A comprehensive list a review shouldn't be necessary at the start of papers, yet it's frequently expected in the peer review process. Citing prior literature is important, but just to the extent necessary to support the hypothesis that the paper intends to examine.
Nope. It's an important part of academic research. It serves multiple purposes. It puts the work in perspective for the reader, that isn't necessarily up to speed on that particular area. It demonstrates that you've done your homework when you claim that this work is new and an improvement on previous work (that's why its called "previous work"), and it helps to put your work in perspective; i.e. is it a major step, or a small incremental one. None of these are strictly necessary to "support your hypothesis", that's much too narrow.
That's why its academia and not just engineering, for example. We don't just want to know that you did something or learned something new about the world. We want to also know how it fits into the bigger picture, and that's where presenting what has gone before and how compares is necessary.
There's one problem with the "guns protect against tyranny" thing - the armed forces. If they're against the populace, then there's no amount of guns in private hands which can beat them.
That's an oversimplification. While a true conscript army with distributed hardware (like we had in Sweden) would be much better from that standpoint; if the army is the populace, then they cannot by definition be put to the task of quelling the people, armed resistance from the population is not without effect.
Now, exactly how useful an armed populace would be against a professional army in a civil war setting is a more complex issue than what you make it out to be. While a a populace armed with handguns and rifles is no panacea, many guerillas have been successful with a similar level of armaments. Especially initially. You need to be able to resist from the outset if you're going to be able to mount an effective resistance at all.
To this you have to add the motivation of the army you're up against. Killing your own people is hard. Adding armed resistance makes it harder, psychologically speaking. If people are shooting back, that makes it clear you're not popular. And while it may not do much in the situation at hand (i.e. make soldiers lay down their arms), it will give them pause later. (If history is anything to go by.)
But that's not to say that lightly armed guerillas are usually effective in the common military sense of the word. Not without outside support (c.f. Mujahedin in Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion), esp. in unfavourable terrain. However, for outside support to be effective in the first place there has to be an organisation available to use it. Hence the CIA-sponsored "stay behind" organisations that sprung up in secret in Europe after the war. Note that much of the physical support to those organisation was in the form of preplaced caches of weapons, ammunition, explosives and communications gear.
Its also not for nothing that the previous Swedish handling of firearm licenses was distributed to the local police and a purely paper based system. This so that the records could be burned on short notice, to deny an occupier knowledge of who had firearm. This in addition to the cached military arms. One would hardly come up with such a costly and less secure scheme, in a country with traditionally strict firearms legislation, if fire arms in the hands of civilians were of no, to little value in resisting a large, well armed, trained, and regulated (invasion) force.
That's not to disparage other tools, such as explosives, and above all: organisation, communication, and leadership. (In fact, in order to avoid a secret state-within-the-state that's all that the Swedish stay behind movement organised in peace time. Leadership cadre and comms people. That's all that needs to be in place to get a head start.) However, firearms have their place. You for instance shoot collaborators, you don't blow them up. That's far too messy and runs the risk of collateral damage. Something that an organisation relying on popular support can ill afford. Same with isolated soldiers on a break. Now of course, an regular ambush starts best with a big bang, but there are lots and lots of other operations that aren't regular ambushes. (You'll for example be shooting a lot of collaborators. Easily ten times as many as the enemy...)
After all, one must never forget that the reason COIN (COunter INsurgency) operations are so notoriously difficult is that in order to succeed, the army needs to win. The guerilla need only not lose. And not losing, i.e. being able to continue carrying out operations, is much easier than winning; aka rendering your enemy completely ineffective and unable to conduct any operation at all.
It basically comes down to popular support and motivation. Those who have it will in the end win. Those who don't will lose. Guns can be substantial motivator, and communicator.
The Peace prize isn't even awarded by the Nobel committee. It's just a way for Norway to make a political statement.
No, that's not really true. The peace prize is one of the original prizes set forth in Nobel's will. It further stipulates that it should be awarded by the parliament of Norway. So it's legitimate.
If you're looking for "fake" prizes, it's the economics prize "in memory of Alfred Nobel" that's the smoking gun. That was put in place by the Swedish central bank in the sixties (1968).
So, even though I as a swede wouldn't miss an opportunity to take the piss out of the Norwegians, this isn't one such opportunity.
There's a large subset of Americans that only care about the 2nd amendment, the right to bear arms (own guns). They don't give a shit about the rest of our Bill of Rights as long as they keep their guns. On the other side, there are people that want open borders hell or high water.
These people are lost to reason. There can be no compromise.
But that's not necessarily an unreasonable position. With a two party system such as yours, and especially given the current political climate, it could be argued that it doesn't really matter which of the two you vote for. You'll end up in the same place anyway.
This is of course supported by the observations of the low voter turnout, liberal usage of terms such as "republicrats" etc.
These larger questions are also not necessarily in the hands of the politicians in any case; questions regarding the economy etc.
However the question of whether, and how, people should be allowed to own and shoot guns, is one of those few questions that is solely within the political domain. So if you feel that your vote doesn't matter in the larger scheme of things anyway, voting single issue becomes the rational choice. If you feel you'll be shafted anyway,
you might as well use your vote for something you care about.
And then you of course also have to take into account that laws regarding weapons ownership is only a very small piece of the puzzle. We have traditionally had much stricter gun control laws in Sweden, and also a lot less violent crime than the US. However, that has recently changed significantly. When it comes to firearms violence we have to now go to southern Italy to find similar figures (and if we compare explosive/grenade violence, we have to go to Mexico).
Our firearm laws have not changed one iota during this period. The changes in violence are all due to social ills, with criminal gangs gaining a foothold (for lots of reasons) and illegal arms being smuggled here from south east Europe. (It's also the first time that firearms violence hasn't given rise to yet shriller cries for more strict licensing laws, as the AKMs and hand grenades that are used, obviously were never legally owned here in Sweden to begin with.) So restricting licensing further, would obviously not do anything to help the problem. Legally owned guns simply does not figure into this particular equation.
Not really bad things, but there's several examples of him forcing people to do things, for example: http://clisp.cvs.sourceforge.n....
No. He's not forcing anyone to do anything. International law in the form of the Berne convention is the only force at work.
In the situation at hand the solution is simple. Stop using other peoples' code! It's not yours to do with as you please. In this case the author himself agrees that readline is not an integral part of the programme and could be left out without any trouble.
But he doesn't want to, and that's why he decided that he'd rather relicense his own code than do without readline. As is his right.
The GPL is the most inspired and intelligent development in the area in the last century, and probably this too. There can be no freedom if slavery is allowed. Hence the system that puts limits on others attempts to limit your freedom are more free. Not less. Freedom doesn't mean freedom from necessary rules. An absence of rules is not freedom, that's anarchy.
Again look at France. Cheaper electricity than Germany and 75% of it from nuclear. And that's beating coal economically. So how much nuclear is too much then?
Now, of course you want to run your expensive plants flat out. That delivers the best economy. But that's not to say that its "uneconomical" to run them a bit below max some of the time. There is a lot of middle ground between most profitable and won't-make-back-what-they-cost.
In fact. That argument is one that's better applied to wind+solar. Since they are so unreliable, you have to really go to town when speccing out your reserves. They have to be able to cover the whole load, while still not making any money when the wind does blow. Which it does most of the time. That's uneconomical in the extreme.
And that's why neither you nor Germany could exist in isolation. Without us, Norway, France etc. to shore up your grid, you'd end up with brownouts, blackouts etc. You couldn't run a stable grid.
No-one is saying that nuclear is perfect in ever way. Far from it. I am saying that its the best available. All things considered.
And nuclear isn't expensive if you factor in the capacity factor. I have no idea where you get the "they have to be able to ramp down at night" spiel from. If you have any shred of a reference to that I'd like to see it. It's patently untrue. The only way wind, solar, etc. looks cheaper is because of subsidies and not taking capacity factor into account.
And no, it's not because we have hydro that nuclear works for us. Look at France. Plenty of cheap electricity (compared to you and Germany) and they produce 3/4 of their electricity with nuclear. With hydro a very small part.
And hydro electric isn't storage, in that it can't store electricity already generated. Following your argument then an oil or coal fired plant provides for electricity storage, as you can build as large a fuel tank, or coal heap, next to it as you please.
No, it's renewables that are expensive. It's not for nothing that electricity prices are the highest in Germany and Denmark. Germany is more expensive than France, even if you remove taxes and other levies. And the price in Germany is kept down by coal. So, nuclear is not the problem price-wise. Quite the contrary.
I'm not sure I follow when you say that nuclear can't supply more in winter when demand is highest.
In Sweden we have our peak demand on a cold clear winter day. The "clear" is operative here as that means a high pressure area, which means no to little wind.
That's when we need the power, and wind can't deliver. (Hydro can though).
And wind isn't cheaper than nuclear, as it's unreliable. Nuclear can and does deliver reliably and predictably, wind doesn't. That's the problem. If we only had a way to store energy then by all means. I'd be the first to vote for nuclear removal. But since we can't, and there isn't really anything realistic on the horizon. Reliability is a major factor.
Why not? Like I said, in the Swedish example, if they've been built they'll be running "forever". Even if the decision to close them down has been taken. (German craziness notwithstanding).
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And this for many of the same reasons that the Germans will not close down their coal fired plants in the foreseeable future. There aren't any realistic alternatives.
And given that there aren't, I prefer the alternative that will not dump giga-tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. For, what should be, obvious reasons.
And the reason for this is that "green" energy, namely wind and solar, is eating its lunch. We demand that wind+solar be sold, at all cost, to the detriment of nuclear, and when they don't deliver (as they won't, because wind+solar is fickle) nuclear is left without the income to support itself.
You Danes do the same thing, you dump your wind surplus on us when you have too much, and buy from us when you don't have enough. Then you don't have a problem with nuclear...
And Germany should be so lucky that France is willing to sell them their "nighttime surplus". With Germany on wind + solar there wouldn't be any nighttime surplus...
And France does run some of its nuclear in a load following manner. Even quickly enough to do regulation. It's expensive to run that way though, as it thermally cycles the reactor tanks, to the detriment of their longevity. As part of a mix with i.e. hyrdo electricity, they work very well though. Just witness Sweden.
I pay a third to a quarter for my electricity compared to you...
Because they're nowhere near it, the curves on the graphing paper don't point their way, and it gets harder the longer you go. Not easier. (You always pick the lowers hanging fruits first.)
Current projections on when Germany will rid itself of coal, is "so far into the future that we might as well say never". I.e. 20 years or so.
In 1980 Sweden had a referendum that lead to the decision that nuclear power would be shut down in Sweden in 2010. In 2010 we had relatively more nuclear power than in 1980. We had about the same nuclear mix as we always had. Not one iota of difference in all those years.
It's easy to make a political decision that you won't have to answer for. But deciding that things should be shut down here and now, that's not so easy. Shutting down coal in Germany will cost money. No-one will want to pay it when it's about to happen.
So, I'm willing to bet good money the German electricity future will depend on coal for the foreseeable future. And that's bad. Really bad. They could have slashed their CO2 emissions if they'd kept nuclear and banned coal instead.
Yes, we're lucky we've got a bit of hydro electric, but we don't have enough! That's the point. We still need nuclear. However, with the current political climate, we're going to shut them down, and then see our electricity prices soar, and our industry tank with it.
And you don't need hydro electricity if you like France have your head screwed on straight... (Well, when it comes to electricity generation...)
P.S. And hydro electricity isn't necessarily "environmentally friendly". Quite the contrary. Those rivers you damm, basically die. That's why we saved our last ones in favour of nuclear, way back when.
The frustration many of us feel is that if all the money invested into nuclear was instead invested into renewables it would see a reduction in fossil fuel use too.
Look at Germany. Closing coal plans, and the new ones being opened are burning less of it and with cleaner output. It's not perfect but the net result is that by the mid 2020s they will not only have cancelled all new nuclear but closed all the current ones, and reduced coal and gas consumption, and developed a world-leading and highly profitable green energy sector.
Well, seeing is believing, and from across the water, I'm not seeing it. The German electrical grid only works because they're neighbours (France) are ready, willing, and able to take up the slack. (I.e. exporting to Germany when they have a shortfall, and accepting the overruns).
The same is true of Denmark. They wouldn't "work" if they didn't have us for a neighbour.
And that true even though in both countries they don't use electricity unless it's absolutely necessary. Electricity to the consumer is about 3-4 times as expensive in Germany/Denmark so the consumers act smart, and avoid it as much as possible. The German releases twice as much CO2 per capita as us Swedes, and that's with similar standard of living and similar industrial mix. And yet, they're the green example to emulate, while we're the "backward ones".
Because of course, we have 40% nuclear and the rest hydro electric. Not for long though, the green stupidity have reached our shores and is alive and well. Well, at least we'll still have the hydro electric, and I'm sure the Norwegians (98% hydro electric) will be willing to shore up our swaying network. For a price...
So, the Germans clearly screwed the pooch from an environmental standpoint. They're producing CO2 as if there's no tomorrow, and that's going to continue for a long, long time. And they do that burning lignite, which is a pretty horrible fuel, even as fossil fuels go (yes, there's a reduction in use, it's a pittance). And this in a time where we're looking to electrify our transports. We should be gearing up for cheaper and more plentiful electricity, with a lower CO2 load, not trying our level best to go the opposite route.
Exactly! For those who want to dig deeper, the keyword is "typeful programming". I.e. where one uses a sophisticated type system with type checking, to encode and reason about many of the properties/requirements of ones programme.
For those programmers who haven't been exposed to it, explaining what it is, is a little like trying to explain the ocean to someone who grew up in the desert. It's a mistake to dismiss it with a: "Sounds like just a lot of water to me". Instead, I encourage getting ones feet wet. Exposure to functional programming techniques will make one a better programmer, no matter what technology one uses.
This is why it's too expensive for ISPs to roll out fiber in the USA compared to Japan or Korea.
Nope. Like matter in space, you USians are all clumped together. You don't need to roll out fibre to the middle of nowhere, since no-one lives there.
You have three times as many people in California as we do here in Sweden (we're roughly the size and shape of CA). And yet we have much better and cheaper fibre than you do. It's got nothing to do with average population density as you have us solidly beat on that measure (Sweden: 24/sq km, CA: 97/sq km...)
Yes, I described that effect in an earlier post. It's the main (i.e. what you're aiming for) effect behind the effectiveness of torpedoes or mines.
But it takes a much larger bubble for that effect to dominate over simple concussive effects. We're talking warheads with hundreds of kilos of explosive here, not 2 kg... For a small pop like a contact mine, it does have to be in contact.
Also, note the buoyancy of the bubble mentioned in the wikipedia article. You need the bubble to form under the target, not at its side for any real effect, which is were we're attaching these limpets. (Just look at the water spouts from missing artillery shells, they go up, not sideways:-)). C.f. Barnes Wallis bouncing bomb. Even though it was substantial in size, it had to be made to hug the dam wall, for it to have maximum effectiveness. You couldn't just drop it in the middle of the dam and be done with it.
Well, I think you'll find a submarine or two with just the one hole in the engine room (a notoriously large and difficult area to work in when it came to damage control), but sure. When we talk of larger vessels they're difficult to sink. That's kind of the point.
It's not so much the explosives that do the damage, but the water that flows in after that can take down a ship.
Well, of course ultimately what sinks a ship is water inside the hull, aka not being able to keep it on the outside. But the story is more complicated than that, the main point being that ships have pumps and watertight compartments, so just making a hole in the ships hull isn't always successful. You have to make a large hole, preferably into a large compartment and one that's difficult to get at from the inside (to frustrate efforts to plug it). Or many smaller holes in different places, hence the practice of attaching many limpets when time and resources permitted.
Modern weapons actually use the physics of water to make that hole. A modern torpedo will detonate well below the keel of the ship to make a large cavity from the blast bubble. This makes the ship "sag" into the hole, breaking its back if your lucky, and when water rushes in to fill the cavity a spout will form that can cut the ship in two. All without trying to hole the ship as such, like older weapons did. (This takes a lot more explosive though...)
Yeah, but you'd have to "fly" them under water somehow. And you have to get the explosive right up against the hull. A surprisingly small amount of water between the explosive and hull and it won't work nearly as well.
Yes, 2kg was the weight of explosives in the classic British limpet mine. So well below the waterline it could and did sink a ship, but in order to reliably take town a such a large vessel, and especially a man of war at that, with more and better damage control, you'd probably need a lot more than one limpet.
When the Norwegians sank the SS Donau (a 10000 ton ship, much smaller than Queen Elizabeth) they attached ten mines, and even that gave the captain the time to beach the ship.
So 2kg of explosives applied on the outside of the ship can do some damage in the ideal case, but probably not catastrophic when the ship is manned and ready.
Slashdot Mirror
He graduated from Perdue.
Not sure I would take the word of an aerospace engineer that graduated from Perdue....
A comprehensive list a review shouldn't be necessary at the start of papers, yet it's frequently expected in the peer review process. Citing prior literature is important, but just to the extent necessary to support the hypothesis that the paper intends to examine.
Nope. It's an important part of academic research. It serves multiple purposes. It puts the work in perspective for the reader, that isn't necessarily up to speed on that particular area. It demonstrates that you've done your homework when you claim that this work is new and an improvement on previous work (that's why its called "previous work"), and it helps to put your work in perspective; i.e. is it a major step, or a small incremental one. None of these are strictly necessary to "support your hypothesis", that's much too narrow.
That's why its academia and not just engineering, for example. We don't just want to know that you did something or learned something new about the world. We want to also know how it fits into the bigger picture, and that's where presenting what has gone before and how compares is necessary.
It's even worse than that. When you shoot at distances or situations where more advanced ballistics figure, a "numerical" mindset really helps.
It's not for nothing that electronic computers were developed to calculate better ballistics tables.
No disagreement there. There are of course also people who are in the wrong line of work. Don't get me wrong.
Or that you're overworked, stressed out, or haven't had enough sleep.
Shit happens. Sometimes more than once. If the same shit keeps happening more than once, then maybe something else is wrong...
There's one problem with the "guns protect against tyranny" thing - the armed forces. If they're against the populace, then there's no amount of guns in private hands which can beat them.
That's an oversimplification. While a true conscript army with distributed hardware (like we had in Sweden) would be much better from that standpoint; if the army is the populace, then they cannot by definition be put to the task of quelling the people, armed resistance from the population is not without effect.
Now, exactly how useful an armed populace would be against a professional army in a civil war setting is a more complex issue than what you make it out to be. While a a populace armed with handguns and rifles is no panacea, many guerillas have been successful with a similar level of armaments. Especially initially. You need to be able to resist from the outset if you're going to be able to mount an effective resistance at all.
To this you have to add the motivation of the army you're up against. Killing your own people is hard. Adding armed resistance makes it harder, psychologically speaking. If people are shooting back, that makes it clear you're not popular. And while it may not do much in the situation at hand (i.e. make soldiers lay down their arms), it will give them pause later. (If history is anything to go by.)
But that's not to say that lightly armed guerillas are usually effective in the common military sense of the word. Not without outside support (c.f. Mujahedin in Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion), esp. in unfavourable terrain. However, for outside support to be effective in the first place there has to be an organisation available to use it. Hence the CIA-sponsored "stay behind" organisations that sprung up in secret in Europe after the war. Note that much of the physical support to those organisation was in the form of preplaced caches of weapons, ammunition, explosives and communications gear.
Its also not for nothing that the previous Swedish handling of firearm licenses was distributed to the local police and a purely paper based system. This so that the records could be burned on short notice, to deny an occupier knowledge of who had firearm. This in addition to the cached military arms. One would hardly come up with such a costly and less secure scheme, in a country with traditionally strict firearms legislation, if fire arms in the hands of civilians were of no, to little value in resisting a large, well armed, trained, and regulated (invasion) force.
That's not to disparage other tools, such as explosives, and above all: organisation, communication, and leadership. (In fact, in order to avoid a secret state-within-the-state that's all that the Swedish stay behind movement organised in peace time. Leadership cadre and comms people. That's all that needs to be in place to get a head start.) However, firearms have their place. You for instance shoot collaborators, you don't blow them up. That's far too messy and runs the risk of collateral damage. Something that an organisation relying on popular support can ill afford. Same with isolated soldiers on a break. Now of course, an regular ambush starts best with a big bang, but there are lots and lots of other operations that aren't regular ambushes. (You'll for example be shooting a lot of collaborators. Easily ten times as many as the enemy...)
After all, one must never forget that the reason COIN (COunter INsurgency) operations are so notoriously difficult is that in order to succeed, the army needs to win. The guerilla need only not lose. And not losing, i.e. being able to continue carrying out operations, is much easier than winning; aka rendering your enemy completely ineffective and unable to conduct any operation at all.
It basically comes down to popular support and motivation. Those who have it will in the end win. Those who don't will lose. Guns can be substantial motivator, and communicator.
The Peace prize isn't even awarded by the Nobel committee. It's just a way for Norway to make a political statement.
No, that's not really true. The peace prize is one of the original prizes set forth in Nobel's will. It further stipulates that it should be awarded by the parliament of Norway. So it's legitimate.
If you're looking for "fake" prizes, it's the economics prize "in memory of Alfred Nobel" that's the smoking gun. That was put in place by the Swedish central bank in the sixties (1968).
So, even though I as a swede wouldn't miss an opportunity to take the piss out of the Norwegians, this isn't one such opportunity.
There's a large subset of Americans that only care about the 2nd amendment, the right to bear arms (own guns). They don't give a shit about the rest of our Bill of Rights as long as they keep their guns. On the other side, there are people that want open borders hell or high water.
These people are lost to reason. There can be no compromise.
But that's not necessarily an unreasonable position. With a two party system such as yours, and especially given the current political climate, it could be argued that it doesn't really matter which of the two you vote for. You'll end up in the same place anyway.
This is of course supported by the observations of the low voter turnout, liberal usage of terms such as "republicrats" etc.
These larger questions are also not necessarily in the hands of the politicians in any case; questions regarding the economy etc.
However the question of whether, and how, people should be allowed to own and shoot guns, is one of those few questions that is solely within the political domain. So if you feel that your vote doesn't matter in the larger scheme of things anyway, voting single issue becomes the rational choice. If you feel you'll be shafted anyway, you might as well use your vote for something you care about.
And then you of course also have to take into account that laws regarding weapons ownership is only a very small piece of the puzzle. We have traditionally had much stricter gun control laws in Sweden, and also a lot less violent crime than the US. However, that has recently changed significantly. When it comes to firearms violence we have to now go to southern Italy to find similar figures (and if we compare explosive/grenade violence, we have to go to Mexico).
Our firearm laws have not changed one iota during this period. The changes in violence are all due to social ills, with criminal gangs gaining a foothold (for lots of reasons) and illegal arms being smuggled here from south east Europe. (It's also the first time that firearms violence hasn't given rise to yet shriller cries for more strict licensing laws, as the AKMs and hand grenades that are used, obviously were never legally owned here in Sweden to begin with.) So restricting licensing further, would obviously not do anything to help the problem. Legally owned guns simply does not figure into this particular equation.
Not really bad things, but there's several examples of him forcing people to do things, for example: http://clisp.cvs.sourceforge.n....
No. He's not forcing anyone to do anything. International law in the form of the Berne convention is the only force at work.
In the situation at hand the solution is simple. Stop using other peoples' code! It's not yours to do with as you please. In this case the author himself agrees that readline is not an integral part of the programme and could be left out without any trouble.
But he doesn't want to, and that's why he decided that he'd rather relicense his own code than do without readline. As is his right.
The GPL is the most inspired and intelligent development in the area in the last century, and probably this too. There can be no freedom if slavery is allowed. Hence the system that puts limits on others attempts to limit your freedom are more free. Not less. Freedom doesn't mean freedom from necessary rules. An absence of rules is not freedom, that's anarchy.
The pressure difference isn't all that much. atmospheric pressure is around 1kg/cm, most cars run 2kg/cm, so it's 3 times higher inside than out.
But the pressure in tires in the main landing gear (at sea level) of a 747 is ca 13 bar. Not 2... And that's just to begin with.
Again look at France. Cheaper electricity than Germany and 75% of it from nuclear. And that's beating coal economically. So how much nuclear is too much then?
Now, of course you want to run your expensive plants flat out. That delivers the best economy. But that's not to say that its "uneconomical" to run them a bit below max some of the time. There is a lot of middle ground between most profitable and won't-make-back-what-they-cost.
In fact. That argument is one that's better applied to wind+solar. Since they are so unreliable, you have to really go to town when speccing out your reserves. They have to be able to cover the whole load, while still not making any money when the wind does blow. Which it does most of the time. That's uneconomical in the extreme.
And that's why neither you nor Germany could exist in isolation. Without us, Norway, France etc. to shore up your grid, you'd end up with brownouts, blackouts etc. You couldn't run a stable grid.
No-one is saying that nuclear is perfect in ever way. Far from it. I am saying that its the best available. All things considered.
Nope. Swedish nuclear has regulatory problems. That's why we have a low capacity factor. But that's not inherent. In fact nuclear has the highest capacity factor of all energy sources. It's the most reliable of all electric energy sources.
And nuclear isn't expensive if you factor in the capacity factor. I have no idea where you get the "they have to be able to ramp down at night" spiel from. If you have any shred of a reference to that I'd like to see it. It's patently untrue. The only way wind, solar, etc. looks cheaper is because of subsidies and not taking capacity factor into account.
And no, it's not because we have hydro that nuclear works for us. Look at France. Plenty of cheap electricity (compared to you and Germany) and they produce 3/4 of their electricity with nuclear. With hydro a very small part.
And hydro electric isn't storage, in that it can't store electricity already generated. Following your argument then an oil or coal fired plant provides for electricity storage, as you can build as large a fuel tank, or coal heap, next to it as you please.
No, it's renewables that are expensive. It's not for nothing that electricity prices are the highest in Germany and Denmark. Germany is more expensive than France, even if you remove taxes and other levies. And the price in Germany is kept down by coal. So, nuclear is not the problem price-wise. Quite the contrary.
I'm not sure I follow when you say that nuclear can't supply more in winter when demand is highest.
In Sweden we have our peak demand on a cold clear winter day. The "clear" is operative here as that means a high pressure area, which means no to little wind. That's when we need the power, and wind can't deliver. (Hydro can though).
And wind isn't cheaper than nuclear, as it's unreliable. Nuclear can and does deliver reliably and predictably, wind doesn't. That's the problem. If we only had a way to store energy then by all means. I'd be the first to vote for nuclear removal. But since we can't, and there isn't really anything realistic on the horizon. Reliability is a major factor.
Why not? Like I said, in the Swedish example, if they've been built they'll be running "forever". Even if the decision to close them down has been taken. (German craziness notwithstanding).
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And this for many of the same reasons that the Germans will not close down their coal fired plants in the foreseeable future. There aren't any realistic alternatives.
And given that there aren't, I prefer the alternative that will not dump giga-tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. For, what should be, obvious reasons.
And the reason for this is that "green" energy, namely wind and solar, is eating its lunch. We demand that wind+solar be sold, at all cost, to the detriment of nuclear, and when they don't deliver (as they won't, because wind+solar is fickle) nuclear is left without the income to support itself.
You Danes do the same thing, you dump your wind surplus on us when you have too much, and buy from us when you don't have enough. Then you don't have a problem with nuclear...
And Germany should be so lucky that France is willing to sell them their "nighttime surplus". With Germany on wind + solar there wouldn't be any nighttime surplus...
And France does run some of its nuclear in a load following manner. Even quickly enough to do regulation. It's expensive to run that way though, as it thermally cycles the reactor tanks, to the detriment of their longevity. As part of a mix with i.e. hyrdo electricity, they work very well though. Just witness Sweden. I pay a third to a quarter for my electricity compared to you...
Because they're nowhere near it, the curves on the graphing paper don't point their way, and it gets harder the longer you go. Not easier. (You always pick the lowers hanging fruits first.)
Current projections on when Germany will rid itself of coal, is "so far into the future that we might as well say never". I.e. 20 years or so.
In 1980 Sweden had a referendum that lead to the decision that nuclear power would be shut down in Sweden in 2010. In 2010 we had relatively more nuclear power than in 1980. We had about the same nuclear mix as we always had. Not one iota of difference in all those years.
It's easy to make a political decision that you won't have to answer for. But deciding that things should be shut down here and now, that's not so easy. Shutting down coal in Germany will cost money. No-one will want to pay it when it's about to happen.
So, I'm willing to bet good money the German electricity future will depend on coal for the foreseeable future. And that's bad. Really bad. They could have slashed their CO2 emissions if they'd kept nuclear and banned coal instead.
Smug?? Where on earth did you get smug?
Yes, we're lucky we've got a bit of hydro electric, but we don't have enough! That's the point. We still need nuclear. However, with the current political climate, we're going to shut them down, and then see our electricity prices soar, and our industry tank with it.
And you don't need hydro electricity if you like France have your head screwed on straight... (Well, when it comes to electricity generation...)
P.S. And hydro electricity isn't necessarily "environmentally friendly". Quite the contrary. Those rivers you damm, basically die. That's why we saved our last ones in favour of nuclear, way back when.
The frustration many of us feel is that if all the money invested into nuclear was instead invested into renewables it would see a reduction in fossil fuel use too.
Look at Germany. Closing coal plans, and the new ones being opened are burning less of it and with cleaner output. It's not perfect but the net result is that by the mid 2020s they will not only have cancelled all new nuclear but closed all the current ones, and reduced coal and gas consumption, and developed a world-leading and highly profitable green energy sector.
Well, seeing is believing, and from across the water, I'm not seeing it. The German electrical grid only works because they're neighbours (France) are ready, willing, and able to take up the slack. (I.e. exporting to Germany when they have a shortfall, and accepting the overruns).
The same is true of Denmark. They wouldn't "work" if they didn't have us for a neighbour.
And that true even though in both countries they don't use electricity unless it's absolutely necessary. Electricity to the consumer is about 3-4 times as expensive in Germany/Denmark so the consumers act smart, and avoid it as much as possible. The German releases twice as much CO2 per capita as us Swedes, and that's with similar standard of living and similar industrial mix. And yet, they're the green example to emulate, while we're the "backward ones".
Because of course, we have 40% nuclear and the rest hydro electric. Not for long though, the green stupidity have reached our shores and is alive and well. Well, at least we'll still have the hydro electric, and I'm sure the Norwegians (98% hydro electric) will be willing to shore up our swaying network. For a price...
So, the Germans clearly screwed the pooch from an environmental standpoint. They're producing CO2 as if there's no tomorrow, and that's going to continue for a long, long time. And they do that burning lignite, which is a pretty horrible fuel, even as fossil fuels go (yes, there's a reduction in use, it's a pittance). And this in a time where we're looking to electrify our transports. We should be gearing up for cheaper and more plentiful electricity, with a lower CO2 load, not trying our level best to go the opposite route.
Exactly! For those who want to dig deeper, the keyword is "typeful programming". I.e. where one uses a sophisticated type system with type checking, to encode and reason about many of the properties/requirements of ones programme.
For those programmers who haven't been exposed to it, explaining what it is, is a little like trying to explain the ocean to someone who grew up in the desert. It's a mistake to dismiss it with a: "Sounds like just a lot of water to me". Instead, I encourage getting ones feet wet. Exposure to functional programming techniques will make one a better programmer, no matter what technology one uses.
This is why it's too expensive for ISPs to roll out fiber in the USA compared to Japan or Korea.
Nope. Like matter in space, you USians are all clumped together. You don't need to roll out fibre to the middle of nowhere, since no-one lives there.
You have three times as many people in California as we do here in Sweden (we're roughly the size and shape of CA). And yet we have much better and cheaper fibre than you do. It's got nothing to do with average population density as you have us solidly beat on that measure (Sweden: 24/sq km, CA: 97/sq km...)
Yes, I described that effect in an earlier post. It's the main (i.e. what you're aiming for) effect behind the effectiveness of torpedoes or mines.
But it takes a much larger bubble for that effect to dominate over simple concussive effects. We're talking warheads with hundreds of kilos of explosive here, not 2 kg... For a small pop like a contact mine, it does have to be in contact.
Also, note the buoyancy of the bubble mentioned in the wikipedia article. You need the bubble to form under the target, not at its side for any real effect, which is were we're attaching these limpets. (Just look at the water spouts from missing artillery shells, they go up, not sideways :-)). C.f. Barnes Wallis bouncing bomb. Even though it was substantial in size, it had to be made to hug the dam wall, for it to have maximum effectiveness. You couldn't just drop it in the middle of the dam and be done with it.
Well, I think you'll find a submarine or two with just the one hole in the engine room (a notoriously large and difficult area to work in when it came to damage control), but sure. When we talk of larger vessels they're difficult to sink. That's kind of the point.
It's not so much the explosives that do the damage, but the water that flows in after that can take down a ship.
Well, of course ultimately what sinks a ship is water inside the hull, aka not being able to keep it on the outside. But the story is more complicated than that, the main point being that ships have pumps and watertight compartments, so just making a hole in the ships hull isn't always successful. You have to make a large hole, preferably into a large compartment and one that's difficult to get at from the inside (to frustrate efforts to plug it). Or many smaller holes in different places, hence the practice of attaching many limpets when time and resources permitted.
Modern weapons actually use the physics of water to make that hole. A modern torpedo will detonate well below the keel of the ship to make a large cavity from the blast bubble. This makes the ship "sag" into the hole, breaking its back if your lucky, and when water rushes in to fill the cavity a spout will form that can cut the ship in two. All without trying to hole the ship as such, like older weapons did. (This takes a lot more explosive though...)
Yeah, but you'd have to "fly" them under water somehow. And you have to get the explosive right up against the hull. A surprisingly small amount of water between the explosive and hull and it won't work nearly as well.
Yes, 2kg was the weight of explosives in the classic British limpet mine. So well below the waterline it could and did sink a ship, but in order to reliably take town a such a large vessel, and especially a man of war at that, with more and better damage control, you'd probably need a lot more than one limpet.
When the Norwegians sank the SS Donau (a 10000 ton ship, much smaller than Queen Elizabeth) they attached ten mines, and even that gave the captain the time to beach the ship.
So 2kg of explosives applied on the outside of the ship can do some damage in the ideal case, but probably not catastrophic when the ship is manned and ready.