You're ignoring the fact that some electricity is not the same as other electricity. Electricity generated and used during peak hours, when everyone has their televisions on and their air conditioners cranked up can cost several times as much to generate, and is more likely to come from cheaper, more polluting power plants.
Electricity generated in the middle of the night, when these vehicles are going to be plugged in, is more likely to come from base load generation and be much better for you.
In fact, one potential of a large electric vehicle fleet is that they could be charged at night, then plugged into the grid during the day, at which point they will return power to the grid, thus evening out the demand. There's efficiency losses, sure, but compared to some of the power plants tapped into for peak load, it's a good deal.
Sure it does. This lawyer has the government on his side. Because he asked them to, the government is forcing this woman to collect and submit all of this information. It's a significant hardship and can most definitely create a chilling effect.
I wonder if part of this isn't for protection of revenue, but for protection of the athletes. It seems perfectly possible that some smaller nations could add professional reporters with only moderate athletic abilities to their teams, giving the reporters intrusive undercover access to the other athletes.
In a current hybrid car, like a Prius (even the ones modified to work as plug-hybrids), the electric and gasoline motors work in parallel. Either can run to move the car. In the Volt, they run in series. The gasoline motor only provides electricity. This means that it never has to run at high RPM and is always operating at its peak efficiency. The electric motors used to actually propel the car are efficient enough to take the electricity generated by the motor and use it to drive in a normal fashion.
Basically, the Volt will run off its batteries, charged by the grid, for short drives (I think they're quoting 60 miles). For anything longer, the generator will kick in and you'll have the same range as any other gasoline car: limited only by the availability of fuel. With pure electric vehicles, you need to wait for a charge. For hydrogen vehicles like the article, or other special fuels, you need a complicated new infrastructure.
Plug-in hybrids are our best hope right now. They provide vast gains in efficiency without requiring ridiculous new infrastructures or behavioral changes.
Re:Let's think about this for a second...
on
Energy From Raindrops
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· Score: 3, Informative
We upgraded to hydroelectric dams, which provide a very significant amount of power both in the United States and worldwide. China's still working on the Three Gorges Dam, the biggest ever.
Unfortunately, the US is tapped out on hydroelectric. There really is nowhere for us to put in additional ones, and the ones we already have are often cited as concerns with regards to environmental impact and municipal water supplies.
The information in question is information that ordinary people need to have access to. These people have already paid their state taxes to fund the collection of this data, and they should be allowed to see and use it. You can't say that ordinary people can get it for free but corporations (which, technically, have many of the rights of individual people) have to pay.
As a scientist and agnostic, the most sensible delineation I've heard was outlined by Carl Sagan (though I don't know if it was originally his idea or not). At about sixth months, the fetus actually begins to think. There is a point where neural activity undergoes a significant change.
It seems reasonable to me that what most makes us human is our minds, and thus once a fetus has a human mind, it should be considered human.
Or, if you read the article, you could see that he was 92% in compliance. And this doesn't necessarily mean that the other 8% were pirated, just that they weren't properly documented. Maybe they installed Office on one too many computers. Maybe they lost a receipt or two. But they were most definitely customers.
The real reason the price for single text messages has skyrocketed is because the carriers don't want you paying per-message. They want to drive you into getting a monthly bundle of X messages for Y dollars. Maybe you'll save money, maybe you won't, they don't care. What they care about is a steady income.
Having people paying for five messages one month, then fifty the next, then ten the next is lousy for their bookkeeping. They don't like the unreliability. But if you're giving them $10 every month instead, their accountants are able to sleep at night.
And I can hold a conversation in complete darkness, or with my back turned, or pay attention to two people in completely different directions at the same time. Their communication isn't more advanced, just different.
This is why plug-in hybrids are our best real hope.
Something like the upcoming Chevy Volt does it even better than the plug-in modded Priuses available now. It uses its gasoline motor only to charge the batteries, and thus runs far more efficiently than a motor that sometimes pushes the car.
It requires absolutely no change in our gasoline delivery infrastructure (unlike hydrogen), but would require an increase in electricity generation to take advantage of the plug-in aspect for daily use.
Also, once we get a handle on cheap cellulosic ethanol we can use our existing gasoline delivery infrastructure to give them a carbon-neutral fuel.
So you just spent $1800 on the thinnest laptop available, but to fully utilize it you have to be near a desktop that you've already installed software onto?
The problem is its design flaws kill it for its target audience.
Who needs a super-thin, super-light laptop and is willing to pay a premium for it? People who are traveling a great deal and need to carry it around all day long.
But you can't swap out batteries in the middle of a trip. If you go to a site and have to read something from a CD, you need to carry a USB optical drive with you. No firewire ports if you happened to be using any of those. No ethernet port, so you'll need the USB adapter if you go somewhere without WiFi. One USB, so you can use wired ethernet or an optical drive or a thumb drive or an external mouse. But only one at a time.
Sure, it's pretty. But it makes way too many compromises to be practical. The advantages over the regular Macbook are insignificant for the price and sacrifices.
$1,000 to upgrade to the SSD No optical drive No ethernet Just one USB port No audio-in port, but built-in mic Probably runs hotter than hell
It's pretty, sure, but the regular Macbook is already just a hair over an inch thick and has the exact same size otherwise, with more power and connectivity for cheaper.
Except the student has already appealed through all the avenues afforded him and has begun a lawsuit. Threatening to do so obviously didn't get him anything.
Well, the fact that University officials are browsing the Facebook sites of students might worry some. Also the statement in the article that the president spoke to psychiatrists the student had previously seen before bringing anything to the attention of the student.
He did more than just plan to break the law. He attempted to. He put the files up for everyone to grab. Subsequent to that, he had to do absolutely nothing to actually break the law except wait for someone to download one of those files.
It just seems ridiculous to me that this man admits doing everything he needed to do to commit copyright infringement, but the EFF claims that since the RIAA doesn't know what other people did or didn't do (downloading the files), he's not at fault.
The guy took CDs he bought. He ripped them to mp3. He then loaded those mp3s into some file-sharing program. Why did he do this if not for the purpose of copyright infringement?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The RIAA are bad guys, we all have to hate them. I agree that the judgements they're going after are ridiculous. But is the EFF really trying to say that it's ok to try to commit copyright infringement, but only wrong if you get caught completing it?
Brazil gets about a third of their automobile fuel from sugar cane. And all the processing is done not with petroleum-based energy, but by burning the bagasse (waste scraps) from when the cane is harvested.
Sugar cane ethanol is definitely viable as a fuel source. Switchgrass would be viable, but it requires processing of cellulosic ethanol, which we just can't do cheaply yet. Once we master that, it will be extremely efficient and can easily be self-supporting. Switchgrass grows well even without fertilizers.
The whole point of this article is that switchgrass is not "a little better than corn," but vastly better than corn.
No, we don't. Hydrogen is not a fuel source. Hydrogen is a fuel medium. In order to make hydrogen for fuel cells we have two options: We process natural gas for it, or we pump lots of electricity into water. Natural gas is slightly more efficient, but neither is fantastic.
Also, ethanol is carbon neutral. Everything we burn in our cars is sucked up again by growing plants. Much, much better than Alaskan oil.
E85 is available now. Not widely in the US, and the vehicles that can use it are uncommon, but it's definitely viable as a fuel source.
Brazil uses ethanol from sugar cane in various formulations hugely, though. About a third of their automobile fuel is sugar-based ethanol.
Regardless of what the article says, we're still a ways off from cellulosic ethanol. Once we master that, though, it's going to be a fantastic fuel source.
The parent was talking about the Electoral College, not the House of Representatives. The numbers are not the same, as every state has at least 3 Electors, even Wyoming.
Because fossil fuel power plants don't have any costs associated with them?
Considering the costs of construction, fuel, operation, and everything else associated with the production, current operating solar plants produce energy at just three to four times the cost of fossil fuel plants, and this price is steadily coming down.
Your suspicion of a factor of thirty is wrong. By a factor of ten.
Except that your analogy is ridiculous. The proposed heat pump is a closed system. Stick the water in once and you're done. Using a pump to circulate it requires very little power compared to what can be saved in heating by using the heated water.
Yes, the construction costs will be high, but that's what a lifecycle cost analysis is for.
Slashdot Mirror
You're ignoring the fact that some electricity is not the same as other electricity. Electricity generated and used during peak hours, when everyone has their televisions on and their air conditioners cranked up can cost several times as much to generate, and is more likely to come from cheaper, more polluting power plants.
Electricity generated in the middle of the night, when these vehicles are going to be plugged in, is more likely to come from base load generation and be much better for you.
In fact, one potential of a large electric vehicle fleet is that they could be charged at night, then plugged into the grid during the day, at which point they will return power to the grid, thus evening out the demand. There's efficiency losses, sure, but compared to some of the power plants tapped into for peak load, it's a good deal.
Sure it does. This lawyer has the government on his side. Because he asked them to, the government is forcing this woman to collect and submit all of this information. It's a significant hardship and can most definitely create a chilling effect.
I wonder if part of this isn't for protection of revenue, but for protection of the athletes. It seems perfectly possible that some smaller nations could add professional reporters with only moderate athletic abilities to their teams, giving the reporters intrusive undercover access to the other athletes.
You seem to misunderstand the Volt somewhat.
In a current hybrid car, like a Prius (even the ones modified to work as plug-hybrids), the electric and gasoline motors work in parallel. Either can run to move the car. In the Volt, they run in series. The gasoline motor only provides electricity. This means that it never has to run at high RPM and is always operating at its peak efficiency. The electric motors used to actually propel the car are efficient enough to take the electricity generated by the motor and use it to drive in a normal fashion.
Basically, the Volt will run off its batteries, charged by the grid, for short drives (I think they're quoting 60 miles). For anything longer, the generator will kick in and you'll have the same range as any other gasoline car: limited only by the availability of fuel. With pure electric vehicles, you need to wait for a charge. For hydrogen vehicles like the article, or other special fuels, you need a complicated new infrastructure.
Plug-in hybrids are our best hope right now. They provide vast gains in efficiency without requiring ridiculous new infrastructures or behavioral changes.
We upgraded to hydroelectric dams, which provide a very significant amount of power both in the United States and worldwide. China's still working on the Three Gorges Dam, the biggest ever.
Unfortunately, the US is tapped out on hydroelectric. There really is nowhere for us to put in additional ones, and the ones we already have are often cited as concerns with regards to environmental impact and municipal water supplies.
The information in question is information that ordinary people need to have access to. These people have already paid their state taxes to fund the collection of this data, and they should be allowed to see and use it. You can't say that ordinary people can get it for free but corporations (which, technically, have many of the rights of individual people) have to pay.
As a scientist and agnostic, the most sensible delineation I've heard was outlined by Carl Sagan (though I don't know if it was originally his idea or not). At about sixth months, the fetus actually begins to think. There is a point where neural activity undergoes a significant change.
It seems reasonable to me that what most makes us human is our minds, and thus once a fetus has a human mind, it should be considered human.
Or, if you read the article, you could see that he was 92% in compliance. And this doesn't necessarily mean that the other 8% were pirated, just that they weren't properly documented. Maybe they installed Office on one too many computers. Maybe they lost a receipt or two. But they were most definitely customers.
The real reason the price for single text messages has skyrocketed is because the carriers don't want you paying per-message. They want to drive you into getting a monthly bundle of X messages for Y dollars. Maybe you'll save money, maybe you won't, they don't care. What they care about is a steady income.
Having people paying for five messages one month, then fifty the next, then ten the next is lousy for their bookkeeping. They don't like the unreliability. But if you're giving them $10 every month instead, their accountants are able to sleep at night.
And I can hold a conversation in complete darkness, or with my back turned, or pay attention to two people in completely different directions at the same time. Their communication isn't more advanced, just different.
This is why plug-in hybrids are our best real hope.
Something like the upcoming Chevy Volt does it even better than the plug-in modded Priuses available now. It uses its gasoline motor only to charge the batteries, and thus runs far more efficiently than a motor that sometimes pushes the car.
It requires absolutely no change in our gasoline delivery infrastructure (unlike hydrogen), but would require an increase in electricity generation to take advantage of the plug-in aspect for daily use.
Also, once we get a handle on cheap cellulosic ethanol we can use our existing gasoline delivery infrastructure to give them a carbon-neutral fuel.
So you just spent $1800 on the thinnest laptop available, but to fully utilize it you have to be near a desktop that you've already installed software onto?
Or maybe they'd notice that they can save $700 and gain lots of features by giving up a third of an inch and going with a regular Macbook.
It's just not worth it.
The problem is its design flaws kill it for its target audience.
Who needs a super-thin, super-light laptop and is willing to pay a premium for it? People who are traveling a great deal and need to carry it around all day long.
But you can't swap out batteries in the middle of a trip.
If you go to a site and have to read something from a CD, you need to carry a USB optical drive with you.
No firewire ports if you happened to be using any of those.
No ethernet port, so you'll need the USB adapter if you go somewhere without WiFi.
One USB, so you can use wired ethernet or an optical drive or a thumb drive or an external mouse. But only one at a time.
Sure, it's pretty. But it makes way too many compromises to be practical. The advantages over the regular Macbook are insignificant for the price and sacrifices.
$1,000 to upgrade to the SSD
No optical drive
No ethernet
Just one USB port
No audio-in port, but built-in mic
Probably runs hotter than hell
It's pretty, sure, but the regular Macbook is already just a hair over an inch thick and has the exact same size otherwise, with more power and connectivity for cheaper.
Except the student has already appealed through all the avenues afforded him and has begun a lawsuit. Threatening to do so obviously didn't get him anything.
Well, the fact that University officials are browsing the Facebook sites of students might worry some. Also the statement in the article that the president spoke to psychiatrists the student had previously seen before bringing anything to the attention of the student.
He did more than just plan to break the law. He attempted to. He put the files up for everyone to grab. Subsequent to that, he had to do absolutely nothing to actually break the law except wait for someone to download one of those files.
It just seems ridiculous to me that this man admits doing everything he needed to do to commit copyright infringement, but the EFF claims that since the RIAA doesn't know what other people did or didn't do (downloading the files), he's not at fault.
Really, is this a good thing?
The guy took CDs he bought. He ripped them to mp3. He then loaded those mp3s into some file-sharing program. Why did he do this if not for the purpose of copyright infringement?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The RIAA are bad guys, we all have to hate them. I agree that the judgements they're going after are ridiculous. But is the EFF really trying to say that it's ok to try to commit copyright infringement, but only wrong if you get caught completing it?
Brazil gets about a third of their automobile fuel from sugar cane. And all the processing is done not with petroleum-based energy, but by burning the bagasse (waste scraps) from when the cane is harvested.
Sugar cane ethanol is definitely viable as a fuel source. Switchgrass would be viable, but it requires processing of cellulosic ethanol, which we just can't do cheaply yet. Once we master that, it will be extremely efficient and can easily be self-supporting. Switchgrass grows well even without fertilizers.
The whole point of this article is that switchgrass is not "a little better than corn," but vastly better than corn.
No, we don't. Hydrogen is not a fuel source. Hydrogen is a fuel medium. In order to make hydrogen for fuel cells we have two options: We process natural gas for it, or we pump lots of electricity into water. Natural gas is slightly more efficient, but neither is fantastic.
Also, ethanol is carbon neutral. Everything we burn in our cars is sucked up again by growing plants. Much, much better than Alaskan oil.
Nonsense.
E85 is available now. Not widely in the US, and the vehicles that can use it are uncommon, but it's definitely viable as a fuel source.
Brazil uses ethanol from sugar cane in various formulations hugely, though. About a third of their automobile fuel is sugar-based ethanol.
Regardless of what the article says, we're still a ways off from cellulosic ethanol. Once we master that, though, it's going to be a fantastic fuel source.
The parent was talking about the Electoral College, not the House of Representatives. The numbers are not the same, as every state has at least 3 Electors, even Wyoming.
Because fossil fuel power plants don't have any costs associated with them?
Considering the costs of construction, fuel, operation, and everything else associated with the production, current operating solar plants produce energy at just three to four times the cost of fossil fuel plants, and this price is steadily coming down.
Your suspicion of a factor of thirty is wrong. By a factor of ten.
Except that your analogy is ridiculous. The proposed heat pump is a closed system. Stick the water in once and you're done. Using a pump to circulate it requires very little power compared to what can be saved in heating by using the heated water.
Yes, the construction costs will be high, but that's what a lifecycle cost analysis is for.