as a whole.
As Einstein put it, "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." Claims to the contrary demand extraordinary proof.
another poster notes it is related to age though, which is related to affluence and education in terms of when fatherhood commences. so it could be a consequence of natural aging exclusively, perhaps. or it could be an accumulation of environmental toxins that gets worse as you get older. Or both. Or something else entirely ;) Certainly the materials and prevalence of "new stuff" in close proximity for extended periods of time are not monolithic, but are certainly more similar amongst people of similar socioeconomic stature. In other words an engineer, architect and doctor are more likely to choose similar brands/materials/items, and to buy them new and live around them most of the time in a similar fashion than, say, an engineer and a factory worker compared to each other. I do high end mechanical design for residential homes, and I can tell you I have a lot more engineer/doctor clients than factory workers....
who knows what happens to the factory workers.. they are 12 and in china, mostly...
don't get me wrong... I could absolutely be wrong and I'm not seriously advocating this as a scholarly position. You make points that very well may be more valid. Luckily the health benefits of not sucking down VOCs is well understood so it's not like I'm advocating for, say, "forgoing vaccinations to fight autism" or other such tripe... going outside more and avoiding offgassing will benefit you whether or not it fights autism in particular. but I don't think it's *crazy* to suspect a lifestyle/environmental element is involved, if you presume that there is more than just a rise in diagnosis of autism then its rise has mirrored that of industrial society. And certainly you are not immune from autism by not being a professional.
So religion is defensible as long as it's a God of the Gaps.
Too bad that's a pretty silly premise: it's just a placeholder for ignorance. What value does that have? Wouldn't it be far more useful to admit ignorance rather than pretending a lack thereof?
The false dichotomy is you deciding who are "true believers" and who are not.
The entire premise religion is based on is, at its core, faith based. While i have lots of problem with the new atheist movement and its shrill attack methodology, I do agree that they are right, that indulging blind faith and in fact respecting it is wrong and damaging to society as a whole. The problem I have is not the message, it's that they do not hold their own arguments to an extremely high level of rigor as they should when arguing in this vein.
However, there are degrees of opposition. Certainly we (as rationalist/atheists) should be opposing those who denigrate scientific evaluation as valueless the most forcefully, as they are the biggest threat to rational decisionmaking and progress. The religious who use their faith to drive their inquiry are not the same level of threat. But they are still an impediment to the discovery of actual truth, as is anything that obscures reality behind a veil of faith.
to whoever modded me as a troll, Go buy a new plastic rolling chair mat sometime. Throw it under your desk. If you don't get a sore throat on the first day, working a regular day on it, send me your address and I'll send you $20 toward the cost of the mat. I am AMAZED at the level of toxins we tolerate normally.
or it's environmental, and things that more affluent professionals are exposed to in their work or choose for their lifestyle is to blame. Lack of Vitamin D from working indoors. toxic components in electronics. whatever... the indoor built environment most engineers/medical personnel or the like is used to is simply FULL of new, offgassing, toxic components on a fairly regular basis.... especially if they like buying new stuff at home too. New Car smell? New couch, desk chair, pressboard desk, carpeting? There are neurotoxins in those chemicals...
My money is on "environmental/lifestyle choice".
too bad that one of those accidents is making a large area dangerous to live in. that's always been the argument against nuclear. it's not that it's "more dangerous" day to day. it's that the CONSEQUENCES OF FAILURE are so bad. That, and how to sequester the waste effectively for timescales that exceed the lifespan of most countries.
who the heck told you the best place for a thermostat is in a hallway? that's the WORST place for a thermostat. unless your hallway happens to be on an outside wall with a significant heating/cooling load profile. Jeez... hallway thermostats are one of the reasons most people are not happy with their heat/cooling systems and are constantly fiddling with their thermostats.
I too dislike the autoaway feature, but as long as it's configurable I don't see a problem.
the autolearning programming is a GREAT idea for less technical users. all it has to do is note when you hit the dial (that's when you want it warm) and it's learning how long it takes to affect the temperature (love the countdown), so it can figure when it needs to start heating up to hit your target time. that part's easy.
I wish I could tell what capabilities the stat has though... it's very light on detail. and I mean the technical capabilities (two stage heat? cooling? heat pump integration? etc) not what it does for the end user.
If you think oil prices drops are anything but natural fluctuations on an ever-rising overall price curve, you are not paying attention to the overall trend.
If it takes massive depression to dampen oil pricing, that is a pretty damning indicator right there. Or are you suggesting that crashing the world economy is a viable solution to energy prices?
You can always pretend the free market "would have" done something. Electric infrastructure. Roads. Internet. Pure research. But that doesn't mean it will. If you want viagra, the free market will deliver that. If you want to avoid a catastrophic shock to the system when energy prices spike with no ready to deploy alternatives already going, however, it can't. That takes years and years of development and deployment and a serious focus to get going, in conditions that are not yet "economical". But then, the day it IS economical, you just blunted a serious depression or even complete societal collapse that could have occurred when oil spikes to $200/barrel for an extended period of time, because you have a solution that can be deployed and in fact is ALREADY BEING deployed.
PV is there, today, in many areas of the US. It will be cheaper than grid electricity more and more often over the next several years. That would never have happened without government subsidies and incentives. and it very well may save mankind in the next few decades, with no hyperbole at all. Maybe it won't, and we'll only have renewable energy to help make the earth cleaner and healthier... shucks. what a waste.
Yes. Of course the "scandal that comes to mind" ignores the what, 99%+ of those funds that were NOT involved in a scandal there were put to work as intended. Heck, let's be generous to your point and say only 90% weren't scandal-laden. Also, solar power is now beating grid parity in parts of the US, largely thanks to solar incentives and investment over the last several years getting the market going. Not just in the US, but here, in europe, and in china as well. This is a huge moment, where those with enough capital in parts of the us (including the northeast) could choose to "prebuy" their electricity for the next 25 years with PV... WITHOUT incentive... and not lose money compared to grid electricity. In a few more years it's going to be a slam dunk.
Public policy works. Funding research works. Give up the tired, weak whining that it's not perfect. Waiting for teh "free market" to fix it all isn't perfect either, and it cares a lot less for the collateral damage of a sudden catastrophic shift than we do.
http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/blogs/dept/guest-blogs/pv-systems-have-gotten-dirt-cheap
You had me until "do so fairly". it will most assuredly NOT do so "fairly". it will do so in a way which maximizes benefit to the capital source in charge of the project. "Fair" doesn't even enter into the discussion, and that is why we are not all small government libertarians.
If you can store it somewhere that would kill everyone around it, but those people don't purchase your product and don't have the legal ability/capital available to prove the case and prosecute you, then the problem is solved from a perspective that is absolutely fine from the point of view of the "free market". but it definitely is not "fair". "Fair" is determined by people, not economic forces.
really? what kind of shape is the colosseum in? Would a massive cache of weapons grade material stored in the colosseum have survived the multiple sackings of Rome that occurred, or would the material have been carted off by the victor and turned into WMDs? How could we maintain SECURITY on said pile for HUNDREDS of years?
Until we have a REAL solution for nuclear waste, promoting its use is the height of irresponsibility.
are we glossing over that the "fraction of the time of current nuclear waste's lifespan" STILL exceeds the current lifespan of nearly every... modern nation?
It would be like if the "West Francia" had to bury nuclear waste. What, never heard of them? well gosh. I'm sure that pile of deadly, weapons-grade nuclear waste they left behind is around here *somewhere*.
well said. very well said.