Actually, it seems that most of Nevada's electricity comes from burning natural gas, with only ~4% from hydroelectric. "Other renewables", which presumably means solar, already provide three times as much power as hydroelectric.
It's really simple. Reagan entered office in 1981. China opened its economy to the West starting in 1978. Ever since then, the Chinese economy has grown at about 10% per year, and inequality has increased in the US as lower-wage jobs go to China. Any questions?
When a passenger train carries 2000 people, or a freight train pulls 100 cars, the cost of the driver is pretty small per unit of cargo. Contrast with a bus with 40 passengers, or a taxi with one passenger, or a single truck. So there is less of an economic need to automate.
Exactly Over two thirds of global carbon emissions come from the US, EU, China, India, Russia or Japan. All of these countries (+EU) already have some nuclear power. If they were to generate most of their energy from nuclear, then global emissions would drop very fast, very quickly.
It could make a difference is by changing public opinion and discourse. This will make it more politically likely for countries in Europe or elsewhere to institute tariffs for imported goods that relied on high CO2 emissions to be produced (for example). Countries that don't care about CO2 will nevertheless avoid power sources for which they may be penalized later on.
1) Partition Syria into Alawite, Sunni Arab, and Kurdish zones (ideally independent states). 2) Purge the Damascus government/army of Alawites (including Bashar Assad) so it can become acceptable to the Sunni Arabs in ISIS territory. 3) Arm and support this government (which would be much more religiously moderate than ISIS, al-Nusra, or any other rebels) as it reconquers ISIS territory. 4) Try to reach some agreement with Iraq where most Iraqi Sunni areas are absorbed into the Sunni Arab Syrian state.
...and ironicly, staying out of it is exactly what got us into this position. That's the problem with being the USA. We have treaty commitments (eg: Turkey is a NATO member we are pledged to defend, as is France), and letting situations fester until they start to spill over onto our allies only means things will be 100x worse when we are finally forced to get involved.
Which is exactly our approach to health care, incidentally. Leave millions of people uninsured, let their medical problems fester because they can't afford to treat them, until they show up at the emergency room.
Test trains often run with the safety systems disabled and the train run manually at 10% above the normal maximum speed. If it's safe at this speed, you can be confident that it will be safe at operational speeds too. However, since it's run manually there is more potential for catastrophic human error, as seems to have been the case here.
As the Nature article today on slashdot points out, even a mild temperature change could possibly do something like turn the entire Middle East extremely humid making it basically uninhabitable.
What that article *actually* predicts is that the shores of the Persian Gulf, which are already near the point of being uninhabitable on the hottest days of summer, will cross that point.
And why are those shores so close to uninhabitable? Because the Middle East is one of the hottest regions in the world, and the shores of the Persian Gulf, like all shores, are humid due to evaporating water. Normally the body of water cools down the coasts, but because the Gulf is unusually shallow its water is extremely warm. So this area has a combination of heat and humidity which is unique on Earth. This is all natural - climate change will make it marginally worse, but it was always pretty horrible there. Luckily they have air conditioning there.
The rest of the Middle East will be a bit hotter and drier, but in no danger of becoming uninhabitable.
23% sounds like a lot, but relative to the economic growth that will occur in the same period, it is tiny:
Even the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, a report prepared for the British Government which has been criticized by some as overly pessimistic, estimates that under the assumption of business-as-usual with regard to emissions, global warming will reduce welfare by an amount equivalent to a permanent reduction in per capita consumption of between 5 and 20%. In absolute terms, this would be a huge harm. Yet over the course of the twentieth century, world GDP grew by some 3,700%, and per capita world GDP rose by some 860%. It seems safe to say that (absent a radical overhaul of our best current scientific models of the Earth’s climate system) whatever negative economic effects global warming will have, they will be completely swamped by other factors that will influence economic growth rates in this century. (source)
What is needed is to compare the economic impact of climate change to the economic impact of *stopping* climate change (i.e. less energy usage=less GDP). If the latter is bigger, we should just let climate change happen. (Or more precisely, we should look at each climate change intervention and see if its benefits outweigh its costs. This likely means that government-funded renewable energy R&D is justified, while emissions caps are not.)
My second thought is that Google already knows if you have depression from analyzing your email and smartphone usage. So this won't tell them much new.
What's the ecological damage of mining nuclear fuel and building huge reactors and cooling towers?
Pretty damn small, given that one nuclear reactor can substitute for hundreds of coal or solar power plants, and one unit of nuclear energy requires thousands of times less mining than one unit of fossil or solar (for the panels) energy.
The other problem is that once you come up with an economic theory, people will learn about it and incorporate it into their decisions. Suddenly, people and their choices are not the same as what you analyzed.
Slashdot Mirror
I have a philosophy degree and I have no idea what this sentence means.
That's a common danger with philosophy degrees, you can never be sure what anything means any more...
Actually, it seems that most of Nevada's electricity comes from burning natural gas, with only ~4% from hydroelectric. "Other renewables", which presumably means solar, already provide three times as much power as hydroelectric.
and thought "This looks like another post by user 'mdsolar' spreading FUD about alternatives to solar power".
And guess what, that's exactly what is was.
Why does Slashdot tolerate his continual shilling and trolling? Does he pay them?
It may be a necessary condition, but it's not sufficient.
It's really simple. Reagan entered office in 1981. China opened its economy to the West starting in 1978. Ever since then, the Chinese economy has grown at about 10% per year, and inequality has increased in the US as lower-wage jobs go to China. Any questions?
6. It has the first presidential primary.
Suicide.
When a passenger train carries 2000 people, or a freight train pulls 100 cars, the cost of the driver is pretty small per unit of cargo. Contrast with a bus with 40 passengers, or a taxi with one passenger, or a single truck. So there is less of an economic need to automate.
Why would those robot design firms require lots of EEs? Couldn't they just use existing FPGAs or smartphone CPUs to control things?
Exactly Over two thirds of global carbon emissions come from the US, EU, China, India, Russia or Japan. All of these countries (+EU) already have some nuclear power. If they were to generate most of their energy from nuclear, then global emissions would drop very fast, very quickly.
That is mostly true.
It could make a difference is by changing public opinion and discourse. This will make it more politically likely for countries in Europe or elsewhere to institute tariffs for imported goods that relied on high CO2 emissions to be produced (for example). Countries that don't care about CO2 will nevertheless avoid power sources for which they may be penalized later on.
Personally I wouldn't use a cloud connected camera for a variety of reasons
Just curious, isn't every smartphone these days a cloud connected camera? Granted, it's usually not in a position where it can see very much.
1) Partition Syria into Alawite, Sunni Arab, and Kurdish zones (ideally independent states).
2) Purge the Damascus government/army of Alawites (including Bashar Assad) so it can become acceptable to the Sunni Arabs in ISIS territory.
3) Arm and support this government (which would be much more religiously moderate than ISIS, al-Nusra, or any other rebels) as it reconquers ISIS territory.
4) Try to reach some agreement with Iraq where most Iraqi Sunni areas are absorbed into the Sunni Arab Syrian state.
...and ironicly, staying out of it is exactly what got us into this position. That's the problem with being the USA. We have treaty commitments (eg: Turkey is a NATO member we are pledged to defend, as is France), and letting situations fester until they start to spill over onto our allies only means things will be 100x worse when we are finally forced to get involved.
Which is exactly our approach to health care, incidentally. Leave millions of people uninsured, let their medical problems fester because they can't afford to treat them, until they show up at the emergency room.
Technically, Japan did invade some islands in Alaska.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Test trains often run with the safety systems disabled and the train run manually at 10% above the normal maximum speed. If it's safe at this speed, you can be confident that it will be safe at operational speeds too. However, since it's run manually there is more potential for catastrophic human error, as seems to have been the case here.
We could eliminate about 75% of the marketing and advertising industry at the bottom of the ocean, and society would benefit substantially,
As they say, half of advertising spending is wasted, but nobody knows which half.
As the Nature article today on slashdot points out, even a mild temperature change could possibly do something like turn the entire Middle East extremely humid making it basically uninhabitable.
What that article *actually* predicts is that the shores of the Persian Gulf, which are already near the point of being uninhabitable on the hottest days of summer, will cross that point.
And why are those shores so close to uninhabitable? Because the Middle East is one of the hottest regions in the world, and the shores of the Persian Gulf, like all shores, are humid due to evaporating water. Normally the body of water cools down the coasts, but because the Gulf is unusually shallow its water is extremely warm. So this area has a combination of heat and humidity which is unique on Earth. This is all natural - climate change will make it marginally worse, but it was always pretty horrible there. Luckily they have air conditioning there.
The rest of the Middle East will be a bit hotter and drier, but in no danger of becoming uninhabitable.
So you work for a low-level salary in a high-expense market, and you justify it to yourself because lunch on Friday is tasty?
If you use the word "wasted" AND you are incapable of locking down your FB account, you probably ARE likely to default on your debt.
23% sounds like a lot, but relative to the economic growth that will occur in the same period, it is tiny:
What is needed is to compare the economic impact of climate change to the economic impact of *stopping* climate change (i.e. less energy usage=less GDP). If the latter is bigger, we should just let climate change happen. (Or more precisely, we should look at each climate change intervention and see if its benefits outweigh its costs. This likely means that government-funded renewable energy R&D is justified, while emissions caps are not.)
That was my first thought.
My second thought is that Google already knows if you have depression from analyzing your email and smartphone usage. So this won't tell them much new.
What's the ecological damage of mining nuclear fuel and building huge reactors and cooling towers?
Pretty damn small, given that one nuclear reactor can substitute for hundreds of coal or solar power plants, and one unit of nuclear energy requires thousands of times less mining than one unit of fossil or solar (for the panels) energy.
The US can print more money, unlike Spain.
The other problem is that once you come up with an economic theory, people will learn about it and incorporate it into their decisions. Suddenly, people and their choices are not the same as what you analyzed.