So, why did the US spent so much money to get on the moon ?
If you are suggesting cost should not matter, then I'd have to disagree. The goal to put a man on the moon was to be the first, and practically at any cost. With that, they did not have any options of which path to take to get to the moon. If the goal for energy is to reduce CO2 emissions globally, then cost becomes a very key factor, as it drives the actions of most countries. We have choices for how we approach energy and CO2 reduction. As of now, there has been huge sums of money spent, but our overall global progress on CO2 reduction is almost negligible. The path we are on is not getting us there. We can get more for what we are spending if we want.
Otherwise, we could simply say that because we spent so much money to get to the moon, what we pay for anything really doesn't matter. Nor what we get in return for our spending.
I never implied that it was intended to be a 100% solution, in fact I specifically point to the mix of wind, gas, and nuclear as the best approach. Solar is still a small percentage of overall generation in Germany presently, even though great sums of money have been spent. Its seems like they realize that this is not a path they can maintain, or that the max percentage for solar is closing in, due to simple grid management issues & overall costs.
And those high taxes are there to subsidize the solar. Hawaii?, Really? They have no nuclear. No coal resources comparable to mainland, not interconnected grid with other countries. No rail supplyl. They are a small group of isolated islands in the middle of the ocean. A convenient choice for comparison.
If solar is the solution, then why even build the 'more efficient' coal plants, why not just more solar? Its because solar is not the solution. Germany knows that.
So, you are saying that energy prices got lower during a period when renewables were a smaller percentage of the supply, and that because there was a temporary dip from the extremely high prices points resulting from costs of renewables that renewables have lowered energy prices?
Gas is a trade off with coal. Due to low cost, you can more quickly offset coal generation with gas and have a significant CO2 reduction benefit. Over time there is a point where adding gas makes no sense, and eventually reducing it would be required. But its a practical path forward.
PV energy in mid winter is no where near the 50% you mention. Last winter nov, dec, jan are about 10% of the production may,jun, jul and that was without any snow covering the cells.
I know that, but actually leaned on the side of error in favor of solar just to appease the fanboys. The point is still easy to make even with that.
Kudo's for paying for your own power. Rich folks in the US think its OK to have taxpayers cover up to 1/3 of their energy bill via credits for solar, while many who live much more energy efficiently in apartments and condos don't have that opportunity to get the hand-out.
Maybe the 50% is correct for this year or other pages have just picked up the hype and not checked the sources or noticed the dates either.
This includes wind, the slashdot article is only talking solar. I am less impressed by so called achievement of briefly generating a large percentage of the country's demand at a period of very low demand after spending hundreds of billions of euros than you are. That they are even spending more to build coal plants to make up for the unreliability is even less impressive when one looks at the actual goal of reducing carbon. I suppose if momentary bursts of power output were the goal, it would be a rousing success story.
If we develop great leaps in energy storage technology, the game changes and we can shift largely to wind. We can and should continue to work on such things, be we can't depend on those happening when we have nothing on the table right now that suggests success is likely any time soon.
A balance of ther right sources makes sense. There will always be differing opiniond on where to strike that balance and how much we should be willing to pay. But I think its pretty clear which sources make the most sense to choose from.
produced a world record 22 gigawatts of electricity per hour — equal to 20 nuclear power stations at full capacity
And for the entire week, those same solar cells produced the equivalent of about 3 or 4 nuclear stations. For a week in mid-winter, it is more like the equivalent of 2 nuclear stations. Luckily, they have their new coal plants that are cranked up when the solar is not producing for a large portion of the day.
As of 2011, Germany had already spent over 100 billion Euros subsidizing solar. This level of subsidization could easily produce over 20 nuclear plants and would basically end the further need for carbon free electrical energy spending, while offsetting much more carbon in a shorter period of time. Not to mention the vast economic benefits to the country from supplying a majority of the plant components versus buying from Asia. But, Germany will continue to spend even more, sending vast sums of money to Asia in efforts to just 'keep up', while their electricity prices continue to skyrocket, resulting in higher costs for business and manufacturing.
Apart from the low lattitude band of land where the solar conditions are optimal, a combination of wind, gas, and nuclear is the most effective and practical approach to significantly reduce carbon emmissions. If you are one who is against nuclear no matter what, then wind and gas are the next best option. In all cases, energy efficiency improvement investment is signfiicantly undervalued in terms of carbon reduction return. Alas, many will still prefer the green badge of solar honor over the practical solutions.
This article spells it out as well, albiet with over-use of negative adjectives. The facts are correct;
In 2012 Germany had one third of the world's solar panels, and at one point these panels generated over half of Germany's electricity demand. This is how things are normally put. But it as rather like talking about a third rate golfer and only referring to the time he almost won the US Masters. Yes, Germany got 50% of its electricity from solar one afternoon. Throughout the year it only produced 5%. The 5% is what really matters. The 50% gets all the headlines.
And solar is an awful source of energy in a country as cloudy and as far north as Germany. Electricity has to be available when we want it. Germans, like many Europeans, most want the stuff around 6 pm on a cold Winter evening. This is an incredibly reliable peak in demand. Yet, the electricity supplied by Germany's solar panels at 6 pm on a cold December is also incredibly reliable: zero
Above land monorail type systems do seem to be a practical approach, particularly since right-of-ways along roads are already established. I have wondered why it hasn't been cost effective vs. light rail development. I suppose one issue is getting all those people down to the ground if the system fails, but it doesn't seem like a major challenge to figure out.
Sometimes its about product choice and need. I use a Cyberstat wifi thermostat. Simple and relatively low cost programmable and remotely accessible. Not really "automation" but gives you control from anywhere... what more does one really need?
Its also not clear how the attackers set up these target accounts without being flagged somehow. The use of those accounts might be the reason it was confined to one institution, and it seems that would be the most embarrassing element to the bank.
Muricans that don't get enough sleep aren't not sleeping because they work too much. They're not sleeping because they're playing any one of a couple hundred MMOs and watching exabytes of Netflix videos in 20 hour Soprano's marathons and.....................
Bingo. Lots of wasted time after the whistle blows, but also during the work day. Commuting times have a bigger impact, IMO. Many jobs have always required extensive hours... jobs like restaurant ownership & management for example. It is no different today. Besides, with all the time saving and work saving devices we have, we should be able to work a bit more.
I intentionally did not point out the specific items in question in hopes that a few would think about it a little more and exercise their own critical thinking. Nothing wrong with giving to Kickstarter campaigns, but its certainly a tread carefully situation. If someone has a game-changing technology or patent, they won't be on kickstarter, they'll be getting bigger bucks via other channels.
A guy that starts with excuses about why you can't find a trace of him online. A guy who talks about his degrees but won't mention what school they are from. A bio littered with vagueness on every single item. How about "My career path has taken me through some of the best companies in the industry such as Freescale, Philips, Olympus..", of course, he doesn't say he actually worked for any of those.... give me a break.
What? Where? You're saying its a scam, what's your argument?..
I said it has glaring red flags. You don't even have to be technically savvy to see them. If you can't see them in the "bio" post from "Dr. McArthur", then you might want to work on your critical analysis skills.
This is also a kick in the nuts to the SEC's proposed rules for crowdfunding startup companies, but its a great example why it has not been allowed to this point.
You could just decide to let people get scammed, some would learn and be more selected, some would never invest again, some would get fooled again. Or, you can regulate the crap out of it and make it hard for everyone. Not an easy answer.
Slashdot Mirror
Just don't park next to a Tesla and you should be OK.
So, why did the US spent so much money to get on the moon ?
If you are suggesting cost should not matter, then I'd have to disagree. The goal to put a man on the moon was to be the first, and practically at any cost. With that, they did not have any options of which path to take to get to the moon. If the goal for energy is to reduce CO2 emissions globally, then cost becomes a very key factor, as it drives the actions of most countries. We have choices for how we approach energy and CO2 reduction. As of now, there has been huge sums of money spent, but our overall global progress on CO2 reduction is almost negligible. The path we are on is not getting us there. We can get more for what we are spending if we want.
Otherwise, we could simply say that because we spent so much money to get to the moon, what we pay for anything really doesn't matter. Nor what we get in return for our spending.
I never implied that it was intended to be a 100% solution, in fact I specifically point to the mix of wind, gas, and nuclear as the best approach. Solar is still a small percentage of overall generation in Germany presently, even though great sums of money have been spent. Its seems like they realize that this is not a path they can maintain, or that the max percentage for solar is closing in, due to simple grid management issues & overall costs.
I see from your tone that you are looking at this objectively.
And those high taxes are there to subsidize the solar. Hawaii?, Really? They have no nuclear. No coal resources comparable to mainland, not interconnected grid with other countries. No rail supplyl. They are a small group of isolated islands in the middle of the ocean. A convenient choice for comparison.
If solar is the solution, then why even build the 'more efficient' coal plants, why not just more solar? Its because solar is not the solution. Germany knows that.
So, you are saying that energy prices got lower during a period when renewables were a smaller percentage of the supply, and that because there was a temporary dip from the extremely high prices points resulting from costs of renewables that renewables have lowered energy prices?
Yes, but those "great leaps" have always been on the horizon - since I was in in high school and Reagan was president, and much earlier..
That was my point.
Gas is a trade off with coal. Due to low cost, you can more quickly offset coal generation with gas and have a significant CO2 reduction benefit. Over time there is a point where adding gas makes no sense, and eventually reducing it would be required. But its a practical path forward.
PV energy in mid winter is no where near the 50% you mention. Last winter nov, dec, jan are about 10% of the production may,jun, jul and that was without any snow covering the cells.
I know that, but actually leaned on the side of error in favor of solar just to appease the fanboys. The point is still easy to make even with that.
Kudo's for paying for your own power. Rich folks in the US think its OK to have taxpayers cover up to 1/3 of their energy bill via credits for solar, while many who live much more energy efficiently in apartments and condos don't have that opportunity to get the hand-out.
lol :D
Oh well, more recently they hit 74% with all renewable energy combined: http://thinkprogress.org/clima...
Maybe the 50% is correct for this year or other pages have just picked up the hype and not checked the sources or noticed the dates either.
This includes wind, the slashdot article is only talking solar. I am less impressed by so called achievement of briefly generating a large percentage of the country's demand at a period of very low demand after spending hundreds of billions of euros than you are. That they are even spending more to build coal plants to make up for the unreliability is even less impressive when one looks at the actual goal of reducing carbon. I suppose if momentary bursts of power output were the goal, it would be a rousing success story.
If we develop great leaps in energy storage technology, the game changes and we can shift largely to wind. We can and should continue to work on such things, be we can't depend on those happening when we have nothing on the table right now that suggests success is likely any time soon.
A balance of ther right sources makes sense. There will always be differing opiniond on where to strike that balance and how much we should be willing to pay. But I think its pretty clear which sources make the most sense to choose from.
produced a world record 22 gigawatts of electricity per hour — equal to 20 nuclear power stations at full capacity
And for the entire week, those same solar cells produced the equivalent of about 3 or 4 nuclear stations. For a week in mid-winter, it is more like the equivalent of 2 nuclear stations. Luckily, they have their new coal plants that are cranked up when the solar is not producing for a large portion of the day.
As of 2011, Germany had already spent over 100 billion Euros subsidizing solar. This level of subsidization could easily produce over 20 nuclear plants and would basically end the further need for carbon free electrical energy spending, while offsetting much more carbon in a shorter period of time. Not to mention the vast economic benefits to the country from supplying a majority of the plant components versus buying from Asia. But, Germany will continue to spend even more, sending vast sums of money to Asia in efforts to just 'keep up', while their electricity prices continue to skyrocket, resulting in higher costs for business and manufacturing.
Apart from the low lattitude band of land where the solar conditions are optimal, a combination of wind, gas, and nuclear is the most effective and practical approach to significantly reduce carbon emmissions. If you are one who is against nuclear no matter what, then wind and gas are the next best option. In all cases, energy efficiency improvement investment is signfiicantly undervalued in terms of carbon reduction return. Alas, many will still prefer the green badge of solar honor over the practical solutions.
This article spells it out as well, albiet with over-use of negative adjectives. The facts are correct;
In 2012 Germany had one third of the world's solar panels, and at one point these panels generated over half of Germany's electricity demand. This is how things are normally put. But it as rather like talking about a third rate golfer and only referring to the time he almost won the US Masters. Yes, Germany got 50% of its electricity from solar one afternoon. Throughout the year it only produced 5%. The 5% is what really matters. The 50% gets all the headlines.
And solar is an awful source of energy in a country as cloudy and as far north as Germany. Electricity has to be available when we want it. Germans, like many Europeans, most want the stuff around 6 pm on a cold Winter evening. This is an incredibly reliable peak in demand. Yet, the electricity supplied by Germany's solar panels at 6 pm on a cold December is also incredibly reliable: zero
http://theenergycollective.com...
One person stuck vs. miles of people stuck is a different animal, and getting someone out of a stuck elevator is quite easy in many cases.
Above land monorail type systems do seem to be a practical approach, particularly since right-of-ways along roads are already established. I have wondered why it hasn't been cost effective vs. light rail development. I suppose one issue is getting all those people down to the ground if the system fails, but it doesn't seem like a major challenge to figure out.
Sometimes its about product choice and need. I use a Cyberstat wifi thermostat. Simple and relatively low cost programmable and remotely accessible. Not really "automation" but gives you control from anywhere... what more does one really need?
Its also not clear how the attackers set up these target accounts without being flagged somehow. The use of those accounts might be the reason it was confined to one institution, and it seems that would be the most embarrassing element to the bank.
Muricans that don't get enough sleep aren't not sleeping because they work too much. They're not sleeping because they're playing any one of a couple hundred MMOs and watching exabytes of Netflix videos in 20 hour Soprano's marathons and .....................
Bingo. Lots of wasted time after the whistle blows, but also during the work day. Commuting times have a bigger impact, IMO. Many jobs have always required extensive hours... jobs like restaurant ownership & management for example. It is no different today. Besides, with all the time saving and work saving devices we have, we should be able to work a bit more.
I intentionally did not point out the specific items in question in hopes that a few would think about it a little more and exercise their own critical thinking. Nothing wrong with giving to Kickstarter campaigns, but its certainly a tread carefully situation. If someone has a game-changing technology or patent, they won't be on kickstarter, they'll be getting bigger bucks via other channels.
A guy that starts with excuses about why you can't find a trace of him online. A guy who talks about his degrees but won't mention what school they are from. A bio littered with vagueness on every single item. How about "My career path has taken me through some of the best companies in the industry such as Freescale, Philips, Olympus..", of course, he doesn't say he actually worked for any of those.... give me a break.
My bullshit detector went off-scale.
Bozo was a genius, in his own way.
What? Where? You're saying its a scam, what's your argument?..
I said it has glaring red flags. You don't even have to be technically savvy to see them. If you can't see them in the "bio" post from "Dr. McArthur", then you might want to work on your critical analysis skills.
https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...
I think its more of removing the risk of a scam getting through the initial review, which would provide a liability path.
This is also a kick in the nuts to the SEC's proposed rules for crowdfunding startup companies, but its a great example why it has not been allowed to this point.
You could just decide to let people get scammed, some would learn and be more selected, some would never invest again, some would get fooled again. Or, you can regulate the crap out of it and make it hard for everyone. Not an easy answer.
A VC would be able to actually see the product, the patent, and the actual people producing it before he invested.
To not see the glaring red flags of scamminess is patently blind.