Your experience is not common among the 30,000 undergraduate students at my university. University wide, the cost of text books averages less than $500/semester new and less than $300/used. A survey suggested that the average ebook discount is less than a that for used books... Furthermore, I would be extremely surprised if the numbers were different at any other large public university. Your experience is not typical..
It looks fine if you eliminate the silly thermoelectric generator and slap on one of these asc engines, http://gltrs.grc.nasa.gov/reports/2006/TM-2006-214243.pdf. They get you somewhere on the order of 6-8x more power for the same Pu. Plenty of room to play.
I meant far more practically, if we can't rent money how do we negotiate to buy expensive things? How do I buy a house? How does a farmer buy a tractor? How does a business manage delays in accounts payable/receivable?
Lump capital gains with income, eliminate corporate taxes, end exemptions above 2x median income, add tax brackets based on multiples of the median wage with say 99% above 10,000x median wage, eliminate death tax loopholes, recognize total compensation (e.g. use of jets, houses, cars) as income, institute similar rules on multi-nationals that would like to do business in the US
Wholesale theft and armed robbery (but we'll call it taxes and execute it through the government so it'll be okay)?
If you're one of those people who doesn't recognize a social contract.. we'll tax your departure. Or if your wealth is that important, renounce your citizenship, never return, and take all your money.
I like this idea, but I don't see a mechanism for the redistribution of cash or intangible assets (e.g. brand equity). How financing can work without some kind of rent seeking and/or compensated middleman. I also find it difficult to imagine how a lot of the service industry might work.
So we're clear. Solar/wind capacity are being added faster than fossil-fuels and hence are 'standard' for new production
Well we've found the reason that you think solar is cheaper:
No. The LOCE for utility PV projects installed at $3/pW has something to do with it.
We're seeing 5 to 10% net kwh generated from wind in many U.S. states without storage. Solar is similarly predictable on the timescales where peaking generation must compensate (gas turbines). Storage is a red herring, for now. It isn't hampering the growth of wind or solar, which continue to grow faster than alternatives globally.
What incorrect reasons did I use to discount a non-existent molten salt storage technology?
If solar cannot accommodate large amounts of the grid requirements both night and day it is worse than useless. To accommodate that need pushes it into more expensive territory. It's hard to take this seriously... I'll just assume you didn't mean it.
Wind indeed works fairly well since you only need to smooth the valleys. It still has a storage issue for extended periods of low wind, but on the whole it's much more stable than solar; that's why wind is coming online in many areas. It's getting pretty close to being on-par with other generation techniques and within a few years it will be cheaper. Unfortunately it will still need backups or incredible storage systems before it can take on a serious amount of the grid.
Assuming wind is more 'stable' than solar (for all ambiguous definitions of stable) it's simply wrong as an explanation for the growth of the wind industry compared to the solar industry, mainly for its grotesque simplicity.
What is the difference between a wind valley and a solar valley? How do the solar valleys compare with the wind valleys in both the Mojave, CA and Minot, ND?
What is a 'serious' amount of the grid? Germany is ~11% wind/solar (20% w/ bio+hydro) Iowa has eclipsed 9% from wind while many other states are 5% from wind.
The bottom line is that we don't need storage yet. My evidence is 200GW of global wind and 75GW of solar without virtually any storage. Germany will have ~11-12% of net kWh in wind and solar PV this year. Let me know when they decide to halt expansion due to storage, then the rest of the world will get a decade before that wall...
But you have to accept and embrace my opinion that nuclear is our fastest path to carbon free energy.
There fixed that for you. The solar and wind production numbers are north of 75GW in 2011 and will be 100 GW in the next (few) year(s). How long does it take to fast track a new nuclear plant? Let's get ridiculous and say you can do it in 5 years (Jeepers this probably means crappy gen3 technology at best) . Good luck commissioning 500 to 800 reactors 5 years from now to match renewable growth (assuming 600 - 1000mw reactors). Or using 0.25CF for renewables and 0.9 for nuclear, you'll only need 140 - 220 new reactors to match the renewables annual net production! Better get going!
You aren't hearing because you aren't listening. You are letting someone else listen and interpret for you. The major concern at the UCal campus protests is tuition cost (and the absurdly huge pending increase). One of the major points throughout the OWS movement is the corrupt cycle that is University education financing. The system is vary obviously suited toward the interests of University (as a corporate-like institution: profits, growth) and financiers at the direct expense of students.
1) Storage is a red herring for now. It's simply not a problem for solar (PV) until grid saturation e.g. 100s of GW. Conservatively, about half the grid load is peaking. In good solar markets, the resource is predictable and leads the load quite nicely and can be easily paired with a peaking gas turbine.
2) Solar thermal (my background) is DOA at the utility scale, except for chemical fuels. Solar PV is arguably cheaper than ST now (Hence the conversion of the big Ca solar thermal projects to PV). This should tell you something about the relative cost of the technologies because solar thermal is just a coal (Rankine) plant with the boiler displaced by an array of mirrors and a central receiver.
2) "Coal over that same time has dropped drastically which shows very clearly that they *are* bringing new power online; it just isn't primarily solar."
No. The net generation in 2010 is ~10% lower than in 2006 and they cut coal and large hydro production. Nothing came online except solar, wind, and maybe peaking natural gas. You can't backout new generation from these numbers (especially because the natural gas is running at some absurdly low capacity factor, like 10%, that is the existing facilities could theoretically increase output ~10X).
In any event, Ca has about ~17GW of solar projects in the pipeline. SEIA updates these numbers frequently if you would like to verify. This number well in excess of the entire U.S. coal pipeline (permitted, constructing, planned). The total U.S. solar pipeline is something like a 35GW. Again, almost none of these planned solar projects consider the fact that silicon solar pv just dropped >30% in the 2H 2011 because "China" is coming online (like they did with Wind a few years ago). The only thing in the way right now is a shitty economic outlook. No one will build new capacity if the economy remains stagnant because our energy use will continue to decline/stagnate, like your Ca figure shows.
2) Small correction: wind power typically has higher output at night.. The levelized cost of wind energy in a "good" region is the same as coal. It has been awhile since I checked but I'm pretty sure the U.S. wind pipeline is well over 100GW.
3) In contrast, the natural gas project pipeline is something like ~20GW and coal is something like 10GW. The individual industry orgs update these numbers individually and they are pretty easy to find. In any event, the renewable energy projects in planning, permitting, and construction far exceed fossil fuel equivalents in the U.S (and the world excluding China). Gas might again take over in a decade if fracking production rates hold up. The picture is rosier in other western countries where, generally, existing fossil-fuel electricity is more expensive. China is a bit different. They are basically building every type of power generator as fast as possible to catch up with electricity demand.
Anyway, the cost of coal has gone up over the last decade. The fossil fuel pricing threat is presently natural gas, which depends entirely on the success of fracking.
Those 2 premises alone really ought to be enough to convince you that if wind and solar really were cheaper, they'd be the standard.
They are standard for new capacity. They are cheaper in many circumstances. Hawaii, Spain, Italy, California, and Australia have all reported grid parity of some sorts. Germany just predicted H2 2012 for residential grid parity. And none of these grid parity claims have relied on the 60% drop in cSi panel prices we have seen in 2011.
I would take your word for it if nuclear costs weren't so mysterious. In comparison, the cost of subsidized/unsubsidized wind/solar is pretty easy. 1. Please compare to a good (CF35+) wind site and disclose these subsidies (for wind and nuclear) that tip the scales
2. while your at it please show me that nuclear is cheaper than solar in the desert. For your benefit, why don't you use the recent cSi panel ASPs of 0.78 - 0.9$/pW presently found on the market.
I'm reasonably confident you'll have trouble showing an unambiguous advantage for nuclear even when neglecting 70 years of nuclear subsidies.
This is combined heat and power many facilities do it. It is green in the sense that energy is conserved because waste heat is used rather than discarded. A data center seems to be a good opportunity. The turbine converts 1 CH4 unit to 0.3 electricity, while the absorption chiller will move about as much energy as it consumes (COP 1), which means the 0.7 waste heat off the turbine can easily move the 0.3 units of data center electricity out of the data center and 0.4 units of waste heat (+ 0.3 data center heat) can still be used for another purpose. It might be good for a data center operator, but from a systems perspective the better use for that CH4 is still in a combined cycle utility plant which can make 0.6 electricity, use the waste heat for some co-located industrial facility and make the datacenter run an electric AC (COP ~ 3).
This "we are wired this way" "his instincts will kick in" is an absurd cop out. We have built an entire world/civilization that is contrary to our 'hard wired' nature.
No. The top 10% in the world is >22k. US average family income ~45k puts "middle in the USA" at top 3%. The average attorney salary is WAY south of 280K and you have about the same chance of knowing a surgeon who makes less than 280k compared to greater than 280k. This isn't about average surgeons or lawyers, its about purchasing power and long-term financial security collapsing for the middle class in favor of wealth transfer (tax structure, bailouts, buying legislation, corrupt free trade, etc) to the parasite class. And the top 0.1% to 0.01% are nothing without their hoards of upper middle class ~1-2% running along side shouting "me too"
Let's focus on Germany. They have increased GDP and increased renewable energy (20% of German kWh in the first 6 months of 2011 were non-emitting) while shrinking their CO2 emissions for the past 20 years.
"The scientific consensus is that if current rates of species extinction continue the fraction of species lost will be comparable to that of the five major extenction events in Earth's geological past" ~1996 http://goo.gl/z3IKs
Please correct me if if the thinking has changed.
Radiative cooling aside, isn't the net radiative forcing of water vapor a positive feedback? Thus, any effects of human CO2 emissions (even trivial) would amplify warming?
If a tiny few become rich by luck it is like a casino. On the other hand, if the tiny few become rich by hard work, its the American Dream. A reasonable person might conclude that both hard work and luck are required, thus the app store or reality exhibit some qualities of a casino. I don't think that recognizing reality's casino-like properties is a bad thing unless you have a vested interest in deluding people into believing hard work is the exclusive path to becoming rich.
This certainly isn't rigorous, but my 3 minute Internet estimation is that you are broadly incorrect. Apparently, the notion of failure is complicated. Failures appear to be inversely proportional to seed capital. It varies substantially with race and industry. And the definition of failure may include businesses that close for reasons other than financial inviability.
Slashdot Mirror
It is not insane to force Canada to reconcile the nastiness that is recovering oil from tar sands...
Your experience is not common among the 30,000 undergraduate students at my university. University wide, the cost of text books averages less than $500/semester new and less than $300/used. A survey suggested that the average ebook discount is less than a that for used books... Furthermore, I would be extremely surprised if the numbers were different at any other large public university. Your experience is not typical..
It looks fine if you eliminate the silly thermoelectric generator and slap on one of these asc engines, http://gltrs.grc.nasa.gov/reports/2006/TM-2006-214243.pdf. They get you somewhere on the order of 6-8x more power for the same Pu. Plenty of room to play.
I meant far more practically, if we can't rent money how do we negotiate to buy expensive things? How do I buy a house? How does a farmer buy a tractor? How does a business manage delays in accounts payable/receivable?
Um. You must have missed the part where this isn't affiliated with the Occupy movement. Please continue your misdirected rage.
Lump capital gains with income, eliminate corporate taxes, end exemptions above 2x median income, add tax brackets based on multiples of the median wage with say 99% above 10,000x median wage, eliminate death tax loopholes, recognize total compensation (e.g. use of jets, houses, cars) as income, institute similar rules on multi-nationals that would like to do business in the US
.. we'll tax your departure. Or if your wealth is that important, renounce your citizenship, never return, and take all your money.
Wholesale theft and armed robbery (but we'll call it taxes and execute it through the government so it'll be okay)?
If you're one of those people who doesn't recognize a social contract
I like this idea, but I don't see a mechanism for the redistribution of cash or intangible assets (e.g. brand equity). How financing can work without some kind of rent seeking and/or compensated middleman. I also find it difficult to imagine how a lot of the service industry might work.
Yes, but probably not worth it. See solar updraft tower.
So we're clear. Solar/wind capacity are being added faster than fossil-fuels and hence are 'standard' for new production
Well we've found the reason that you think solar is cheaper:
No. The LOCE for utility PV projects installed at $3/pW has something to do with it.
We're seeing 5 to 10% net kwh generated from wind in many U.S. states without storage. Solar is similarly predictable on the timescales where peaking generation must compensate (gas turbines). Storage is a red herring, for now. It isn't hampering the growth of wind or solar, which continue to grow faster than alternatives globally.
What incorrect reasons did I use to discount a non-existent molten salt storage technology?
If solar cannot accommodate large amounts of the grid requirements both night and day it is worse than useless. To accommodate that need pushes it into more expensive territory.
It's hard to take this seriously... I'll just assume you didn't mean it.
Wind indeed works fairly well since you only need to smooth the valleys. It still has a storage issue for extended periods of low wind, but on the whole it's much more stable than solar; that's why wind is coming online in many areas. It's getting pretty close to being on-par with other generation techniques and within a few years it will be cheaper. Unfortunately it will still need backups or incredible storage systems before it can take on a serious amount of the grid.
Assuming wind is more 'stable' than solar (for all ambiguous definitions of stable) it's simply wrong as an explanation for the growth of the wind industry compared to the solar industry, mainly for its grotesque simplicity.
What is the difference between a wind valley and a solar valley? How do the solar valleys compare with the wind valleys in both the Mojave, CA and Minot, ND?
What is a 'serious' amount of the grid? Germany is ~11% wind/solar (20% w/ bio+hydro) Iowa has eclipsed 9% from wind while many other states are 5% from wind.
The bottom line is that we don't need storage yet. My evidence is 200GW of global wind and 75GW of solar without virtually any storage. Germany will have ~11-12% of net kWh in wind and solar PV this year. Let me know when they decide to halt expansion due to storage, then the rest of the world will get a decade before that wall...
But you have to accept and embrace my opinion that nuclear is our fastest path to carbon free energy.
There fixed that for you. The solar and wind production numbers are north of 75GW in 2011 and will be 100 GW in the next (few) year(s). How long does it take to fast track a new nuclear plant? Let's get ridiculous and say you can do it in 5 years (Jeepers this probably means crappy gen3 technology at best) . Good luck commissioning 500 to 800 reactors 5 years from now to match renewable growth (assuming 600 - 1000mw reactors). Or using 0.25CF for renewables and 0.9 for nuclear, you'll only need 140 - 220 new reactors to match the renewables annual net production! Better get going!
Can we revisit your concern after we deploy 100GW solar in the sun belt to very predictably help meet the peak load?
You aren't hearing because you aren't listening. You are letting someone else listen and interpret for you. The major concern at the UCal campus protests is tuition cost (and the absurdly huge pending increase). One of the major points throughout the OWS movement is the corrupt cycle that is University education financing. The system is vary obviously suited toward the interests of University (as a corporate-like institution: profits, growth) and financiers at the direct expense of students.
1) Storage is a red herring for now. It's simply not a problem for solar (PV) until grid saturation e.g. 100s of GW. Conservatively, about half the grid load is peaking. In good solar markets, the resource is predictable and leads the load quite nicely and can be easily paired with a peaking gas turbine.
2) Solar thermal (my background) is DOA at the utility scale, except for chemical fuels. Solar PV is arguably cheaper than ST now (Hence the conversion of the big Ca solar thermal projects to PV). This should tell you something about the relative cost of the technologies because solar thermal is just a coal (Rankine) plant with the boiler displaced by an array of mirrors and a central receiver.
2) "Coal over that same time has dropped drastically which shows very clearly that they *are* bringing new power online; it just isn't primarily solar."
No. The net generation in 2010 is ~10% lower than in 2006 and they cut coal and large hydro production. Nothing came online except solar, wind, and maybe peaking natural gas. You can't backout new generation from these numbers (especially because the natural gas is running at some absurdly low capacity factor, like 10%, that is the existing facilities could theoretically increase output ~10X).
In any event, Ca has about ~17GW of solar projects in the pipeline. SEIA updates these numbers frequently if you would like to verify. This number well in excess of the entire U.S. coal pipeline (permitted, constructing, planned). The total U.S. solar pipeline is something like a 35GW. Again, almost none of these planned solar projects consider the fact that silicon solar pv just dropped >30% in the 2H 2011 because "China" is coming online (like they did with Wind a few years ago). The only thing in the way right now is a shitty economic outlook. No one will build new capacity if the economy remains stagnant because our energy use will continue to decline/stagnate, like your Ca figure shows.
2) Small correction: wind power typically has higher output at night.. The levelized cost of wind energy in a "good" region is the same as coal. It has been awhile since I checked but I'm pretty sure the U.S. wind pipeline is well over 100GW. 3) In contrast, the natural gas project pipeline is something like ~20GW and coal is something like 10GW. The individual industry orgs update these numbers individually and they are pretty easy to find. In any event, the renewable energy projects in planning, permitting, and construction far exceed fossil fuel equivalents in the U.S (and the world excluding China). Gas might again take over in a decade if fracking production rates hold up. The picture is rosier in other western countries where, generally, existing fossil-fuel electricity is more expensive. China is a bit different. They are basically building every type of power generator as fast as possible to catch up with electricity demand.
Anyway, the cost of coal has gone up over the last decade. The fossil fuel pricing threat is presently natural gas, which depends entirely on the success of fracking.
If you don't know how to vet sources you get garbage. You can do this better on google than slashdot.
Those 2 premises alone really ought to be enough to convince you that if wind and solar really were cheaper, they'd be the standard.
They are standard for new capacity. They are cheaper in many circumstances. Hawaii, Spain, Italy, California, and Australia have all reported grid parity of some sorts. Germany just predicted H2 2012 for residential grid parity. And none of these grid parity claims have relied on the 60% drop in cSi panel prices we have seen in 2011.
Please share with me your book title so that I can avoid it. Thanks.
I would take your word for it if nuclear costs weren't so mysterious. In comparison, the cost of subsidized/unsubsidized wind/solar is pretty easy.
1. Please compare to a good (CF35+) wind site and disclose these subsidies (for wind and nuclear) that tip the scales
2. while your at it please show me that nuclear is cheaper than solar in the desert. For your benefit, why don't you use the recent cSi panel ASPs of 0.78 - 0.9$/pW presently found on the market.
I'm reasonably confident you'll have trouble showing an unambiguous advantage for nuclear even when neglecting 70 years of nuclear subsidies.
This is combined heat and power many facilities do it. It is green in the sense that energy is conserved because waste heat is used rather than discarded. A data center seems to be a good opportunity. The turbine converts 1 CH4 unit to 0.3 electricity, while the absorption chiller will move about as much energy as it consumes (COP 1), which means the 0.7 waste heat off the turbine can easily move the 0.3 units of data center electricity out of the data center and 0.4 units of waste heat (+ 0.3 data center heat) can still be used for another purpose. It might be good for a data center operator, but from a systems perspective the better use for that CH4 is still in a combined cycle utility plant which can make 0.6 electricity, use the waste heat for some co-located industrial facility and make the datacenter run an electric AC (COP ~ 3).
This "we are wired this way" "his instincts will kick in" is an absurd cop out. We have built an entire world/civilization that is contrary to our 'hard wired' nature.
No. The top 10% in the world is >22k. US average family income ~45k puts "middle in the USA" at top 3%. The average attorney salary is WAY south of 280K and you have about the same chance of knowing a surgeon who makes less than 280k compared to greater than 280k. This isn't about average surgeons or lawyers, its about purchasing power and long-term financial security collapsing for the middle class in favor of wealth transfer (tax structure, bailouts, buying legislation, corrupt free trade, etc) to the parasite class. And the top 0.1% to 0.01% are nothing without their hoards of upper middle class ~1-2% running along side shouting "me too"
Let's focus on Germany. They have increased GDP and increased renewable energy (20% of German kWh in the first 6 months of 2011 were non-emitting) while shrinking their CO2 emissions for the past 20 years.
"The scientific consensus is that if current rates of species extinction continue the fraction of species lost will be comparable to that of the five major extenction events in Earth's geological past" ~1996
http://goo.gl/z3IKs
Please correct me if if the thinking has changed.
Radiative cooling aside, isn't the net radiative forcing of water vapor a positive feedback? Thus, any effects of human CO2 emissions (even trivial) would amplify warming?
If a tiny few become rich by luck it is like a casino. On the other hand, if the tiny few become rich by hard work, its the American Dream. A reasonable person might conclude that both hard work and luck are required, thus the app store or reality exhibit some qualities of a casino. I don't think that recognizing reality's casino-like properties is a bad thing unless you have a vested interest in deluding people into believing hard work is the exclusive path to becoming rich.
I hear variations on this claim quite frequently.
Here are several links that dispute your recollection.
http://smallbiztrends.com/2008/04/startup-failure-rates.html
http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/news/coladvice/ask/sa990930.htm
http://blog.globalbx.com/2008/10/06/small-business-statistics-and-failure-rates/
A collection of results that span from your estimation to the inverse, http://www.moyak.com/papers/small-business-statistics.html
There also seems to be many discussions on the myth of high failure rates. for example, http://www.bnet.com/blog/business-myths/why-the-small-business-failure-rate-is-90-percent-smoke-and-mirrors/117
This certainly isn't rigorous, but my 3 minute Internet estimation is that you are broadly incorrect. Apparently, the notion of failure is complicated. Failures appear to be inversely proportional to seed capital. It varies substantially with race and industry. And the definition of failure may include businesses that close for reasons other than financial inviability.