Obviously you'll lose power on every round trip, it's not a perpetual motion machine any more than an electric car with regenerative brakes. The point is to use the energy you put in more efficiently, not make it self-sustaining.
Also, part of the advantage to this is that power plants are *already* commonly paired with desalination plants because thermal desalination can use the waste heat generated during power generation. This would effectively be an additional component to a traditional power/desal plant pair to increase the efficiency of the combination even further.
And before you say again that this isn't going to work, this exact combination is *already* an active topic of research so people with much more knowledge of the subject than any of us think it might...
No, you just need sea water with less salinity than the brine. The potential energy is in the DIFFERENCE, of course.
And it can in fact use less energy, chemicals, etc to desalinate relatively clean seawater over more polluted river water. New York is investigating this now.
No more than regenerative braking. Better to reuse the potential generated by desalinization than just dump the brine back into the ocean like most plants do today.
It's all about energy efficiency, and desalinization is basically just charging a big chemical battery. Why waste it?
Well, if you think about it a bit more, it's the *difference* in salinity that matters. Desalinization is basically creating an osmotic potential, just like in a chemical battery. You could then use that hypersalinated water (aka brine) with regular sea water as described to extract the energy back, rather than just dumping it back into the ocean (which is what normally happens). Or you could use the hypersalinated water with river water to make the technique more efficient (foreshadowing, here...)
In fact, desalinization plants are often combined with power plants because they can use the waste heat from the power plant for thermal desalinization. In this case, it could make sense to supplement the power plant with this "pressure-retarded osmosis" technique. Especially - and this is the whole point of the article - if someone can make that technique more efficient, which the researchers DID by using hypersalinated water!
So, it turns out that combining pressure-retarded osmosis power generation with desalinization is not only interesting/insightful, it's an active topic of research - go look it up. Here's an interesting presentation to start with: http://www.caldesal.org/downloads/pdfs/Amy%20ChildressCal%20Desal%2010-13.pdf
In most cities it is illegal to let your dog poop in a park, sidewalk, etc. and not pick it up. You will get fined if caught. Why should a garden/yard/sidewalk in an apartment complex be any different?
That's not really a problem from the perspective of scientists
Most people here are not looking it from the perspective of scientists, though, but from the (as the article states) "much publicized" perspective.
For example, what does it mean for an experiment to be "not reproducible"?
Exactly. You should be asking that question about the article, not to me:) In fact I do have a neuroscience background, even if that's not what I am doing these days... but that is pretty much irrelevant to this thread, which was to start a conversation about how the mainstream media tends to latch onto any unverified/reproduced study and report it as the canonical truth. And that sometimes this is in fact the fault of the researcher, when some media pundit picks up on it and they just can't help basking in their work a bit too prematurely...
But unfortunately not all of his colleagues share his standards for scientific repairing - there have been plenty of horribly reported scientific studies in the Guardian, as well as almost all "popular media" sources that just can't help it...
It's funny, because while your post seems simple it's both using the same and very different arguments;)
But the common argument is size: 3D TV, while being "noticeable" at smaller sizes, is totally unimpressive unless it encompasses much of your field of vision, which is going to be like 80-100"+ at the typical home distance of 10-12'. 4k is similar - if you are sitting 12' away from your TV, you won't notice the difference between 1080p and 4k since you just can't make out the pixels either way.
Fact is, while many people have been happy to "upgrade" to larger TVs over the years (I still remember when 32" CRTs were "huge") - once you hit a certain size it just plain becomes unwieldy (sometimes known somewhat stereotypically as "wife unfriendly") in the living room.
In fact - I am in the industry. And honestly the studios and manufacturers aren't that excited about 4k, because it just doesn't provide that much bang for the buck, as it's useless if no one wants larger screen sizes. From what I have seen the future will be extending the color depth (10 or 12 bit per channel) over pixel resolution. If you saw examples of 4k vs. 12 bit color at CES, the latter was much more impressive (especially on 1080p content - which will be the standard for a LONG time...)
When you stand 5' away from it and/or it was 85", sure. But it's still a total waste of money for the average consumer with a ~50" TV at 10-12' distance in their living room...
Unfortunately, the early adopters' 3D TVs, while costing 5-10k when they bought them, are now worth less than the middle of the road Walmart Black Friday 3D TV special...
That is NOT a broadcast standard, it's just an ITU recommendation.
ATSC (the current US standard) included a bunch of horrible choices basically made because some US companies had certain tech and wanted to use theirs over others - for example, using 8VSB over the superior OFDM. But that's just one example of the ridiculous politics that play into the real "standards" vs. the "recommendation" that you quoted...
Doesn't answer his point, though, which is about pixel size vs. distance, and totally valid. If you are sitting 6' from your 64" TV, you might benefit from 4k. If you are 12'+ away, you probably won't notice the difference...
Not remotely reasonable. To make a 39" 4K TV worth it you'd have to sit about 3' away. You really think people want to set up their living room with their 39" TV 3' from their couch? I guess that's why you are not in consumer electronics biz dev or home interior design;)
I'm not so sure it's total time spent as much as "completely anal-retentive attention to detail". Fewer women on average seem to have that urge to reduce someone to tears because they cut the onion into a "dice" instead of a "chop". (but as a semi-anal-retentive cook - it makes a difference!;)
The "problem" with experiments that aren't reproducible may not be with the experiments as much as with the popular media that decides to make sweeping generalizations based on one result. Though I guess some blame definitely needs to be applied to the researcher who allows unverified results to be misrepresented to get that 15 minutes of fame in a quote in The Guardian or USA Today...
Are you kidding? Legalize and control it Federally and thousands of sadistic Mexican drug cartel members will be out of jobs. Think of their families! You could mess up the entire Southwest drug and arms trade that way - how irresponsible of you.
You repeated the troopers' claim without qualification, immediately after calling the description of those claims, "facts".
No, I'll say AGAIN - I just quoted the original article after the summary and the derivative article linked in the summary did NOT. Were they telling the truth? Who knows. But it was clearly worth mentioning their explanation. And, I would have assumed you know what quoting a word like "facts" means (which I did *first*!) since you then did it several times yourself. Sorry, calling you an open mouth breather was a disservice to open mouth breathers.
I had no attitude, agenda, or subjective opinion on this (unlike you, obviously). I was just stating ALL of the details form the article instead of what the post picked-and-chose out of it, and that if you look at the full article it clearly gives the police explanation (i.e., their *intent* - the original question in this thread you derailed). It's up to the courts to decide who is telling the truth. That's why I SAID it will be interesting to see if they find traces of drugs in the compartment. If they don't, and this guy didn't already have a criminal record, it's probably going to be dismissed...
Where in my brief and (I thought) easily comprehensible post did I say that anything other than that it was a fact that the quote I mentioned was in the original article, and no one else mentioned it? Maybe my statement that it "will be interesting if they do find traces of drugs in the compartment" would have made that more obvious, but I guess I assumed too much based on your open mouth breather reply...
I was actually thinking of saying "Hotmail" in my post, but I decided Gmail was in fact more accurate. It's so obvious from the design that Marissa Meyer basically said (like she probably does for all Yahoo decisions) "well, at *Google* we did THIS..." Unfortunately, the leftovers at Yahoo aren't even competent enough to properly copy Gmail...
Slashdot Mirror
Obviously you'll lose power on every round trip, it's not a perpetual motion machine any more than an electric car with regenerative brakes. The point is to use the energy you put in more efficiently, not make it self-sustaining.
Also, part of the advantage to this is that power plants are *already* commonly paired with desalination plants because thermal desalination can use the waste heat generated during power generation. This would effectively be an additional component to a traditional power/desal plant pair to increase the efficiency of the combination even further.
And before you say again that this isn't going to work, this exact combination is *already* an active topic of research so people with much more knowledge of the subject than any of us think it might...
No, you just need sea water with less salinity than the brine. The potential energy is in the DIFFERENCE, of course.
And it can in fact use less energy, chemicals, etc to desalinate relatively clean seawater over more polluted river water. New York is investigating this now.
No, more like using electricity generated from your brakes to charge your battery and improve fuel economy. What a concept!
No more than regenerative braking. Better to reuse the potential generated by desalinization than just dump the brine back into the ocean like most plants do today.
It's all about energy efficiency, and desalinization is basically just charging a big chemical battery. Why waste it?
Well, if you think about it a bit more, it's the *difference* in salinity that matters. Desalinization is basically creating an osmotic potential, just like in a chemical battery. You could then use that hypersalinated water (aka brine) with regular sea water as described to extract the energy back, rather than just dumping it back into the ocean (which is what normally happens). Or you could use the hypersalinated water with river water to make the technique more efficient (foreshadowing, here...)
In fact, desalinization plants are often combined with power plants because they can use the waste heat from the power plant for thermal desalinization. In this case, it could make sense to supplement the power plant with this "pressure-retarded osmosis" technique. Especially - and this is the whole point of the article - if someone can make that technique more efficient, which the researchers DID by using hypersalinated water!
So, it turns out that combining pressure-retarded osmosis power generation with desalinization is not only interesting/insightful, it's an active topic of research - go look it up. Here's an interesting presentation to start with: http://www.caldesal.org/downloads/pdfs/Amy%20ChildressCal%20Desal%2010-13.pdf
Hopefully Slashdot surprised you again today :)
In most cities it is illegal to let your dog poop in a park, sidewalk, etc. and not pick it up. You will get fined if caught. Why should a garden/yard/sidewalk in an apartment complex be any different?
Or feed your neighbors' dog to your dog and then complain the test is not accurate when they get back conflicting results.
Not to mention they are apparently responsible for killing several billion birds a year...
Whoosh! (followed by "Mrroooow thump!")
That's not really a problem from the perspective of scientists
Most people here are not looking it from the perspective of scientists, though, but from the (as the article states) "much publicized" perspective.
For example, what does it mean for an experiment to be "not reproducible"?
Exactly. You should be asking that question about the article, not to me :) In fact I do have a neuroscience background, even if that's not what I am doing these days... but that is pretty much irrelevant to this thread, which was to start a conversation about how the mainstream media tends to latch onto any unverified/reproduced study and report it as the canonical truth. And that sometimes this is in fact the fault of the researcher, when some media pundit picks up on it and they just can't help basking in their work a bit too prematurely...
But unfortunately not all of his colleagues share his standards for scientific repairing - there have been plenty of horribly reported scientific studies in the Guardian, as well as almost all "popular media" sources that just can't help it...
It's funny, because while your post seems simple it's both using the same and very different arguments ;)
But the common argument is size: 3D TV, while being "noticeable" at smaller sizes, is totally unimpressive unless it encompasses much of your field of vision, which is going to be like 80-100"+ at the typical home distance of 10-12'. 4k is similar - if you are sitting 12' away from your TV, you won't notice the difference between 1080p and 4k since you just can't make out the pixels either way.
Fact is, while many people have been happy to "upgrade" to larger TVs over the years (I still remember when 32" CRTs were "huge") - once you hit a certain size it just plain becomes unwieldy (sometimes known somewhat stereotypically as "wife unfriendly") in the living room.
In fact - I am in the industry. And honestly the studios and manufacturers aren't that excited about 4k, because it just doesn't provide that much bang for the buck, as it's useless if no one wants larger screen sizes. From what I have seen the future will be extending the color depth (10 or 12 bit per channel) over pixel resolution. If you saw examples of 4k vs. 12 bit color at CES, the latter was much more impressive (especially on 1080p content - which will be the standard for a LONG time...)
When you stand 5' away from it and/or it was 85", sure. But it's still a total waste of money for the average consumer with a ~50" TV at 10-12' distance in their living room...
Unfortunately, the early adopters' 3D TVs, while costing 5-10k when they bought them, are now worth less than the middle of the road Walmart Black Friday 3D TV special...
That is NOT a broadcast standard, it's just an ITU recommendation.
ATSC (the current US standard) included a bunch of horrible choices basically made because some US companies had certain tech and wanted to use theirs over others - for example, using 8VSB over the superior OFDM. But that's just one example of the ridiculous politics that play into the real "standards" vs. the "recommendation" that you quoted...
Doesn't answer his point, though, which is about pixel size vs. distance, and totally valid. If you are sitting 6' from your 64" TV, you might benefit from 4k. If you are 12'+ away, you probably won't notice the difference...
Not remotely reasonable. To make a 39" 4K TV worth it you'd have to sit about 3' away. You really think people want to set up their living room with their 39" TV 3' from their couch? I guess that's why you are not in consumer electronics biz dev or home interior design ;)
I'm not so sure it's total time spent as much as "completely anal-retentive attention to detail". Fewer women on average seem to have that urge to reduce someone to tears because they cut the onion into a "dice" instead of a "chop". (but as a semi-anal-retentive cook - it makes a difference! ;)
The "problem" with experiments that aren't reproducible may not be with the experiments as much as with the popular media that decides to make sweeping generalizations based on one result. Though I guess some blame definitely needs to be applied to the researcher who allows unverified results to be misrepresented to get that 15 minutes of fame in a quote in The Guardian or USA Today...
Are you kidding? Legalize and control it Federally and thousands of sadistic Mexican drug cartel members will be out of jobs. Think of their families! You could mess up the entire Southwest drug and arms trade that way - how irresponsible of you.
You repeated the troopers' claim without qualification, immediately after calling the description of those claims, "facts".
No, I'll say AGAIN - I just quoted the original article after the summary and the derivative article linked in the summary did NOT. Were they telling the truth? Who knows. But it was clearly worth mentioning their explanation. And, I would have assumed you know what quoting a word like "facts" means (which I did *first*!) since you then did it several times yourself. Sorry, calling you an open mouth breather was a disservice to open mouth breathers.
I had no attitude, agenda, or subjective opinion on this (unlike you, obviously). I was just stating ALL of the details form the article instead of what the post picked-and-chose out of it, and that if you look at the full article it clearly gives the police explanation (i.e., their *intent* - the original question in this thread you derailed). It's up to the courts to decide who is telling the truth. That's why I SAID it will be interesting to see if they find traces of drugs in the compartment. If they don't, and this guy didn't already have a criminal record, it's probably going to be dismissed...
I could say the same thing about YOU.
Where in my brief and (I thought) easily comprehensible post did I say that anything other than that it was a fact that the quote I mentioned was in the original article, and no one else mentioned it? Maybe my statement that it "will be interesting if they do find traces of drugs in the compartment" would have made that more obvious, but I guess I assumed too much based on your open mouth breather reply...
Wow. No amount of cynicism can make that shit up...
I was actually thinking of saying "Hotmail" in my post, but I decided Gmail was in fact more accurate. It's so obvious from the design that Marissa Meyer basically said (like she probably does for all Yahoo decisions) "well, at *Google* we did THIS..." Unfortunately, the leftovers at Yahoo aren't even competent enough to properly copy Gmail...
Thanks for clearing that up. We were all desperately hoping the missing word wasn't "ass"...