Naturally tightening up the structure is a good first step. Regardless of the efficiency of the structure, some form of energy will be needed in many (most?) climates for heating _and_ cooling. While "augmenting the central heat with passive solar" helps heating, it does nothing for cooling. Why not invest in a technology that provides benefit with both scenarios, such as a higher efficiency ground source heat pump instead of cobbling on passive solar for heating?
I agree passive solar is a great addition to domestic hot water production, but as an investment to provide heat only, I'd rather invest in a dual-use solution.
A major part of the expense and construction delays are due to every reactor design being one-off and requiring individual approval by the government. The industry is now (finally) trying to get 'type acceptance' for a few well-engineered designs that can be built exactly to spec much quickly and for a lot less money.
It takes a lot of time to turn on/off a nuclear powerplant (because of fission byproducts which sequester free neutrons and inhibit chain reaction).
Hopefully turning a nuke plant off can be a relatively fast operation - scram the reactor and all that.
Bringing one back online after being quiescent is indeed much more difficult than jerking the rods out to where they were before.
Neutron Poisons such as Xenon-135 can prevent reactor startup by absorbing neutrons that would otherwise split fuel atoms. They even call it "Xenon-precluded Startup".
The articles mention that you can sometimes override the Xenon issue by pulling the rods out farther than usual, but you've got to watch the power output carefully; as the Xenon burns off more neutrons are available to split fuel, so the power output goes up. As the power goes up, more Xenon is burned, etc. A big ol' positive feedback loop.
The same was true during 9/11 in New York - cellphones stopped working (overloaded) but half the television transmitters were still broadcasting...
IIRC, most of the NYC transmitters were on the North tower and were lost in the tragedy.
From the linked article: "From a TV standpoint, most analog and digital TV stations had been broadcasting from the top of the north tower of the World Trade Center, so they are all off the air. The notable exception is WCBS-TV, which retained an auxiliary transmitter in the Empire State Building. When the World Trade Center was bombed years ago, WCBS-TV was the only major station to stay on the air; that's still the case. WCBS-DT and WNYW-DT, which are also located on the Empire State Building, are also on the air."
Can someone explain the seemingly strange shadows on the bottom-right image in this montage?
The shadows on the craters in the upper part of the image seem to suggest that the source of illumination is toward the middle-left off of the image, but the craters on the bottom of the image seem to be illuminated from the top of the image.
The only thing I can think of is that there's quite a bit more curvature in that image than is apparent.
Not quite. Oxygen bars can be harmful, so says the FDA as mentioned in the Wikipedia article. From that same article:
Oxygen toxicity is not associated with hyperventilation, because breathing air at atmospheric pressure always has a partial pressure of oxygen (ppO2) of 0.21 bar (21 kPa) and the lower limit for toxicity is more than 0.3 bar (30 kPa).
Breathing anything with more than about 30% O2 at 1 atm exceeds the lower limit for toxicity. Breathing 100% O2 at 300 mb would be ok, according to my calculations. The Apollo astronauts traveled in a 100% O2 atmosphere at a pressure of 350 mb or so, according to this article.
Do what I did - run a couple thousand feet of 3/4" Carlon RiserGard innerduct. I can pull cables as needed, and replace them as technology advances. I was able to pull 2 10m HDMI cables from the basement up into the living room in a single 3/4" run without any problems other than having to shave the edges of the connectors a little to make it thru the innerduct fittings.
Remember that at Ethernet frequencies the skin effect is well and fully at play - the fact that the core of the wire isn't copper makes little difference. At 10MHz the bulk of the current is no deeper than 21 um into the conductor. At 10 GHz, the skin depth is down to 0.65 um. If they could copper coat fishing line it'd be fine. Also see Litz Wire.
The only down side to CCS would be its lack of resistance to flexure.
OMG. I just happened to catch that episode of Monty Python over the recent US Independence Day holiday while flipping through the channels. I can only take 5 minute doses of MP, so the odds of me catching that very scene are 'inconceivable!'.
Obligatory Tiller's Rule correction: Units of hay are bales; bails appear on fishing reels, as handles on buckets, and in courtrooms (as in let out on bail).
We now join our regularly-scheduled program [that is] already in progress.
When you are caught break a regular law (speeding, larceny, etc.), you can expect to be punished with a fine or worse.
Over here, you get a citation for speeding (bad thing), and a citation for catching a large fish (a good thing). Confusing! What if you catch a large fish while speeding? Do the citations offset like in American football?
Slashdot Mirror
Naturally tightening up the structure is a good first step. Regardless of the efficiency of the structure, some form of energy will be needed in many (most?) climates for heating _and_ cooling. While "augmenting the central heat with passive solar" helps heating, it does nothing for cooling. Why not invest in a technology that provides benefit with both scenarios, such as a higher efficiency ground source heat pump instead of cobbling on passive solar for heating?
I agree passive solar is a great addition to domestic hot water production, but as an investment to provide heat only, I'd rather invest in a dual-use solution.
What proof do you have of that?
Probably about 80 proof.
Are you going to heat your New England home with nuclear electricity?
Yes. A ground-source heat pump would work wonderfully by using the earth as a heat source/sink.
... the oil industry hasn't been able to build any new refineries here for decades because of essentially the same NIMBY nutjobs.
Thereby keeping supply 'artificially' short while demand is high? Sounds like a perfect plan to me, kinda like the diamond industry.
Not necessarily a new design, but Integral Fast Reactors are the answer, IMHO.
A major part of the expense and construction delays are due to every reactor design being one-off and requiring individual approval by the government. The industry is now (finally) trying to get 'type acceptance' for a few well-engineered designs that can be built exactly to spec much quickly and for a lot less money.
My local utility had chosen (see legend) the GE ESBWR but has switched to the Mitsubishi US-APWR.
It takes a lot of time to turn on/off a nuclear powerplant (because of fission byproducts which sequester free neutrons and inhibit chain reaction).
Hopefully turning a nuke plant off can be a relatively fast operation - scram the reactor and all that.
Bringing one back online after being quiescent is indeed much more difficult than jerking the rods out to where they were before.
Neutron Poisons such as Xenon-135 can prevent reactor startup by absorbing neutrons that would otherwise split fuel atoms. They even call it "Xenon-precluded Startup".
The articles mention that you can sometimes override the Xenon issue by pulling the rods out farther than usual, but you've got to watch the power output carefully; as the Xenon burns off more neutrons are available to split fuel, so the power output goes up. As the power goes up, more Xenon is burned, etc. A big ol' positive feedback loop.
The same was true during 9/11 in New York - cellphones stopped working (overloaded) but half the television transmitters were still broadcasting...
IIRC, most of the NYC transmitters were on the North tower and were lost in the tragedy.
From the linked article:
"From a TV standpoint, most analog and digital TV stations had been broadcasting from the top of the north tower of the World Trade Center, so they are all off the air. The notable exception is WCBS-TV, which retained an auxiliary transmitter in the Empire State Building. When the World Trade Center was bombed years ago, WCBS-TV was the only major station to stay on the air; that's still the case. WCBS-DT and WNYW-DT, which are also located on the Empire State Building, are also on the air."
Can someone explain the seemingly strange shadows on the bottom-right image in this montage?
The shadows on the craters in the upper part of the image seem to suggest that the source of illumination is toward the middle-left off of the image, but the craters on the bottom of the image seem to be illuminated from the top of the image.
The only thing I can think of is that there's quite a bit more curvature in that image than is apparent.
Ideas?
... I went to a chinese buffet and poured myself some hot and sour soup.
That was your first mistake - wasting valuable stomach space on soup!
... the license does not permit building it, only reviewing it ...
To make it doubly secure Microsoft set the read-only bit to true and the compile bit to false on all the source files.
Even cooler, nearly-pure H2O2 reacting with a silver catalyst is what powers those uber-sexy jet packs as seen in James Bond movies.
Not quite. Oxygen bars can be harmful, so says the FDA as mentioned in the Wikipedia article. From that same article:
Breathing anything with more than about 30% O2 at 1 atm exceeds the lower limit for toxicity. Breathing 100% O2 at 300 mb would be ok, according to my calculations. The Apollo astronauts traveled in a 100% O2 atmosphere at a pressure of 350 mb or so, according to this article.
His body may be dead, but his head is still alive and is attached to a horrible tentacled machine that he uses to eat Cuban children.
ref: Robot Chicken
However what about a in-wall installation?
Do what I did - run a couple thousand feet of 3/4" Carlon RiserGard innerduct. I can pull cables as needed, and replace them as technology advances. I was able to pull 2 10m HDMI cables from the basement up into the living room in a single 3/4" run without any problems other than having to shave the edges of the connectors a little to make it thru the innerduct fittings.
Remember that at Ethernet frequencies the skin effect is well and fully at play - the fact that the core of the wire isn't copper makes little difference. At 10MHz the bulk of the current is no deeper than 21 um into the conductor. At 10 GHz, the skin depth is down to 0.65 um. If they could copper coat fishing line it'd be fine. Also see Litz Wire.
The only down side to CCS would be its lack of resistance to flexure.
Course (GSM antenna triangulation) and Fine (GPS)
That's coarse, as in not fine. A course is a planned route, like a racecourse.
Virginia (and Maryland) have a joint space program.
The solution is obvious, renewable energy. I'm dedicating my life to that.
Soylent Energy is People, is that it?
You're full of hydrocarbons, and people are eminently renewable. Perhaps I should write a modest energy proposal to BP and Obama.
Or better yet, Oh the Huge Manatee!"
OMG. I just happened to catch that episode of Monty Python over the recent US Independence Day holiday while flipping through the channels. I can only take 5 minute doses of MP, so the odds of me catching that very scene are 'inconceivable!'.
Obligatory Tiller's Rule correction: Units of hay are bales; bails appear on fishing reels, as handles on buckets, and in courtrooms (as in let out on bail).
We now join our regularly-scheduled program [that is] already in progress.
Classic line from my Chinese-made SKS manual:
"Do not let your SKS become tainted with defilement or sunburnt."
When you are caught break a regular law (speeding, larceny, etc.), you can expect to be punished with a fine or worse.
Over here, you get a citation for speeding (bad thing), and a citation for catching a large fish (a good thing). Confusing! What if you catch a large fish while speeding? Do the citations offset like in American football?
By any chance did you experiment with mind-altering substances in the last 60 minutes?
FTFY